Start Women & Water and development

1981 - 1990

Water Supply, Sanitation and Healthygiene (WASH)
International Water Supply and Sanitation Decade 1981-1990 launched by UN with the slogan “Water and Sanitation for All by 1990."
In the mid-80s projects started to involve women in activities, such as hygiene education, to improve the projects’ efficiency, but without leading to more decision-making power for women.
In this decade Water Users Associations became promoted in irrigation systems for more self-management by farmers, but usually only including men. Women, water and development started to be included in development projects. Mainly from a technical point of view in projects with a focus on Water, sanitation and health education (WASH). However, in India projects also focused on women as farmers.

Women for pump maintenance

End 1980s: In Bangladesh Terre des Hommes (NGO) was involved in providing drinking water for rural communities through manual pomps. Male technicians were supposed to do the regular maintenance of the pumps. However, because it was the women who were fetching water, any need for maintenance was not observed by these technicians, leading to unnecessary breakdowns of the pumps. Terre des Hommes therefore proposed to train women for the regular pump maintenance, as women would more easily identify the need for this.

Initially the local men were opposed to this idea, as such technical tasks did not fit within the traditional role of women. But after continuously raising this issue over 1 - 2 years of time, Terre des Homme succeeded in convincing many men to accept women for pump maintenance. Several men even said that if women would be selected, it should be their wife! (source: personal communication Kitty Benvelsen - Lei Brauns Terre des Hommes)

Sources and further reading

Netherlands Policy: see timeline NICC WASH and THe Netherlands

1981-1990: International Water Supply and Sanitation Decade 1981 - 1990. Report International Water Supply and Sanitation Decade 1981-1990

1985: The Annual Abstract Journal Women and Water started. Also referred to as the Women, Water and Sanitation Abstract Journal. See this link for the 1991 volume.

1987: Empowerment of women in a male-dominated field of work in West Bengal, India in the eighties. See video West Bangal and interview Helena Arnz.

Technical solutions and a top down approach were the main focus in most of the water projects. See Video Quetta Pakistan in this bullit.

1990: Women, water and hygiene became part of development programmes and evaluation reports (for example Yemen): "Women involvement The project has succeeded to involve women in project implementation, mainly through health education but also through exchange of information on the design, construction and operation of the water supply schemes. In a new project phase this emphasis should be continued and where possible extended and intensified." Source: Support Rural Water supply department Republic of Yemen report of the Yemeni-Dutch Evaluation Mission.