THE NILE STORY 102255 BRIEFING NOTE 9 Benefits for women in Nile economic development Women and girls often risk being left behind in development, not being fully informed or involved in decision making about issues that can have a real impact on their lives. Sometimes, they are already disadvantaged by cultural and legal norms that affect their rights to resources. Working together to develop the Nile resource, the 10 countries involved in the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) are making it ‘business as usual’ to ensure gender equality in the economic benefits emerging from their shared efforts. The NBI pays close attention to the specific challenges facing women and girls in development and management of the Nile resource, and has: Firmly placed gender within core NBI structures, policies, programs, strategies, and procedures. Developed 30 projects of regional significance that are gender-inclusive and bring equitable benefits to women and men. Supported national commitments on gender, helping countries to mainstream gender in water policies and programs. Through this, it is ensuring that women and girls are not left out of the picture of development benefits arising from the emerging projects and that women can play an equal role in driving the transformation forward. THE NILE STORY Benefits for women in Nile economic development Women – a vital role in development The Nile River offers a significant resource for economic From a water-use point of view, these constraints are growth in a region characterized by poverty and important. For example, women may be unable to access development challenges such as environmental water services at a household level or to gain permits to degradation, climate change, and population growth. For take water for irrigation because they do not hold the land this reason, the 10 countries of the Nile Basin have come rights or titles. Or they may not be involved in discussions together in a program of cooperation implemented largely relating to water-use or land-use planning that can have a by the NBI to work towards regional economic development significant impact on their day-to-day lives and livelihood through equitable use of their shared resource. opportunities. In furthering development of the region, the NBI has made Inadequate energy supplies are also a development an important shift from a gender-neutral approach to pay constraint for women, meaning that they spend hours close attention to the challenges facing women and girls. collecting woodfuel instead of being productive. It also Women and girls are known to be disproportionately reduces earnings from enterprises and work that relies on impacted by development challenges for a number of electricity reasons, including: It is now widely recognized that women’s needs should  hey are more likely to be extremely poor - 70% of the •T always be taken into account, and that women should world's poorest and most marginalized people are female. be given an equal voice and opportunity to be involved in and benefit from development projects. Involving Women typically are highly dependent on natural • women also brings to the table their knowledge on water resources for their livelihoods, and for cooking, feeding and natural resource management. Ensuring equality for their families and raising incomes for schooling children. women on decisions about water is critical for their social and economic empowerment, and plays a vital role in  omen and girls often have less access and rights to •W strengthening community resilience. natural resources because of traditional roles and customs in land titling and inheritance that often favor men. Gender at the heart of the NBI Recognizing these gender issues – and reflecting the objective of equitable economic development for the region through shared use of the Nile water resource – the NBI sees gender mainstreaming as essential to its work. In 2006, the NBI held a landmark event – ‘Women of and women in the NBI’ – that launched its program of mainstreaming gender, acknowledging women as priority stakeholders. This committed the 10 NBI member countries to prioritize access to safe and adequate water, sanitation, and food for every woman, man and child. Gender mainstreaming is a globally accepted strategy for promoting gender equality. Mainstreaming is not an end in itself but a strategy, an approach, a means to achieve the goal of gender equality. Mainstreaming involves ensuring that gender perspectives and attention to the goal of gender equality are central to all activities. From www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/gendermainstreaming.htm The NBI has adopted the concepts of gender and gender mainstreaming as key facets of its structures, programming, and processes. This mainstreaming effort also reflects and supports international development practices, policies and the ongoing commitments made to these by national governments. Policy directives, manuals, and guidelines for gender mainstreaming in integrated water resource management have been issued by ministries responsible for water affairs in virtually all the Nile Basin countries. The NBI has addressed gender mainstreaming in two main ways. First, at the organizational level, through core NBI policies, strategies, and procedures; and, second, at the practical level through the work of the two Subsidiary Action Programs (SAPs) which help the countries to prepare transboundary development projects for investment. In this way, gender cross-cuts through all NBI work. THE NILE STORY Benefits for women in Nile economic development The NBI – based on a shared vision among the 10 countries. The shared vision in practice took a two-pronged approach. It started by working through a Shared Vision Program (SVP) to build trust, capacity, and an enabling environment for investments, and then moving on to develop and implement Subsidiary Action Programs (SAPs) that would prepare projects for investment. The NBI provides a SHARED VISION PROGRAM regional platform for the joint, Basin-wide efforts ACTION SHARED ON THE towards this vision. VISION GROUND Nile-SEC has focused on cooperation through SUBSIDIARY ACTION PROGRAMS capacity building and sharing information. Meanwhile, efforts on the SAP objectives to get projects off the ground have been led by ENTRO, based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and the NELSAP Coordination Unit, based in Kigali, Rwanda. The SAPs have been successful in preparing ‘investment projects’ – joint development projects for countries to implement together, sharing both the costs and the benefits. For example, the Flood Preparedness and Early Warning System (FPEWS) project is already reducing flood disaster risks in Ethiopia and Sudan for 350,000 people, and the 80 MW Rusumo Falls project on the borders of Burundi, Rwanda, and Tanzania promises significant increases in electricity supply in these very power-poor countries Gender mainstreaming across the institution At the organizational level, the NBI has emphasized the Gender-sensitivity training. NBI employees have received • development and adoption of gender-inclusive strategies. this in relation to internal policy and practice. Within the NBI, gender mainstreaming activities have Formulating policy and strategy. The 2012 Gender • included: Mainstreaming Policy and Strategy was formulated to guide Conducting a gender assessment. The 2008 assessment • gender mainstreaming in all NBI programs, and capacity for the whole of the NBI made gender mainstreaming development inputs have supported implementation of this. recommendations, including the need to develop a policy Identifying good practices. An assessment in 2014 • framework to guide gender mainstreaming and women’s documented best practices in use across NBI’s progams empowerment, to create institutional frameworks for and projects, and these are being proactively integrated into mainstreaming gender, and to develop and implement a all NBI activities. gender-related capacity-building program for NBI staff. This was followed up by a full gender audit at NELSAP In 2013. These activities have led to an increase in participation of women at all levels within NBI institutions, programs, and  stablishing the gender working group. Members of •E project activities, including in leadership, decision-making, the working group were drawn from all NBI bodies and project management and implementation, and training partner organizations to oversee the gender mainstreaming and capacity-building programs. For example, the ENTRO activities. The group formulated a gender equality action internship program has recorded an increase in participation plan and a capacity-building plan for the NBI, which is of women over time – from 11% in the 2011/12 program to now implemented. The working group also developed 31% in the 2013/14 program. This has increased the number gender mainstreaming guidelines and checklists for of young women equipped to confidently take on leadership different themes, to be used by program and project staff roles in water resource management in the future. to mainstream gender in all NBI activities, including at SAP level. “NBI studies provided field evidence that women play a central role in the provision, management, and safeguarding Strengthening institutional capacity. Staff across the NBI and • of water resources, hence the need to ensure gender equity in its different programs and projects have been given gender all water basin programs. The main result is that consideration mainstreaming training and capacity-building opportunities. of gender issues is now mandatory in all water programs,” In addition, a gender focal point was appointed in the Mbogo Futakamba, Acting Permanent Secretary, Ministry of NBI’s secretariat, Nile-SEC. There is increasing institutional Water, Tanzania. knowledge now available on gender. THE NILE STORY Benefits for women in Nile economic development Gender mainstreaming in the SAPs Within the work of the SAPs, major steps have been project preparation processes (e.g. feasibility studies and made to embed gender considerations. The SAPs have project design) have placed emphasis on gender issues. incorporated an approach that recognizes the central role In the preparation of the Kagera River Basin Project, of equal opportunities for women and men in realizing the for example, specific interventions were integrated to NBI’s shared vision through transboundary development address gender issues. Equal participation by women projects. was promoted in the decision-making processes and in the management of both community-based small- Building on the work to mainstream gender considerations scale investments and the longer-term and large-scale across the whole NBI, the SAPs have incorporated gender investments. In addition, the project design focused on into their work in a number of key ways. female-headed households, supporting greater access by women to credit, and forming a women’s project advisory Institutional promotion of gender issues. There have council and cultivating an equal opportunities employment been gender mainstreaming courses for staff in both the policy in the project itself. NELSAP and ENTRO offices, which have helped their staff consider gender issues in project preparations. The SAPs have formulated gender action plans as part of The SAPs have also incorporated gender aspects into the project preparation process, with clear gender targets other technical training courses and promoted women’s and monitoring indicators. Guidelines and checklists have participation, for example in training on management of been formulated to provide guidance to project managers land acquisition, resettlement, and rehabilitation, and on (and their partners and consultants), giving them practical transboundary planning for integrated water resource tools that help them to incorporate a gender approach management. Projects being implemented have brought into projects and to predict and manage gender-related together both male and female staff, promoting equal problems that projects might encounter. Guidance has opportunity in project staffing. NELSAP conducted been tailored to different types of project (for example, a gender audit in 2013 that recommended ways to water supply and sanitation, irrigation, hydropower, integrate gender into all NELSAP interventions, and energy networks, watershed management, and flood a number of SAP level programming tools have been management). used – including social and gender analysis, NELSAP’s gender mainstreaming guidelines and checklists for In NELSAP, there is recognition that women face projects, ENTROs social assessment guidelines, and the significant domestic burdens in relation to water, energy, mainstreaming of gender across the project management and feeding their families. Projects are prepared to cycle. include interventions that focus on benefits for women – including activities that harvest rainwater, improve food Development of gender-inclusive projects. These security, and increase income diversification. institutional activities and tools have ensured that all the NELSAP’s Social development work – bringing gender balance to project preparation. This program helps project developers to consider how the project will affect people, and what actions are required to mitigate negative impacts. Within the program, there is specific budget allocation for gender issues. During project preparation, social analysis considers constraints and opportunities for gender mainstreaming, and specific gender design features are then included in the project. For example, in projects where dam construction may result in displacement of communities, the Social Development Program and gender guidelines ensure resettlement plans take gender into consideration. In Rwanda, as part of the Rusumo Falls project preparation, the social analysis resulted in the NBI requiring that land could not be titled solely in a husband’s name, in order to protect women from being dispossessed. ENTRO is also making great strides on gender monitoring project progress. This is linked to the gender integration in its projects in a difficult environment. In the action plans developed at project preparation stage, Tana Beles Watershed Management Project in Ethiopia which include gender targets and indicators. The SAPs – a country that has some of the lowest gender equality have introduced the collection of sex-disaggregated performance indicators in Sub-Saharan Africa – women data from projects, relating to women’s access to natural comprise 30% to 40% of members on all the project’s resources, their participation, benefits, and impacts on local management committees. The flagship Tana Beles them. project is also coordinated at the local (woreda) level by a woman. Consequently, the transboundary development projects prepared by the NBI place a real emphasis on planning Enhanced monitoring for evidence of gender to get development right for both women and men, and benefits. A comprehensive results-based system of are beginning to collect data to demonstrate that they monitoring has been introduced as a core tool for are achieving this in practice. THE NILE STORY Benefits for women in Nile economic development Supporting female leadership: Eleni Tesfaye works in the local government agriculture office, in one of the Tana Beles project areas. She was sponsored by the NBI to complete an MSc, and GIS studies. Eleni coordinates community mobilization locally, and her role includes ensuring that income- generating activities that support women are incorporated into the Tana Beles project activities. She also works on the GIS and project database, and thanks to the training received through the NBI she has been able to put in place a good information management system. Despite being young and female, she provides effective leadership for project implementation at the community level and she is well-respected. Gender integration in action – the Mara sub-basin integrated watershed management project. The Mara project is one of the investment projects that has been prepared by NELSAP, and it is ready to be implemented by governments in Kenya and Tanzania. The planning process focused on involving women throughout the catchment management process. Consultative meetings targeted women, and helped them to consider and identify appropriate income- generating activities. Within the guiding cooperative framework for the proposed project is the gender strategy and action plan. This emphasizes gender equality and the role of women as both managers and decision makers in water management. The plan includes actions to: Ensure equal opportunities for women in consultation and decision making about the project. • Consider institutional issues, for example proposing the formation of a women’s council to ensure a channel for • ongoing dialogue with women about their views on the project. Include criteria that relate to women’s participation for selecting target districts and potential community projects. • Help address problems faced by women in accessing resources and generating incomes, including proposals for • livelihood support sub-projects. The main principle is to integrate women into all activities, rather than having ‘women-specific’ activities. Gender integration in action - the Lakes Edward and Albert project. NELSAP prepared this project on integrated fisheries and water resource management in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to contribute to improving food security. During the pilot phase, women were identified as key beneficiaries because of their role in securing household food needs through reliance on the lakes. Female fisherfolk were trained and their capacity built to better enable them to monitor the water quality and fish stocks, as well as improve their fishing practices and processing efficiency. This helps the women get better products to market and improve their livelihoods in a sustainable way. In the second phase of this project, gender is being mainstreamed across the project activities. At the policy level, gender issues will be considered in the harmonization of fisheries regulations, ensuring a legislative framework that supports gender equity. At the operational level, the project will ensure equity in resource management processes: while the fishing is largely undertaken by men, post- harvest activities of processing and trading is are largely managed by women so women need to be involved in decisions about the resource. For many of these women, income from the fish business can make a real difference to their lives. It is often their only source of cash income in a society where men typically control the cash generation activities of households. Influencing national commitments on gender The Nile Basin countries are committed to improving For example: the role of women in water resource management In Ethiopia, the NBI built the capacity of the Ministry of • and development. The NBI has contributed to helping Women Affairs Office (WAO): Semunesh Golla, in the them implement this commitment through information, Ministry of Water, Energy and Irrigation, states: “This puts networking, engagement, and training. For example, in the WAO in a better position to uphold women’s rights on Kenya there are now gender focal points in the relevant equal opportunity employment and promotion to senior ministries. The NBI has worked with these focal points to positions like Directors.” build their capacity and give them the information and tools to help them mainstream gender in their sector. In Sudan, gender issues are now included in national • policies and leglisation: Ahmed Mohamed Adam The NBI established a women's network as an advocacy observes that "Everyone believes that NBI has influenced group to ensure NBI initiates project activities that impact this. Now, the number of female engineers by far women at the grassroots level. This enhanced channels of exceeds the number of male engineers." communication to and from women of the Nile. There is a strong sense that, alongside gender mainstreaming and In Tanzania, a gender mainstreaming action plan for • other training, this networking has shifted norms. Now, there the ministry was prepared with support from the NBI. is better understanding and integration of gender issues in Dimosso Oscar Mmba, who is the Mara Basin Water water policies and programs, and women are better placed Officer for the Tanzanian Government, states: “This has to take up decision making and management positions in contributed to ensuring gender-sensitive interventions projects and government. and equal chances for women and men in preparation and implementation of development projects.” Leaving no-one behind The outcomes of this focus on gender issues are important. NBI is making sure that women cannot be left out of the picture of development benefits arising from the emerging projects. The NBI has helped to: Put women firmly in the picture. Women have equal opportunities in leading and contributing to planning in all • areas of NBI work, including the development and management of projects prepared for investment.  nsure equitable benefits from investment projects. Women are not disproportionately negatively affected and •E development benefits are meaningful for everyone, including women. Build women’s resilience. The activities to build equal opportunity for women at the community level in water • resource projects is also helping them build resilience more broadly, for example to climate change impacts such as flooding and droughts. Promote supportive policy. By helping countries to mainstream gender issues at the policy level, an enabling • environment for equality is being built. There are challenges to maintaining this momentum - in terms of resourcing, capacity, and social norms - and efforts need continued investment. This note forms one of a series of briefing notes prepared to mark the completion of the Nile Basin Trust Fund (NBTF). The Nile Basin Trust Fund was opened in 2003 at the request of Ministers responsible for water affairs in the Nile countries, and was administered by the World Bank on behalf of ten donors. The series of briefing notes highlight the achievements of the Nile Program, a set of projects and sub-programs that have been supported by Nile riparian countries, the Nile Basin Trust Fund and other donors in parallel to the NBTF, largely implemented by the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI). NBI Member States For more information Nile Basin Initiative Secretariat P.O. Box 192 Entebbe, Uganda Burundi DR Congo Egypt Ethiopia Kenya Rwanda South Sudan Sudan Tanzania Uganda Tel. +256 414 321 424 Email nbisec@nilebasin.org Nile Basin Trust Fund Partners Web www.nilebasin.org Facebook Nile Basin Initiative Twitter @nbiweb Administered by: #NileCooperation #NileBasin #OneNile Co-financed by: Want to know more about NBI? Scan this QR code to find out. May 2015