<
 
 
 
 
×
>
You are viewing an archived web page, collected at the request of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) using Archive-It. This page was captured on 00:22:08 Sep 28, 2021, and is part of the UNESCO collection. The information on this web page may be out of date. See All versions of this archived page.
Loading media information hide

Water, gender and climate: better data for better adaptation strategies

05/11/2020
06 - Clean Water and Sanitation
10 - Reduced Inequalities

Climate change is one of the defining issues of our time, with its impacts becoming globally more apparent and manifesting itself ever more frequently. Climate change mainly reveals itself through alterations in the water cycle and related extremes with prolonged droughts and extreme precipitation events such as floods becoming increasingly common. Water-related impacts of climate change even pose threat to population health, through the incidence of vector-and waterborne as well as infective diseases, caused by additional challenges posed to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene access, as well as other factors such as population growth or migration. It must, however, be acknowledged that these impacts are gendered, with women generally being disproportionally affected by water scarcity, water-related disasters, or even water-related or infectious diseases (including COVID19) and contamination. Knowledge as well as data to inform decision-making on these gendered aspects, however, continue to fall short.

In view of the above challenges, the UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) has developed a Capacity Development Programme for the period 2020-2021: ‘Water, gender and climate: better data for better adaptation strategies’. The programme is designed to strengthen the capacity of governmental officers of water institutions in water management and governance, their knowledge of interlinked themes, and to understand how gender-related data can help informing water policies and national planning, in particular in light of the key role of women in coping with climate change and climatic extremes, as well as related challenges. Central to the training is the 2019 WWAP Water and Gender Toolkit on sex-disaggregated water data, a unique tool for the collection of this much-needed data, and for understanding the interconnections between gender equality and other pressing topics that are well expressed by the 17 SDGs.

The first cycle of the training programme in 2020-2021 will cover the regions of West Africa, Latin America and Caribbean, Central America, and Pacific Small Island Developing States.

The Programme is rotational and will target other regions in the next 2021-2022 period. Each cycle follows a similar approach, consisting of an open high-level advocacy webinar -with presentation of the 2019 WWAP Water and Gender Toolkit-, a technical webinar for participants, an ongoing case study assignment and finally a face-to-face workshop (figure 1). The final outputs of the capacity training programme are:

  • A UNESCO publication dedicated to the case studies from the different regions,
  • Training in the regions on sex-disaggregated water data collection and analysis to support developing a gender data baseline, and monitoring gender equality progress in relation to national water planning and policies.
  • Raise knowledge on women’s specific roles in relation to water challenges in these regions/countries and how their coping strategies contribute to achieving water security;
  • Raise awareness on the importance of access to clean water during pandemics, and how climate change can impact and worsen emergency situations like in the case of the Covid-19.

On 13 October 2020, the WWAP Capacity Programme 2020-2021 was officially kicked off, with the high-level online advocacy event ‘Water and Climate Change: Women’s Coping Strategies in West Africa’. The event was organized by the UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) in partnership with UNESCO Multi Sectoral Regional Office (MSRO) Abuja, in cooperation with the Regional Center for Integrated River Basin Management (RC-IRBM). The webinar featured a panel of regional experts speaking on the climate change-related challenges impacts in terms of water and gender in the West Africa region. Among the distinguished panellists were the UNESCO Chair on Water, Women and Power of Decision in Cote D’Ivoire (Ms. Euphrasie Kouassi Yao, seconded by the General Administrator of the Chair, Mr. Tchiakpe), the Director of the ECOWAS Commission from the Burkina Faso Water Resources Coordinating Center (Mr. Ibrahim Babtunde Wilson), the UN Women Nigeria Country Representative (Ms. Lamptey Comfort, represented by the Senior Gender and Capacity Building Specialist Ms. Salamatu Kemokai) and the Director of the Regional Center for Integrated River Basin Management (Dr. Omogbemi Omoloju Yaya).

Opening remarks were delivered by a high level representative of AMCOW (Mr. Kwabena Gyasi-Duku, Ghana Representative on the Technical Advisory Committee), on behalf of the Vice President Ms. Cecilia Abena Dapaah; the UNESCO Director a.i. of the Division of Water Sciences (Mr. Abou Amani), and the Minister of Water Resources of Nigeria (Mr. Suleiman Hussein Adamu).

Key messages shared by the speakers pointed out that West Africa is facing mounting water-related challenges in the face of climate change, which along with environmental changes such as deforestation.
 

Globally, and in Nigeria specifically, water availability is heavily impacted by climate change and it is evident that women will be much more impacted than men. Addressing water-related problems is central to climate change adaptation and civil society. Women in particular must be involved, not only for moral and pragmatic reasons, but because they possess local, ecological, social and political knowledge that can inform and contribute significantly to climate change adaptation strategies.

Mr. S.H. Adamu, Minister of Water Resources Nigeria

In order to improve water resources management in face of climate change, three actions were highlighted: taking into account a gender approach within development strategies and resources management, including women in water resources management, and seeking for political commitment in terms of financial resources for gender-related outcomes”. Examples of the severity of the situation in e.g. Burkina Faso were reported, where the current COVID19 emergency is posing a real threat to water availability, on top of already existing issues such as harassment and sexual violence towards women and conflicts in the country. Finally, the discussion denounced the male-dominated character of the water sector, attributed to impeding factors such as social norms, tradition, culture, self-consciousness and education, claiming the key to turn the tide is to ensure women’s partaking in capacity building efforts. Also women’s inclusion in field projects is considered necessary to positively impact the projects outcomes. Examples from the field in Ghana and Nigeria showed how women’s inclusion countered ongoing water users conflict, and brought along significant improvements in community health.

The event culminated with the presentation of the 2019 WWAP Toolkit on sex-disaggregated water data by the UNESCO WWAP Director and Coordinator a.i., Michela Miletto, for the first time ever in the West Africa region. “The toolkit contains a priority topic on water, migration, displacement and climate change, dedicated indicators and the related questions for the collection of data in the field, making it a valuable tool for the collection of much-needed and currently scarce sex-disaggregated water data.” Following the presentation, Ms. Miletto declared the West Africa Capacity Development Programme 2020-2021 officially open, aiming to spearhead gender equality in the water domain in West Africa.