Title

Kenya: Government To Government (G2G) Partnerships Accelerating Workforce Gender Equality In Water Utilities

Transboundary: Cooperation for investment planning for green growth and poverty reduction in the Mekrou sub-basin

Ghana: Integrating water security into the national development planning process
Country
Kenya
Benin Burkina Faso Niger (the)
Ghana
Summary

The 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development declared that women play a central part in water resources management and supply. However, at Kakamega County Water and Sanitation Co. few women are able to move from entry level to management level positions, those that did were under represented and paid less. Obstacles to advance to leadership positions were lack of support, qualifications, and geographical mismatches between them and opportunities. Governments play a pivotal role in accelerating a gender transformative water sector. This is a case affirming the supposition that transformation is not the goal in gender and water sector leadership, it should be a way of doing business.

The Global Water Partnership West Africa (GWP-WA) and the JRC/EU58 jointly with the Mekrou River basin riparians (Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger) implemented a concerted strategic planning process to support sustainable development in the basin (2014-2017). Sustainable resource management on a basin level becomes a challenge especially when it is transboundary and includes a natural park shared by several states.

The project has enabled collection of scientific data on water and associated natural resources, and establishment of a framework cooperation agreement between riparians, and a Master Plan for Water Development and Management (SDAGE) with an investment plan at the sub-basin level.

GWP-WA/CWP-Ghana, through Water Climate and Development Programme in Africa (WACDEP), an initiative responding to the Sharm El Sheik Declaration by Heads and Governments of African States, facilitated capacity development on water security and climate resilience for government agencies and Metropolitan Municipal and District Assembly planners in the 2014-2017 National Medium Term Development Planning process. This effort contributed to mainstreaming of water security in the planning landscape in Ghana.
Related IWRM Tools
  • Gender and Water Policies (
    A1.04
    )
  • Public sector water utilities (
    B2.01
    )
  • Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships (
    B3.05
    )
  • International Water Law (
    A2.02
    )
  • Transboundary Organisations (
    B3.01
    )
  • Information Gathering and Sharing Networks (
    B4.01
    )
  • Transboundary financing (
    D2.07
    )
  • Policies with Relation to Water Resources (
    A1.02
    )
  • Water Allocation Regimes (
    A2.03
    )
  • Local Authorities (
    B1.02
    )
Keywords
Niger River Mekrou River
Lessons Learned

Access and availability of updated and disaggregated data. To foster water policies that are truly gender-transformative, high-quality, timely and reliable data disaggregated by gender, and other characteristics is key. The Index should be updated through 2030 to support CSOs, and advocates to guide and drive policy, law and budget decisions to meet SDG6 commitments to achieve gender equality.

Anchor all interventions in policies and laws. Local governments perform best on the gender equality-related issues in water sector thus they should be the primary beneficiaries of additional funding allocation and policy change.

Importance of partnership (at all levels) and building a strong coalition. This creates avenues for better and more sustainable financing; increase the demand for water sector gender data; deliver new sources of data and encourage a county-driven/led govt led approach.

Projects focusing on governance, institutional organisation or research, even if they aim to build or strengthen an enabling environment for efficient natural resource planning and management, need to include pilot physical investment actions in their design. This approach offers the opportunity to learn from these actions in preparation for large-scale investments.

Linking the institutional and scientific/technical components carried out by independent entities, with specific mandates and capacities and separate agreements, is a possible but challenging option. This option requires a significant effort in joint planning, coordination and a real-time consultation mechanism. Formalisation of coordination processes facilitates this interaction

The scale of intervention of the transboundary basin implies taking into account the levels of progress of decentralisation and implementation of IWRM in the different States.

An IWRM project, especially in a transboundary basin, requires intense dialogue at all scales. Building and facilitating a consultative mechanism to reach consensus requires a lot of time and resources.

Taking into account the concerns of the populations in the implementation of a project is a means of generating interest and a strong commitment to sustainability, an indicator of ownership by its beneficiaries.

Continuous capacity building and campaigns to provide technical backstopping to highlight the threats to water systems and inform decision making remains important to achieve water security.

The water security cross-cutting theme in the guidelines has undergone two cycles of implementation and the 3rd medium term development planning cycle (2022-2025) begins soon. This presents opportunity to engage the different stakeholders towards strengthening the capacity for mainstreaming water security.
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