While South Africa is still staggering under the backlog arising from the many decades of the engineered structural inequality of apartheid, water scarcity in working-class urban and rural households still remains a critical issue.
In this podcast, former Chairperson of the Gender and Water Alliance, Ethne Davey, illustrates that inadequate access to water is not gender neutral in its consequences. We also catch a glimpse of the living conditions of two women who live in informal settlements in South Africa’s Western Cape region. Both women do not have direct access to clean, running water.
How do you think government should improve women’s access to clean, running water?
Read the full transcript here
Agree with this view.
itz very good story which informed us about the policy of SA government towards the drinking water.As a media fellow of Water Aid Pakistan i explored many like this stories.Pakistan is also facing the same problems because here are also many commitments and agreements with international bodies like UN, WHO, SARRC and others but the tragic aspect is that there is no regard action on these.Likewise the gender inequity playing the same role in our country related with water issues.
Aakash Santarai: Thank you for your comment. I think policy works to the extent that it is implemented and then it also needs to be evaluated by the users and then also be reviewed if it reflects a bias against women. Women need to have a say in local water structures and planning.
Khayalethu Khaya Sebastian Hamana: Thank you for your comments on the critical of importance of policy involving people who are the end recipients of the policy and their active participation in the policy-making and implementation. The problems of the Free Basic Water Policy (FBWP), and its failure to deliver to equally to families, is carried more heavily by women whose household responsibilities include water and energy provision for their families. The average household size that the FBWP takes for its monthly allocation of 6kl in informal settlements, for example, does not take into account when there are several households on one erf. As a result several families share the 6kl of water which does not go very far. So people have to buy water and because of income poverty families who cannot afford to buy water are forced to go without water and reuse water in ways that are undignifying. In the Agenda issue ‘Politics of Water, Hameda Deedat argues that the policy needs to take cognisance of ‘what the household water needs are and how much water is needed to maintain a healthy and dignified lifestyle’. The gender impact of the policy on women needs to be accessed.
the government must speed up service delivery. Lack of clean water threaten lives of women and children.
BEFORE WE CAN TALK ABOUT WOMEN ACCESS TO CLEAN WATER, WE NEED TO ASK OURSELF ON WETHER POLICY MAKERS IN GOVERNMENT UNDERSTAND GENDER PRACTICAL AND STRATEGIC NEEDS, THEN WE CAN ADDRESS THIS ISSUES.
WOMEN ACCESS TO CLEAN WATER CAN BE ADDRESSED WHEN THERE IS SYNERGY IN ALL GOVERMENT POLICIES. POLICY MAKERS HAVE TO TAKE STOCK OF WHAT WAS ANALYSED BEFORE, IN TERMS OF MAINSTREAMING GENDER IN ALL PROCESSES, PROCEDURES, PROJECT AND PROGRAMMES OF GOVERNMENT.
THE ANALYSIS SHOULD BE DONE WITH AN INTENSION OF CLOSING THE GAP BE
BETWEEN POLICY SPEAK AND (DO)IMPLEMENTATION.
SECONDLY, ALL ISSUES RELATED TO GENDER, IN PARTICULAR THOSE OF WOMEN HAVE BEEN RELAGATED TO LESSER PRIORITY, UNLESS SOMEONE IN HIGHER DECISION MAKING OF GOVERMENT TAKE A STAND TO ADDRESS THE ISSUES, IT FURTHER RELATE TO LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF GENDER PRACTICAL AND STRATEGIC NEEDS WOMEN.
Thank you for your comment Bassy. Gender needs to be in the centre of poverty alleviation policy as well and not left out in the cold as you say. Water policy has recognised the centrality of women’s roles as household caretakers but not seemingly recognised how women are impacted by the policy until there is a crisis like a cholera outbreak. Even at the local level, where it often matters most on water delivery, unequal access to power can prevent women from ensuring that the decisions take their problems, gender needs and experiences into consideration. Two woman’s organisations in Durban talk about their fight for their community’s and women’s sanitation and water rights in “The politics of water” issue of Agenda. Women’s experience on the ground is really important to give meaning to policy which otherwise can seem to have only paper value.
Fastest way to get action is for politicians to move into these squatter camps for a week. Experience 1st hand the hardship of theur own failure to plan and provide. They will maje haste in gettimg things done.
I think that the people speaking in this programme, are spot on when they say, policy and various authorities, on the one hand, and people on the ground, on the other, do not talk to each other. In my view, South Africa needs to consciously and continuously invest in empowering its policy makers in skills and techniques in policy analysis so that they are better able to make better choices in particular circumstances such as when implementing the Government’s Free Basic Water Policy. Policy analysis is, according to Centre for Development Enterprise (CDE, 1995), ” a structured way of thinking about choices before deciding on a particular course of action”. Secondly, the issue of consultation and communication is quite critical in the policy process. Thus there is general agreement that “the quality of policy is determined by the extent to which to which it is discussed and debated while being developed”. (CDE, 1995). It is quite important to ensure, therefore, that, at all appropriate stages of the policy process, effective mechanisms are put in place for participation, consultation and communication with those who will be affected by the policy, as well as with the staff who will be involved in its implementation. It is also particularly important to ensure that such mechansims provide an opportunity for meaningful involvement and genuine debate (rather than merely passive acceptance), and that the ideas and views generated in the process are seen to be taken seriously by the policy-makers. Policies often fail, as has also been the case with Outcomes Based Education, when the intended “beneficiaries” are not consulted or involved beforehand.
Thank you
Khaya Hamana
Pinelands