«Проект по экономической реабилитации и построению мер доверия»

1. Gender, Public Health and Awareness Actual Case studies «Проект по экономической реабилитации и построению мер доверия» Ahmed AbouElseoud Senior Water Resources Management Expert

2. Health Impact of Water Management • 80% Of infectious diseases transmitted through water • More than 5 million people in the world die each year from infectious diseases • More than 2 million deaths from diarrhea-related diseases and most of these children

3. The key Health Problems Caused by Water Pollution Diarrhea Vomiting Typhoid Diphtheria Hepatitis Kidney Damage Nerve Disorders Skin Lesions

4. Why Diarrhea is dangerous? • Diarrhea kills 2.2 million people a year, • mostly in children under five years of age • Every 15 seconds a child dies of diarrhea • 15% of deaths among children under five years of age in developing countries due to diarrhea • We can reduce the incidence of diarrhea for a third when the provision of clean water.

5. Health Care & Water Management • Increased health care costs by the Ministry of Health • Drain on family financial resources • Increased days lost from work by parents to take care of the infected children • Wasting educational opportunities for children to increase the periods of truancy Bad Water Management Bad Water Quantity & Quality Severe Health Impacts

6. Waterborne Disease Prevention IWRM

7. Gender and Awareness in IWRM

8. Definition of Gender • Gender refers to the different roles, rights, and responsibilities of men and women and the relations between them. • Gender does not simply refer to women or men, but to the way their qualities, behaviors, and identities are determined through the process of socialization

9. Why Gender Matters in IWRM? • Less recognition ; Women are water-stakeholders/actors • Undervaluation ; skills/knowledge/labor • Tendency to associate farmers/water users/fishers with men. • No analysis of declining water, affecting different people differently. • Women categorized next to identified categories of water actors. • Erroneous assumption of ‘household’ ‘equality’. • Disaggregated information lacking.

10. Why Gender Matters in IWRM? • The actual role of men and women in water management is often different although never rigid • Needs and priorities may differ among women and men, because of their different tasks, roles and concerns; • Not all households do have an (able) male member who can irrigate or attend meetings. • Women who do most of the agricultural work, do also have most knowledge and awareness about the farm and often take the regular day-to-day decisions; • In many farming households, husband and wife discuss together the major cropping and investment decisions for their farm.

11. Mainstreaming Gender in Water Management • Understanding that gender is a factor that influences how people respond both individually and collectively • Ensure that women and men have equal representation in decision-making with regards to the use of water resources and sanitation at all levels; • Ensure that women and men have equal representation in decision-making with regards to policy and policy instruments aiming at improving water management at all levels • Ensure that all policies and policy measures take into consideration the gender impact of water scarcity and pollution

12. Towards the Integration of Gender • Improve data collection on women’s and men’s resource use, knowledge of, access to and control over resources. • Train staff and management on the relevance of gender issues to water resources and environmental outcomes. • Establish procedures for incorporating a gender perspective in planning, monitoring, and evaluating environmental projects.

13. Towards the Integration of Gender • Ensure opportunities for women to participate in decisions making at all levels • Provide official channels for women to voice their environmental concerns • Foster commitment at all levels—local, national, and international—to integrate gender concerns into policies and programmes • Incorporate a gender perspective into national environmental policies, through a gender policy declaration

14. Empowering Women’s Participation in Community and HouseholdDecision-making in Water and Sanitation

15. Understanding Gender Issues in IWRM in Egypt • Men use water for irrigation • Women collect all water for domestic use. • But due to increasing economic hardship forcing many men to seek additional employment beyond their fields, • Women increasingly got involved in regular irrigation and agricultural work • Egyptian women constitute 20% of the economically active population in Egyptian agriculture. • Recent surveys, however, show that more than 50% of rural women are involved in farm activities

16. Egypt’s Strategy for Raising Awareness of Women’s Role In Environmental Issues • The Gender Unit has been established in both MWRI and EEAA in year 2002 • MOE announced year 2002 as the year of woman and Environment. • In 2003, the MOE gender Unit Organized a National Conference “Towards National Strategy for Gender in the Environment”

17. The Gender Equality Unit in MWRI

18. Municipal Water Service

19. Field Survey shows many important notes • MWRI Gender Unit conducted social survey to measure woman involvement in Water management • The survey main results were: • Women in the rural area work all day long, doing household work or productive activities. • Traditionally women’s role is not appreciated except for raising children. • Women have less opportunity to participate decision making in both of inside and outside of household. • Men have almost exclusive authority on matters related to seeds, buying and selling of livestock and land.

20. Impact of Water Pollution on Health

21. Environmental Priorities and Willingness to Share

22. Gender in WaterUsersAssociationin Egypt • WUA in Egypt are legal entities governed by the law 213 of 1994 as specialized associations performing functions of water management on mesqa tertiary level • The ministerial decree of 1995 issued by the Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation reflects their functions, rights and duties in water management activities • WUA have managerial, financial and technical autonomy. They make their own budget and set the tariff for O&M of their water systems • The ministerial decree stated that each WUA board must include at least two female members • Training courses were given to female representatives for effective participation in decision making

23. Solving Solid Waste Problem in one of the Villages in Egypt

24. Personal Observation: why Gender Mainstreaming still an issue? • donor funded projects had developed “successful” approaches and procedures for gender mainstreaming • However, they were discontinued after project completion or hand-over to the counterpart organization. Why is this? • Is gender mainstreaming still seen as donor imposed? • Is there lack of commitment? • Or are the developed approaches and procedures not sustainable (too ambitious, too complex, requiring too many resources

25. «Проект по экономической реабилитации и построению мер доверия» Thank you for your Attention ! Questions? Gender, Public Health and Awareness Actual Case studies 26 June, 2013 Ahmed AbouElseoud Senior Water Resources Management Expert