Bagonza Asaba, Richard and Fagan, Honor and Kabonesa, Consolata (2015) Women’s access to safe water and participation in community management of supply. In: Water Is Life: Progress to secure safe water provision in rural Uganda. Practical Action Publishing. ISBN 9781780448893

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Abstract

Poverty is rife in Uganda in both urban and rural communities. This chapter outlines the situation for poor women securing water for their households in a rural village. It gives an account of poor women’s ‘fluid lives’ as they engage in efforts to secure water for their households and participate in water governance at community level where there are persistent water-related problems. The authors conducted a socio-economic study of households in a poor rural parish in order to better understand women’s safe water access and participation in the management of a healthy community water supply. The study findings confirm that gender remains an important analytical tool for identifying access issues, since gender relations and inequalities are evident in most of the mechanisms of access to water in this community. The chapter explores how women and children remain vulnerable to lack of access to safe water, even where there are community schemes and improved water sources in place, since for the most part powerful, formal positions such as village chairperson, water user committee member, and handpump mechanic continue to be held by men. This is despite the fact that, in the case of water user committees in particular, the 1999 National Water Policy stipulates that women should make up 50 per cent of such committees. In addition, payment arrangements, particularly maintenance and repair fees, frequently result in denying vulnerable children and women physical access to water resources whenever men, as household heads, do not pay these fees. Strategies which seek to improve women’s access to safe water and power in community organization of water remain essential.

Item Type:	Book Section
Keywords:	Water Is Life; secure safe water provision; rural Uganda; Women; safe water; community management; supply;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology
Item ID:	7644
Depositing User:	Honor Fagan
Date Deposited:	21 Nov 2016 16:18
Publisher:	Practical Action Publishing
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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