Technical Workshop on Gender and Irrigation Innovation Lab for Small-Scale Irrigation Technical Workshop on Gender and Irrigation April 13-14, 2016 Accra, Ghana Photo credit: IWMI Flickr, Ghana, 2011; Passarelli, Ghana, 2015

What is your vision for gender-equitable irrigation and water access What is your vision for gender-equitable irrigation and water access? Describe at least three characteristics you envision for gender-equitable irrigation What are the main challenges you have faced promoting gender equality in practice in your work? What are common misconceptions or “myths” regarding women’s role in water access? What do you hope to get out of the workshop? What questions do you have that you hope the workshop will address?

VISION Gender equality is not 50-50 in every task – specialization is ok Important that people do what they value and what they perceive to be equitable. What we do want to aim for is more equal benefit sharing (e.g. control over income, leisure time, decision making power)…and men shouldn’t necessarily specialize in relaxation! Provide opportunity by expanding choice: more options that work for women, including functionality (multiple use systems), affordability, capacity strengthening, access to credit

MYTHS and concerns Why is gender an issue in irrigation in the first place? If the household is better off with irrigation, then women will be too (assumption that resource sharing within household is equitable) Women aren’t involved in irrigation – only domestic water. Women are more “conservative” by nature and less likely to uptake new technologies Access = physical availability Assumptions that the technologies are not “women-friendly” Gender = women (e.g. to promote gender equality, just work with women) If women are economically empowered, will they still respect men?

CHALLENGES Women’s access to and control over irrigable land Access to capital Access to labor Issues along the value chain need to be addressed Limited access to water source (e.g. elites control dugout well) Participation in WUAs and community-level decision-making Women very time burdened – hard to ask them to do more

QUESTIONS What constitutes “women-friendly technologies”? What needs to happen to meet the 40% quota for women in Water User Associations (WUAs)? Because most irrigation is informal and have no WUAs, how to ensure participation of women in decision making over water? How to address some of these cross-cutting constraints that affect multiple outcomes in women’s empowerment in agriculture, including: how to increase women’s access to extension services, control over land, access to credit? How to understand gender relations? What tools can be used? The search for “women-friendly irrigation technology” – is it the technology itself, the institutions around technology (information, financing, organization, norms), or the women (skills development) that need to be “modified”? but may have to do with access, norms, and institutions surrounding technology

Gender integration framework – fill something out like a worksheet