Gender Imbalances in Water in Africa

While the issues surrounding Africa and water are inextricably multifarious, the focus has been to narrow down on a particular challenge which communities in Africa face and contribute to the academic literature pertaining to that issue. Through this series of blog posts I have questioned the relationship between gender, water and the development of communities across Africa with a particular focus on issues concerning under-development, time poverties and their entanglement within privatisation schemes. When it came to the topic of water procurement, provision and management, ideas of gender parity and equality were particularly powerful in underscoring the social, cultural and structural forces which engender these roles in the first place. It will be exceptionally interesting in the future to see how these African societies, in places like Tanzania and Namibia, begin to develop and the impact that this has on gender parity. What has been of paramount importance to this blog is the...

Evident from the previous posts regarding the gendered impacts of water privatisations, it is clear that the resulting inefficiencies of such schemes are generating resentment and motivating political activism. While Action Aid and the TGNP work to remove the burdens imposed upon the individuals they represent, a wider question regarding justice is in need of scrutiny. Tanzania and Namibia, two democratic governments who are responsible for supporting and advancing the livelihoods of the citizens under its rule, have failed to provide accountability for violating a series of national and international laws pertaining to the rights of its citizens. It is addressing these violations and then questioning the efficacy of water privatisation to alleviate marginalisation which will be the focus here. The standpoint taken in this blog with regards to this issue is that any good, service or freedom which is a necessary prerequisite in allowing for the enjoyment of other rights, should its...

Scanning the literature surrounding privatisations in the water industry in Africa makes for a disheartening read. When looking at the Tanzania case, the failings of privatisation and their asymmetrical impacts on the lives of women, men, and the poor, are catastrophic. With the underpinning philosophy of cost-recovery, whereby the company attempts to recuperate all costs through the setting of tariffs and charges to the members of the service, people were not only excluded but also extorted. The rising costs stimulated rising default rates and late repayments caused tariffs to surge over the period of 2000 to 2003 by 17% per annum. This impacted the livelihoods of the residents within Dar Es Salaam significantly. City Water and their managerial and profiteering approach marginalised the poorest communities who could not afford to pay for water. As time progressed and water became more expensive, more individuals were forced to alternative sources for their water needs. This occurred...

Recently, this blog has argued for reducing the time poverties between men and women across many areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. It was found that women suffer from a variety of structural and gender-based inequalities which force upon them the responsibilities of economically unproductive work, such as managing the household overhead and procuring water. It was discussed that it could be more viable to reduce these time burdens through advancing infrastructures, easing the lives of women completing these tasks, than it would be to change the societal structures and cultural norms which engender these roles in the first place. Across the next two posts, this blog focuses on how approaches in contemporary African societies look to achieve this, with particular attention paid to the overriding policies of privatising water resources and their resulting efficacy. The privatisation of water resources across Africa marks a significant change in how traditionally public services are managed ...

With the underpinning standpoint of progressing capabilities now established, the next post will focus on elucidating the gendered water issues hindering the lives of individuals living within Africa.  There are three areas of concern: uneven time allocations between men and women, privatisation of water resources, and the affect of scarce water on sanitary practices and disease. We will see that these three issues are at the heart of developing unilateral equality and by ameliorating these areas of concern it will unequivocally foster the progressing of the capabilities and individual freedoms of both men and women. This post will deal with the less colloquial  notion of poverty, that which is orientated around time use. Aside from the common understanding of economic poverty, the idea of time poverty stresses that poverty is not just a function of money, but of time. Time poverty analysis attempts to quantify the overworking of both men and women living in a society in ord...

The overarching and frequently ill-defined concept of development is the centre of discussions between gender and water within Africa here. If this blog is to aptly discuss issues surrounding this subject it is imperative to generate a sufficient underpinning philosophy in which to base discussions. My purpose here is to foreground an appreciation of enhancing ones capabilities as a proxy for enhancing ones level of development. As a country, per capita statistics and qualities of life recordings are measured to represent those individuals living within a country. So, it is with a focus on the individual that is to take centre stage in appropriating effective development initiatives. This post will centre itself around an individualised capabilities approach in understanding, defining and instigating development. It will stress the importance of framing development with respect to enhancing capabilities in order to better address the issues surrounding gender and water in Africa. Bef...

Development in Africa has been of paramount importance to individuals for a considerable amount of time. From the multinational level, through the national and non-governmental levels, to the disparate charitable donor, there is evidence of a significant geography of care which reaches far beyond the single continent of Africa. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the United Nations, to name a few, alongside governmental and non-governmental actors, persist in their goal to improve the livelihoods of those living on this continent through a number of wide-reaching development projects. These projects, particularly those orientated around water-provision, are a hugely expansive field of enquiry. Supported by the various actors mentioned, they are instrumental in progressing a communities' economic, social, environmental and political livelihood. Some facets of the water and development projects include: water in agriculture, sanitation, environmental degradation and w...