A two-day Management Development Programme on Gender Equity and Water Management aimed at building the capacity of Engineers in the Department of Irrigation to chalk out future directions in understanding and analysis of water inequalities specifically incorporating the role of women was inaugurated to by Sh. Shailendra Kumar Joshi, Chief Secretary, Government of Telangana.
Water Management in the state of Telangana that is primarily an agrarian state has seen many policy changes over the years that have been directed to change the farm economy by reducing the cost of cultivation and increasing productivity.
The mission Kakatiya aims to harness benefits of tank irrigation by increasing command area, water supply for irrigation and opportunities for agriculture. However, the national or state water policies over the years have not accorded any importance to gender concerns and implementing future direction in the understanding and analysis of water inequalities which explicitly recognizes the central role of women in the provision, management and safeguarding of water.
Even though Telangana is located in between two rivers Godavari and Krishna, the state has struggled for water for the last 70 years. There are two major initiatives by the government of Telangana, namely the Mission Kakatiya and Mission Bhagiratha for irrigation water management and water provisioning to households respectively. This would help in achieving equity not just gender but across caste, class and socio-economic groups.”
Dr Rajiv Seth, Pro Vice-Chancellor of the TERI , that will soon assume its operations and campus in the state of Telangana in 2019 said, “Gender mainstreaming has been part of the international discourse on Integrated Water Resource Management for many years.
There have been several efforts and initiatives in making the water sector more gender balanced and gender sensitive.
Stressing upon the two flagship missions – Mission Kakatiya and Mission Bhagiratha, the Director-General EPTRI Sh. B Kalyan Chakravarthy IAS brought out the need for devising new models and solutions for addressing water issues which are interdisciplinary in nature.
To achieve equity, the approach must be all-inclusive taking into consideration people across different socio-economic strata.
Highlighting the need for gender equity in water management, Ian Reid, Chief Academic Officer, ICE WaRM, Australia emphasized the requirement for gender mainstreaming and mentioned that by not engaging with women, we don’t use all the resources we have.
The Management Development Program (MDP) on Gender Equity and Water Management is a first-of-its-kind curriculum with the purpose of making gender and gender mainstreaming relevant to the professionals and managers working in the water sector.
The programme develops a good conceptual and theoretical understanding of gender, rights and equity issues among participants while providing them with exposure to the practical challenges in making the water sector more gender balanced and gender sensitive.
