Women and Water Network India
Over view of background and activities - Past and forthcoming

The Women and Water Network (India) (WWN-India) is an evolving network of recent origin. It emerged as a reaction to three major ground realities: (a) the prevailing fractured and gender-blind conceptualization of water resources development that obscures the essentially interlinked uses of water across sectors, the crucial roles that women play in both productive and domestic spheres, and the vital ways in which women’s lives are affected by water resources policies and management; (b) the overemphasis on technical aspects to the exclusion of the principles of equity and social justice that affect both women and men; and (c) the invisibility of women in the arena of water policy, management and distribution, due to lack of political will to address issues of building women’s technical, financial and managerial skills.

The Network’s mission is: to work towards a holistic approach to water resources development and sustainability; mainstream gender concerns as the organizing principle in water policy, management and distribution; and bring together grassroots organizations, researchers, water professionals, policy makers, and women's organizations, to effect this paradigm shift.

Activities of WWN-India (2003):
WWN had its first national meeting recently in Bangalore after two regional meetings at Ahmedabad and Thrissur during the two preceding years. Given the huge size of the country, there was probably need to have additional meetings in the far eastern and northern zone also for greater representation but this was not possible due to lack of funds. These meetings were supported by UNIFEM, as also the various participations by some of the members of the network in the regional meetings. The zonal and national meetings led to the formation WWN- South India and WWN- India. Dr. Anitha from NIAS is currently the coordinator for WWN-SI. The WWN-India agreed to have a Steering Committee of 9 members who volunteered to undertake responsibilities for taking forward the WWN agenda. Dr. Jasveen Jairath is the WWN coordinator nominated by India Water Partnership and is also a member of SC of WWN-India and as such agreed to facilitate the interaction between the two organizations. It was felt that similar zonal WWNs should be formed for each region and these should be federated to form a WWN. This would ensure a closer interaction of the WWN with the grass roots situation. Recently the South India Coordination committee of IWP was constituted with 50% representation of women – most women members of WWN-SI were nominated for the membership of this coordination committee. As of now the members keep in regular contact with each other through a common list serve and inform/mobilize each other for water related activities. Some of the members are actively involved in organizing Water marches and water consultations in different parts of the country on issues of water policy and practice.

Currently the following coordinators have been nominated by WWN-India:
Seema Kulkarni - coordinator for GWP matters, including interaction with IWP.
Shantha Mohan - alternate member of SAS-GWP-RWP-RC
B. Anitha - coordinator for WWN-South India
Bharti - coordinator of WWN-West India

There is a Steering Committee in place. The names are given in the Proceedings of the Annual meeting (copy attached).

Participated in the founding meeting of IWP-South India at Bangalore under the auspices of Sahayoga, and ensured a gender balanced formation of coordination committee.

There have been two issue papers that have been prepared by WWN members and they were presented at the WWF3:

Participated in the writers’ workshop and conduct of the global TOT for gender mainstreaming for IWRM in Manila and Bangkok (organized by GWA) by WWN members Smita Pandey and Jasveen Jairath. WWN-members were members of a team that wrote Module 1 on the conceptual aspects of gender mainstreaming of water sector. Smita will be leading the team for conducting the regional TOT in India along with other members of WWN-South Asia.

WWN was represented at major international water for a like the WWF3/Kyoto & SWS/Stockholm by its members Chaya Bawsar, Bharti (and her team from SEWA),
S. Janakrajan, Jasveen Jairath etc. Sessions on Livelihoods and droughts was organized during WWF3. Meetings were held with other SA WWN members and also with GWA. GWA agreed to coordinate all its future activities in SA with WWNs for greater synergy. During SWS & GWP/CP meet there was a strong presence and voice of the WWN members to advocate for the recognition of WWNs from South Asia and include them as a separate category on the decision-making boards of the CWPs such as IWP. It was also mentioned that WWN should be the deciding body for women’s representation in the various GWP regional units like CWPs and RC-RWP. All representation should be gender balanced and WWN should decide on women’s representations. WWN-India should also get its due share of funding support from IWP for running a secretariat. As of date WWN-India had not received any funds for its activities from IWP. Broadly there was a demand for a greater integration of WWN -  as an institution - in the activities of IWP. This was well received by the GWP secretariat.