Crossing troubled waters: building a bridge across gender divisions among water professionals in South Asia

Abstract

This paper examines the reasons for the limited presence of women in the water sector in South Asia and reviews recent efforts at reversing this trend. The reasons for the under representation of women in the sector are the perceived masculine nature of the sector, gender-based discrimination at the work place, and the absence of gender sensitive working environment. A change in the curricula of water education programs from engineering-oriented programs to inter-disciplinary programs and the launch of new inter-disciplinary water resources education programs is likely to reverse this trend. Increased donor interest in this has given a push to such efforts. The launch of new initiatives and programs is likely to increase the number of women water professionals in the near future; however, given the large absolute numbers of men, these numbers would still relatively be low. Financial and administrative support to female students will be necessary to make the water sector more gender sensitive and gender balanced, along with creating conditions that would allow a better expression of women’s interests.

Keywords:

• South Asia
• water sector
• masculinity
• engineering

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was presented at a conference on Improving the participation of women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) organized in Kathmandu, Nepal, September 27 and 28, 2019 by WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) Nepal and INWES (International Network on Women in Engineering and Science). Thanks are expressed to the organizers of the conference.

Disclosure statement

There are no competing interests to declare.

Additional information

Funding

No specific funding or financial support was received for this submission.

Notes on contributors

Vishal Narain

Vishal Narain, PhD, is Professor, Public Policy and Governance, at MDI, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon. He holds a PhD from Wageningen University and Research, the Netherlands. His academic interests are in the inter-disciplinary analyses of public policy processes and institutions; water governance; gender, rights and equity issues in water management; peri-urban issues and vulnerability and adaptation to climate change. His research on these topics has been widely published in such journals as Land Use Policy, Geoforum, Cities, and Mountain Research and Development. He is the author of Public Policy: a view from the South (Cambridge University Press, 2018). He has co-edited Indian Water Policy at the Cross-roads: resources technology and reforms (Springer, 2016) and Globalization of Water Governance in South Asia (Routledge: Taylor and Francis, 2016). He has been a consultant to such organizations as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO, and the International Water Management Institute, IWMI, Colombo, Sri Lanka. He has been a contributing and lead author for several regional and international environmental assessments including the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) (VI Assessment Report) and GEO (Global Environment Outloook)-4, the flagship publication of UNEP, the United Nations Environment Programme.