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
