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Demystifying the Water Crisis to Make Women’s Participation More Visible

Sonia Dávila Poblete
Mexico

translation bySilvana Garetz

1. WATCH OUT for THE WATER CRISIS

The supply of water is running out! This is the most commonly heard comment of our times, the same as images that illustrate dry grounds or a faucet where the flow of water decreases to become just a few drops that dry up, images that generally depict women, children and the elderly in a developing country, either in Africa, Asia or Latin America. These images besides depicting problems of quality and quantity, illustrate how both problems are contributors to the scarcity of the resource and consequently to poverty. They also show that in places where there is enough water, the growth of the cities and the consequent increase in usage of this resource is affecting nature, predicting this way that the main problem in this century will be the water crisis.

However, are we really facing a water crisis? How is it possible to experience a water crisis if the earth is mostly covered with water? The well known answer is: “because from that total supply of water, only 2.5% is for fit for consumption and 97.5% is salty water, what seems to explain why this resource is in shortage, but: How much water does this 2% represent? Is this percentage a constant, after the annual completion of the hidrological cycle?

After reviewing different sources we found that the official estimates shown on the UNESCO’s Monograph indicate that there are 577,000 Km 3/ year, of which 44,800 Km 3/ year is soft water for consumption and they estimate that from this amount of water, in 1995 3,788 Km 3 (approximately 8.5%) were extracted. Of those 3,788 Km 3 extracted, 2,074 Km 3 and 1,714 Km 3 returned directly to nature to restart a new hydrological cycle. These data show that evidently there is more water than that which is extracted, but it should also be noted that every year approximately 360 Km (17%) of the total extracted water is lost, some of which can be replaced in the next hydrological cycle, only if/when the discharges by industry, such as the cities and the agro-chemicals (the main polluters) happen in controllable volumes, as they were up to decades ago.

Now, we know that the amount of water available is not the same in all parts of the world because natural topographic characteristics create unequal conditions, there are geographic areas where water is scarce, such as North Africa, central Asia (Bangladesh, Nepal and others) to mention a few. Also there are other regions which suffer constant floods, as an example, East Asia and Central America, there are also countries that experience the effects of lack of water and floods at the same time, such as Bolivia, Peru, Mexico and others, therefore to generalize the “water crisis” can be incoherent depending on the place where one lives, because for some it is a problem of abundance while for others is one of scarcity.

The problem of access to this vital fluid, caused by the construction of projects to divert or channel the natural course of rivers must be added to the natural differences. This problem of having access to water is, without doubt, one of the main problems that has to solved by women and children and it is also one of the main factors causing conflicts, because if this is not dealt with appropiately it can evolve into a true water crisis, where the basis of the problem is the access to the resource, independently from the amount or quality of the same, because there are places that have a lot of water but lack the proper infraestructure necessary to supply drinkable water to their homes or nearby places or to provide irrigation to its inhabitants. There are also places that although have a lot of water available face problems of water quality.

The problem with the distribution of water needs to be added to the unequal access by region. According to national and international agencies, this indicates that if in the world we continue using the resource the way we are presently using it (business as usual, which is the correct expresion in English) an imminent “water crisis” is near, therefore, the World Commission on Water warns us that for the year 2005 it is predicted that the extraction of the resource will increase by 10%, from this percentaje, water consumption by industry will increase by 25%, while in the agricultural sector it will increase by 9% and the municipal consumption will increase by 100% worldwide (World Water Council, 2000: XXII.)

After reviewing this data we can understand the reasons for the speeches and campaigns that mention that the “water crisis” is due to misuse and therefore all consumers are equally responsible for the degradation of natural resources. However, we must be aware that this is half the truth because if it is true that many people waste water, but there is a big difference between domestic and industrial use and discharge. Also, within the agricultural sector there is a major distinction between the agro-producers of irrigation and those who use water from the environment, and within these, between those who use chemical products from those who use organic or natural products. This affects the quality of water they drain and logically farmers who use irrigation and chemicals are the ones who use more water and who contaminate the water, which coincides with the socio-economical differences between the two types of farmers.

All of the above, allows us to understand that the publicized “water crisis” has to be demistified, because the scarcity is due mainly to the new water management policies rather than to the misuse of the resource by people, such as rural areas that lack water because their source of water was rerouted due to the construction of a dam, or over-exploited due to the drilling permits issued to other agricultural users, to some industry or for the supply of water to another adjoining city. Water scarcity is also related to the contamination of water by toxic residues and waste, because in the majority of countries there is no real and efficient control through laws that should regulate the discharges, especially those by the industrial sector, by the cities and by the agricultural products.

2. NEW POLICIES FOR ADMINISTRATION AND THE INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT

It is important to mention that the new policies for water management, destined to regulate its access, distribution and usage of the resource have not been designed and implemented neither spontaneously nor in an isolated manner, rather than becoming part of what is presently defined as basic policies in the estragegies to achieve sustainable development and are articulated with others that trascend borders between countries, becoming part of the neoliberal model and the globalization scheme. Economics model that indicates that governments in developing countries must apply measures for the “structural adjustment” based in descentralization, privatization and deregulation of sectors (such as drinking water and sewage) traditionally managed by the State-Nation. Within this context, the UN in 1991 created the International Water Secretariat and in 1992, in the meeting in Rio, embraced the Declaration of New Delhi (1990) indicating that the global order should be based on the basins, therefore on Chapter 18 Agenda #21 it was agreed that for the year 2000 new institutional and legal structures should be adopted to reach the objectives and goals of the meeting for the year 2005.

This way, after the meeting in Dublin (1992) and the following, Meeting in Rio de Janeiro that same year, the great majority of countries endorsed the Principles included in the DUBLIN DECLARATION stating that: 1. Soft water is a vulnerable and finite resource; 2. The development and useage of water must be based on a colaborative effort; 3) women play a pivotal role in the supply of such, and 4) water holds an economic value in all of its uses.

After these principles were established, we observe that during the decade of the 90’s and especialy from 1997 on- when the First World Forum on Water in Marrakech, Morocco took place- new reforms were established and trascendental changes occurred pertaining to water policies, same which were developed internationally and adapted to the country.

This accomplishment involved a series of strategic measures in public administrarion, same that were executed in different countries and regions, where as an example the Mexican Government, through the Comision Nacional del Agua (CAN) became the first latinoamerican country to design and implement an strategic plan that enabled a new way to manage water supplies: the political-administrative scheme based on establishing borders around the hydrological basins. In this way after the political and administrative restructuring of the hydrological sector, new structures of organization were created, such as the thirteen Organismos de Cuenca (previous regional management organisms) and the twenty-five Consejos de Cuenca with their Organos Auxiliares, of which the 64 Comites Tecnicos de Aguas Subterraneas (Cotas) throughout the country are important.

The creation of new management structures implies a notion of “management” and “participation” related to the four Dublin-Rio Principles, where the third principle, which explicitdly addresses a need to consider the participation of women who play a central role in the supply of this resource, is absent.

SOCIAL PARTICIPATION

With the purpose of understanding how women participate in the hydrological sector, it is necessary to start by defining the concept of “participation” and to recognize that there is a huge gap between the institutional system that makes decisions and the means of representation in civil society. In this matter, it is important to find out how numerous actions and movements are organized and articulated either by women (such as urban or rural inhabitants, farmers, squatters, ecologists, and others) as well as by various organizations involved in the defense and/or appropriation-in our case-of the natural resources, that contribute to the process of creation of new ways of participation. Their need to seek autonomy, descentralization of activities, liberty and respect towards the environment, are the main issues where they are recognized, taking a we (masculine) and we (feminine) as the basis for the commitment that they are gaining (De La Cruz 1987).

Also, the new ways of participation and of action coexist with traditionally recognized groups, such as the women organizations, social classes, special interest groups, civil associations and the political parties which carry out the functions of socialization and commitment for the participation of women. Some of them are defined within the same institutional media with the purpose of fulfiling their demands, others towards change, suggesting actions for political participation, patterns of cultural innovation, and ways of social intervention which are redefined outside of the “institutional modernization” (Melucci, 1985).

In this regard, women as social beings make efforts to build values and cultural norms that in searching to solve problems, must confront regulations and institutional values, or better yet, negotiate through these, compromising their own values and their condition as a gender with regards to that of the “others”, through speeches, goals and consequences. Thus, within the ways that women interact and fight for a place within the social movements towards the protection and conservation of natural resources, there is a project towards redefining the relations between public policy implemented by the State and the actions of society, which help redefine the role of women, their ties between what is public and private, as well as its relationship with the management of natural resources in general, especially of water supplies.

Therefore, if we analyze the concept of participation from the perspective of the conflict, which “exists in any environment where there are relationships based on power and therefore, possible inequalities in the distribution of such,” where the groups that have it or benefit from it and the values of a particular structure try to keep it in regards to those who try to change it. For this reason, “from the moment on when participation tries to alter the existing scale of values becomes a way of politital action. If such, the participation can be perceived as a conflict among social categories, classes, special interest groups and the neverchanging establishments” that compete for certain resources, either financial, natural, or others (Fadda Cori, 1990:23).

The above allows the participation of women following different approaches, some which are at one edge and consider that the participation is “a process towards movilizing a community (in our case of women) that assumes a roll of an agent or a subject of its own development and it accomplishes this through their own projects” (Parra Escobar, 1988:37) those at the other end and who believe that controlling this process of participation is an illusion, because the real power of decision making remains with those who plan, either those coming from the government burecracies or those from the institutions that provided support and funding to this movement process.

Other research in social sciences consider that the participation as a complex and multidimensional process accomplished through organized groups engaged in the access or the demand, in our case, of women for water, where everyone participates in the decision-making process from their respective level of incidence. This implies that the participation of women can be conceived as a government intervention in the decision-making process. From this perspective,in the decision-making process of policies for the management of water supplies, the institutional agents in charge of this resource are the ones who submit proposals, strategies and actions for the use and distribution of the resource, including ways to organize towards any type of participation. At the same time, users or comsumers can only “make the decision” whether they want or not to participate in the actions proposed by the government agencies. This implies that in a very rescricted manner the participation of women-conceived as the intervention of agents or authorities of the hidrological sector-in the decision-making is transformed and is manifested in specific actions based on social relations, either by men or women without differences.

The above illustrates a way of “restricted participation” that is questionable, because if they were to participate it is mainly the ability to embrace the diversity and the conflict within so many legitimate and overimpossed interests. It is also a colective and complete process in which various social categories intervene in all of facets of social life and it is, finally: the decision-making that comes from the place they occupy in the structure of power (Montalvo, 1981).

4. THE PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN IN THE STRUCTURES OF WATER MANAGEMENT

We would like to point out that the new management policies include the creation of structures of organization that suggest a notion of “management” and “participation” related to the four Dublin-Rio Principles, although, if these were to be implemented we would find that the second and third principles emphasize participation in a “restricted way of participation” through government intervention, where it is the authorities of the Comision Nacional del Agua (CAN) who have implemented a series of mechanisms towards the creation of the structures of organization, named Organismos de Cuenca y Consejos de Cuenca.

These structures of organization, besides including other new schemes of representation and politital negotiation, different from what existed traditionallly, suggest ways of administration, whereas now the decision-making in the hidrological sector doesn’t come from federal autorities; the governor and the municipal presidents, but rather from the Organismos y Consejos de Cuenca . And the territorial boundaries are not dependent on the geopolitical division but rather it is restricted to the borders of the basin, all of this with the objective to reach “relative” autonomy before the adinistrative structures of the states and the municipalities.

On the other hand, the structures of organization originiate from “the legal recognition” of the type of water, where the Ley de Aguas Nacionales (LAN) considers as “users” only those physical or moral persons who hold the “Title of Consession” to exploit, use and take advantage of national waters, consequently domestic units either in urban or rural areas, as well as the small and medium businesses who are connected to the drinking water and sewage systems, are not considered “users” by the law, and all of the users and consumers mentioned before, are represented by the Operating Organisms, which provide drinking water and sewage service, establishing a business relationship between their clients: the domestic users, where women have strong and fundamental participation.

The above, besides illustrating a facet of privatization and depriving others of natural resources, establishes a legal recourse to restrict the particpation of citizens in general and particularly of women, as well as promoting the involvement of the business sector, either through the Organismos Operadores, industrial or agroindustrial. Thus, by recognizing as users only those few who hold titles of concession, the first decisive step is taken to take away from people and especially from women any way to express their opinion regarding programs and plans that are going to be implemented in their cities and towns and even in the river basin where they live, although they are the ones who are directly affected by the supply of water, not only because they are the ones in charge of domestic chores, but also because they know how valuable it is to have water at home instead of havving to spend so much time collecting it or paying for the supply of water through pipes.

Allow me to conclude by stating that the “water crisis” has many facets, one of which is part of a national and international camaign that forces every citizen, especially women, either in the domestic arena, as in the productive one, to become also responsible to care for this resource, but not to “participate” in the decision-making process of water management policies, therefore it is imperative to begin demistifying the problems of water scarcity and to demand that the structures of organization which created new management policies follow the Dublin-Rio Principles and they consider creating ways for women to participate. Also, we (pronoun in the feminine gender) must promote the opening of forums and opportunities to reflect and demand that the public policies that are being established have a gender perspective, because these policies are designed to give a “restricted” participation to women, and we(feminine) are the only ones who can modify them.

Finally, it must be emphasized that the demystification of the problems and of the water situation, are the bases to change the assumptions, to unveil the ways of participation of women and to allow a better position in the structures of power, only this way we shall change the structures of power that mold the institutions and finally, our voices will speak about the social, financial, and cultural inequalities derived from the management policies that obstruct equality and limit our lives.

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