Clean water projects, such as the Rajasthan drinking water project, significantly improve community health and wellbeing, but is this at the cost of gender equality development?

Rajasthan is a large state in North India. Despite containing ten percent of India’s land area, Rajasthan only produces one percent of the country’s water resources. [2] Rajasthan is considered an arid and semi-arid region, meaning there is a severe lack of water. [3] Saline groundwater, and expensive private water resulted in clean drinking water being inaccessible to most of the population before the clean water project was implemented. Kathleen O’Reilly, a long-term ethnographic researcher, documented inequalities faced by women in Rajasthan when a clean water project was introduced. [4] 

Collecting water, Rajasthan. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2008) via Wikimedia Commons

 Stereotypical gender roles were not questioned in the project planning and handbook. Women were assumed, in the project plan, to be the primary fetchers and domestic users of water. [4] Projects which introduce clean water while setting back gender equality through the reinforcement of stereotypical roles for women should be challenged, and changed so that communities develop sustainably, in accordance with the UN goals. The UN Sustainable Development Goals [6] include access to clean water and gender equality as separate goals, however these goals influence each other when implemented.  

In Rajasthan, the water project appeared to empower women. In fact, 15 out of the 70 staff were employed to encourage women’s participation, which offered women different roles within the community but did not necessarily encourage them to move past traditional and stereotypical roles.[4] 

On a global scale, project plans contain initiatives which seem to positively impact gender equality but may not be genuine. They are not implemented in a way that works and seem to be included to fill quotas set out in national policies. Additionally, many natural resource project plans don’t include objectives to empower women in developing communities as the UN suggests ‘fewer than 50 countries have policies that mention women’s participation in water resource management’. [7] 

In areas with offsite clean drinking water supplies, women do not have safe access to the water. Urban slums are informal settlements typically habituated by impoverished populations in developing countries.[8] In developing countries it is not uncommon for most of the population to live in informal settlements. Collecting water threatens women’s safety; many report being physically and verbally abused on their journey to water sources. Gender equality on a societal scale is needed to improve women’s wellbeing, alongside access to clean natural resources. [9] 

Although everyone in water deficit communities suffers, women suffer more. Given the existing gender inequality surrounding natural resources, projects should therefore, reflect the global effort to encourage women’s empowerment, rather than reinforce stereotypical gender roles. Additionally, there should be a greater emphasis on societal justice, alongside technological advancements to improve safe access to resources, such as clean water.

References and further reading

[1] Water.org (2021) A Women’s Crisis. Women And Water – A Woman’s Crisis | Water.org [05/12/2021]

[2] Wikipedia.org (2021) Arid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arid [05/12/2021]

[3] Rajras (2018) Water Resources of Rajasthan. Water Resources of Rajasthan – RajRAS [05/12/2021]

[4] O’Reilly, K., 2006. “Traditional” women, “modern” water: Linking gender and commodification in Rajasthan, India. Geoforum, 37(6), pp.958–972.

[5] Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2008) Collecting water, Rajasthan.  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Collecting_water%2C_Rajastan_%2810687282065%29.jpg/640px-Collecting_water%2C_Rajastan_%2810687282065%29.jpg [05/12/2021]

[6] United Nations (2021) The 17 Goals. THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development (un.org) [05/12/2021]

[7] United Nations (2021) Summary Progress Update 2021: SDG 6 — water and sanitation for all. https://www.unwater.org/publications/summary-progress-update-2021-sdg-6-water-and-sanitation-for-all/ [05/12/2021]

[8] Wikipedia.org (2021) Slum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slum [05/12/2021]

[9] World Resources Institute (2019) Unaffordable and Undrinkable: Rethinking Urban Water Access in the Global South.https://www.wri.org/research/unaffordable-and-undrinkable-rethinking-urban-water-access-global-south [05/12/2021]