Women and Water Management: Case study of Cameroon

 

Welcome back! As I've highlighted through previous posts, safe water access presents a massive challenge shaped both by physical and human landscapes in Sub-Saharan Africa. But today, let's magnify the human factor of water management, particularly community water management projects taking place. This blog post will delve into the Rural Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Project (DWSS) designed to cover four regions in Cameroon: the West, North West, South West and Southern areas. In doing so, gender connotations specifically embedded into this project will be explored to assess the project's achievement, signalling the growing concern and need for women participation in safe water distribution and sanitation improvements. 

Communities or Authorities? 

Community water schemes have long operated to provide water infrastructure and services for rural populations in Cameroon. In previous decades, Cameroon underwent historical protest and campaigning events to rule out initial government participation in water management for maximising profit returns and introduce community managed systems. Successfully driving out public authorities, organisations such as the Kumbo Water Authority were founded, which reopened public taps under a newly established Palace office. However, despite conflicts arising among the community and a new Mayor elect running parallel water schemes, community-led strategies have been very well established in light of its strengths centred around evading government incompetence, providing a sense of ownership and empowerment and higher responsibilities in limited resource use. Nonetheless, critical questions among scholars prevail in regards to whether the effectiveness of community management matches its endured practice in several rural areas today. Dr. Ellie Chowns at the University of Sheffield epitomises the 'more problem than solution' nature of community strategies, illustrating weaknesses of the inabilities to perform maintenance operations and collecting/saving funds to do so, thus threatening the sustainability of these projects. Notably, the sentiment of empowerment is counteracted by the reinforcement of dwelling power relations in rural villages, inducing further conflict. Therefore, a suggested solution may be a reversal shift to a level of top-down accountability for investment in building and strengthening capacity for management structures. 

So, to place these studies into context and address challenges in water management, the Rural Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Project was put into place with a goal to support the Cameroon Government's efforts to improve the rate of access to drinking water from 33% to 60%. Involved in the project are objectives to train and raise awareness of the use of drinking water in rural communities as well as build human resource capacity through training experts, providing technical assistance and ensuring the monitoring/evaluation of set up mechanisms. To finance this project of almost UA 97.39 million, the government has turned to partial bank funding in addition to donor contributions. The rationale behind this is to improve previously failed financial sustainability, since the bank not only possesses prior experience in such projects, but the proposed stakeholder capacity building will also greatly feed into the government's National Program goal to improve living conditions of the 8.2 million rural Cameroonian inhabitants. This may additionally encourage other donors primarily focused on urban areas to divert towards rural investments. 

                 Construction of 242 Km of pipes to be driven by pumps fueled from solar-generated electricity| Source: Afrik21

                             

Around 668,000 rural individuals are expected to benefit from this governmental scheme both in terms of safe water access as well as opportunities for community control through management committees, municipal councils, and trained jobs as plumbers and service providers once completed. This participatory approach embedded in the DWSS operation outline offers strengthened voices to locals for their needs and self-development. However, it is important to assess whether everyone is given a voice, particularly women in these rural societies. What role do they play in this project initiative?

Participatory women

Through the initial involvement of stakeholders such as the Ministry of Women's Empowerment and Family Affairs, the DWSS has taken great strides towards women inclusion in the form of at least 54 permanent jobs and constituting to 60% of committee members taking over activities in project areas. This remarkable breakthrough has subsequently challenged previously dominant resistances to power sharing. Although African women have been active participants in economic decisions for development, there have yet been few gender focused considerations in resource allocation agreements. As a result of the rather deep-rooted traditional influences on the domestic roles of women, water decisions were previously made under the maintenance of status quo and as a means of minimising potential political controversy. However, these apparent exclusions of women in water management have been studied to be a major cause of lowering success rates of water projects in both rural and urban areas. Furthermore, this selective participation gave higher authority to individuals deemed defective in representing views of the wider communities, thus acting as a powerful barrier to community project success which was exemplified in the Mutengene self-help water project in Southwest Cameroon. 

So, in light of the astounding 70% of women responsible for fetching water, the DWSS project fixates women empowerment in financial management and monitoring/evaluation. This has been devised through women serving as liaison agents within the community committees and gaining group leadership tools in order to do so. But what stuck me about the project report is the mention of only 30% guaranteed representation of women in decision-making bodies, thus implying a need for a critical view of the beneficial outcomes and efficiency of women participating in water management projects. Despite growing efforts to integrate women in job and committee roles to alleviate the burden of daily water collecting chores, Svahn (2011) demonstrates that women in fact value the routine of water collection mainly due to its social implications and opportunities to build supportive networks with women from other households. Changing the provision of water may then in turn act as a setback to these deeply grounded social patterns among women. Additionally, with the need to attend many committee meetings, women have often faced difficulties in balancing other various household chores such as children caretaking. When it comes to meetings themselves, women have commonly felt a lack of confidence in expressing their opinions in comparison to men who have previously acquired relevant experience. However, although these underlying social influences act as barriers to the effectiveness of women participation in water projects, women involvement still remains vital in determining work, income and power for development and growth of many Sub-Saharan countries. 

The DWSS project implemented by the Government of Cameroon may pose great opportunities as a reformed plan addressing financial sustainability of water access, gender inclusivity, and community empowerment contributing to Cameroon's National Program. But a curiosity of its success still remains as the project is yet to launch into action in forthcoming years. Will this finally be the best combination of institutions to safeguard clean and accessible water in rural households? And if so, even with widespread obstacles in efforts to incorporate women in management that may explain the observed 30% female representation in the DWSS project, it may finally begin a revolutionary ascend to bridging the gender gap in rural Cameroon, simply with water.