Water is Life: Women's Human Rights in National and Local Water Governance in Southern and Eastern Africa

Citation:

Hellum, Anne, Patricia Kameri-Mbote, Barbara van Koppen, eds. 2015. Water Is Life: Women’s Human Rights in National and Local Water Governance in Southern and Eastern Africa. Weaver Press.

Authors: Anne Hellum, Patricia Kameri-Mbote, Barbara van Koppen

Abstract:

This book approaches water and sanitation as an African gender and human rights issue. Empirical case studies from Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe show how coexisting international, national and local regulations of water and sanitation respond to the ways in which different groups of rural and urban women gain access to water for personal, domestic and livelihood purposes. The authors, who are lawyers, sociologists, political scientists and anthropologists, explore how women cope in contexts where they lack secure rights, and participation in water governance institutions, formal and informal. The research shows how women – as producers of family food - rely on water from multiple sources that are governed by community based norms and institutions which recognize the right to water for livelihood. How these 'common pool water resources' - due to protection gaps in both international and national law - are threatened by large-scale development and commercialization initiatives, facilitated through national permit systems, is a key concern. The studies demonstrate that existing water governance structures lack mechanisms which make them accountable to poor and vulnerable waters users on the ground, most importantly women. Our findings thus underscore the need to intensify measures to hold states accountable, not just in water services provision, but in assuring the basic human right to clean drinking water and sanitation; and also to protect water for livelihoods.

Annotation:

Table of Contents

Part I Introduction

1. The Human Right to Water and Sanitation in a Legal Pluralist Landscape: Perspectives of Southern and Eastern African Women

2. Turning the Tide: Engendering the Human Right to Water and Sanitation

Anne Hellum, Ingunn Ikdahl and Patricia Kameri-Mbote

Part II Kenya

3. Human Rights, Gender and Water in Kenya: Law, Prospects and Challenges

Patricia Kameri-Mbote and Francis Kariuki

4. Not so Rosy: Farm Workers’ Human Right to Water in the Lake Naivasha Basin

Patricia Kameri-Mbote and Edna Odhiambo

5. Watered Down: Gender and the Human Right to Water and Reasonable Sanitation in Mathare, Nairobi

Celestine Nyamu Musembi

6. Gender Dimensions of Customary Water Resource Governance: Marakwet Case Study

Elizabeth Gachenga

Part III Malawi

7. The Political Economy of the Human Right to Water and Women in Malawi

Ngeyi Ruth Kanyongolo, Timothy Chirwa, Asiyati Chiweza and Michael Chasukwa

8. Women’s Right to Water and Participation in Practice: Insights from Urban Local Water Governance Systems

Asiyati Lorraine Chiweza, Ngeyi Ruth Kanyongolo, Michael Chasukwa and Timothy Chirwa

9. Primary Actors on the Back Seat: Gender, Human Rights and Rural Water Governance in Malawi – Lessons from Mpemba and Chileka

Part IV Zimbabwe

10. Governance, Gender Equality and the Right to Water and Sanitation in Zimbabwe: Contested Norms and Institutions in an Unstable Economic and Political Terrain

Anne Hellum, Bill Derman, Ellen Sithole and Elizabeth Rutsate

11. Zimbabwe’s Urban Water Crisis and its Implications for Different Women: Emerging Norms and Practices in Harare’s High Density Suburbs

Anne Hellum, Ellen Sithole, Bill Derman, Lindiwe Mangwanya and Elizabeth Rutsate

12. Securing Rural Women’s Land and Water Rights: Lessons from Domboshawa Communal Land

Anne Hellum, Bill Derman, Lindiwe Mangwanya and Elizabeth Rutsate

13. A Hidden Presence: Women Farm Workers Right to Water and Sanitation in the Aftermath of the Fast Track Land Reform

Elizabeth Rutsate, Bill Derman and Anne Hellum

Part V South Africa

14. Fixing the Leaks in Women’s Human Rights to Water: Lessons from South Africa

Barbara van Koppen, Bill Derman, Barbara Schreiner, Ebenezer Durojaye and Ngcime Mweso

15. Gender-Equality in Statutory Water Law: the Case of Priority General Authorizations in South Africa

Barbara van Koppen and Barbara Schreiner

16. Gender, Rights, and the Politics of Productivity The Case of the Flag Boshielo Irrigation Scheme, South Africa

Barbara van Koppen, Barbara Tapela and Everisto Mapedza

Topics: Class, Governance, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation, Livelihoods, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Zimbabwe

Year: 2015

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