Ben Crow

Gender, class and access to water: Three cases in a poor and crowded delta.

Water plays a pivotal role in economic activity and in human well-being. Because of the prominence of water in production (primarily for irrigation) and in domestic use (drinking, washing, cooking), conflict over water and the effects of gender-influenced decisions about water may have far-reaching consequences on human well-being, economic growth, and social change. At the same time, social conflicts and social change are shaped and mediated, often in unexpected ways, by the natural conditions in which water occurs. The social relations of water are poorly understood. This article introduces a framework for disaggregating conditions of access to water and uses it to examine three pressing questions in Bangladesh. First, extraction of groundwater for irrigation has made many drinking-water hand pumps run dry. Second, increasing use of groundwater for drinking has been associated with the poisoning of at least 20 million people through naturally occurring arsenic in groundwater. Third, the article examines some of the ways access to water has been changed by the rise of shrimp aquaculture for export. This article highlights new directions for the analysis of interactions among water, class, and gender. The existing literature has tended to focus on the implications of gender analysis for government policy, especially development projects and water resources management, and for womens organization. In this article we begin to sketch some questions that arise from a concern to understand the broader context of social change.

Impediments and Innovation in International Rivers: The Waters of South Asia

Abstract International cooperation over the major rivers in South Asia has recently become much closer. Five agreements, signed in 1996 and 1997 against a background of greater regional economic and nongovernmental contact, could facilitate significant progress to mitigate flooding and drought, to provide a basis for greater regional cooperation, and to sustain irrigation expansion and industrial development. This paper identifies past impediments to cooperation. It examines how new agreements seem to offer negotiation on a wider range of issues than previously, and to expand the range of potential negotiating bodies beyond national governments to include subnational governments, private corporations, and nongovernmental organizations.

What is water equity? The unfortunate consequences of a global focus on ‘drinking water’

In recent years, ‘equity’ has become a goal of water governance. Yet, the indices and policy guidelines for household water, published by the WHO and UNICEF and adopted globally, focus on either ‘drinking water’ or a limited interpretation of the ‘human right to water’. We examine ideas of equity in household water and argue that the dominant focus on improving the potability of water has muted attention to the wider consideration of domestic water and its impact on livelihoods and poverty. A focus on the many capabilities enabled by domestic water illuminates some of these issues.

Access to water in a Nairobi slum: women's work and institutional learning

This paper describes the ways that households, and particularly women, experience water scarcity in a large informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya, through heavy expenditures of time and money, considerable investments in water storage and routinized sequences of deferred household tasks. It then delineates three phases of adaptive water and social engineering undertaken in several informal settlements by the Nairobi Water Company in an ongoing attempt to construct effective municipal institutions and infrastructure to improve residential access to water and loosen the grip that informal vendors may have on the market for water in these localities.

Equitable water governance: future directions in the understanding and analysis of water inequities in the global South

Today, 20% of the world’s 7 billion people lack easy access to water for basic subsistence needs and a variety of economic and household activities. The lack of access to water exacerbates time and...

Measuring water collection times in Kenyan informal settlements

This paper uses GPS loggers and interviews to measure the time taken to collect water in two Kenyan informal settlements. The time devoted to water collection is widely believed to prevent women and girls, who do most of this work, from undertaking more creative tasks, including income generation and education. We studied collection times in two settlements to compare Nyalenda in Kisumu, where the utility has introduced a new piped water system, with Kibera in Nairobi, where no such improvement has been made. In addition to the primary results of quantitative collections times, we discuss the use of GPS in this context and our findings that the two methods of measurement provide insights which neither would have provided alone.

Santa Cruz Declaration on the Global Water Crisis

At least one billion people around the world struggle with insufficient access to water. However, the global water crisis is not, as some suggest, primarily driven by water scarcity. Although limited water supply and inadequate institutions are indeed part of the problem, we assert that the global water crisis is fundamentally one of injustice and inequality. This declaration expresses our understanding of water injustice and how it can be addressed.

Using GPS and recall to understand water collection in Kenyan informal settlements

This paper uses interviews and Global Positioning System (GPS) loggers to measure the time taken to collect water in two large informal settlements in Kenyan cities. Collection times were measured, and collection paths mapped, in two low-income urban settlements, comparing water access conditions in Nyalenda in Kisumu (where the utility has introduced a new piped water system) with Kibera in Nairobi (where no such improvement has been made). The use of GPS tracking provides a better understanding of time spent collecting water compared to interview data, but the two methods combined provide insights that neither could have suggested alone.

The Management of International Rivers as Demands Grow and Supplies Tighten: India, China, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh

In this study, we describe the challenges of managing Himalayan rivers as a result of climate change and the industrialization and economic growth of India and China. We discuss a range of conceptual issues relevant for negotiations over the management of Himalayan rivers. We introduce the concept of multi-track diplomacy, and apply it to the case of international river management, in the context of innovations incorporated in five international treaties signed in 1996 and 1997. We examine past problems with bilateralism in international river diplomacy, in particular as an obstacle to successful agreement and the potential of more multilateral approaches. We describe the wave of Himalayan water projects being designed and constructed at the beginning of the twenty-first century, based on earlier agreements as well as new initiatives. We note the subsequent implementation problems that have arisen, and the substantial issues that need to be addressed by an expanded group of countries depending on Himalayan rivers. Finally, we consider directions in which current innovations might be extended as bases of regional cooperation, using the multi-track diplomacy framework. We suggest that an independent regulatory agency could facilitate rational development, assist in the management of substantial uncertainties about future flows, and reduce the potential for conflict. We describe the possible structure and functioning of such a new institution.

How the Drudgery of Getting Water Shapes Women’s Lives in Low-income Urban Communities

Abstract Global statistics suggest that people living in urban areas are more likely than those in rural areas to have access to “improved water sources”. Women do most of the work of water collection in low-income urban areas, as they do in rural areas. In this review of the literature on access to water and women’s work in low-income urban areas of the global south, we fi nd that women’s lives and income-generating opportunities in poor urban communities are profoundly shaped by their inadequate access to water. We identify the main modes of access to water and their possible influence on women’s lives. Then, we examine descriptions of women’s lives and the range of diffi culties they face in collecting water (time of access, uncertainty and quality of supply, and costs). We describe some of the advantages (health, improved domestic work, livelihood opportunities, education, and gender relations) reported when communities gain access to safe water at the household level. We conclude that the global figures on improved access to water in urban areas focus only on the technology of access, overlooking social obstacles like the collection time and cost of access, and thus obscuring the wide-ranging social advantages of household water connections.