Empowering Women

One aspect that finds little space in discussions of water management in the Marwar region is the role of women in evolving, controlling, and administering water systems. Women’s central role as users of water resources is well known; they are responsible for cooking, cleaning, maintaining health and hygiene, and raising livestock. However, as in other spheres of their lives, women’s involvement and participation in water provisioning and use has been on inequitable terms. Their social subordination, the invisibility of their productive roles, and their inability to claim their entitlements over natural resources have all contributed to their exclusion from decision-making. Further, the dominant policies and strategies in the water sector have seldom challenged these biases.

Jal Marudhara Foundation is involved in ensuring that water availability also has a significant impact in terms of women’s empowerment. Experience shows that while regenerating the resource base may be a technical issue, management and administration of water resources is an issue of governance. Equitable access and distribution depends on the existence of participatory and democratic decision-making bodies with the competence, credibility, and authority to intervene in the private as well as the public spheres in defence of these principles. Efforts have primarily focused on the creation of institutional space, allowing women to pursue development goals for the betterment of herself, her family, and her community.

These institutions have taken two forms—Jal Sabhas or village water users’ associations and Jal Mandals or self-help groups.

JMF has taken a participatory approach in water management by facilitating equal participation of men and women in the decision-making process in the Jal Sabhas and thereby enabling inclusive governance. At least one woman is encouraged to occupy a leading position in a Jal Sabha, thus ensuring that the voice of women is heard in community decision-making. As a result of this initiative, women’s access to and control over natural resources has improved substantially reducing the time and effort required for water collection. The impact on the community, in terms of equitable water provisioning as well as in the larger framework of social and gender equity, has been significant.

In order to promote women’s empowerment and ensure that they are involved in the process of development, they are encouraged to form Jal Mandals or self-help groups(SHGs). These groups typically consist of 10–15 women who come together for the common purpose of encouraging savings and credit activities. These groups are involved in monthly savings and undertake small income generation activities. The foundation assists these groups in establishing links with banks and leverage loans.

The foundation carries out training and capacity building programmes for the SHGs for developing and enhancing their skills. Vocational training for members of these groups is designed to develop and enhance marketable skills and link them with formal credit institutions. Together, this enables group members to augment family incomes through micro-enterprise activities.

After the SHGs have matured, they are encouraged to take up other development issues, like water management, sanitation, and health and hygiene. In many villages the women have come together to solve their drinking water problems and have taken up the initiative of reviving their traditional water management systems.