Opportunities for building gender
into sound basin planning on land
and water investments in the Nile
Basin
Alan Nicol, Liza Debevec and Likie
Nigussie

Background
• Significance
– Moving from recognition (Dublin
1992: “Women play a central
part in the provision,
management, and safeguarding
of water”) and mainstreaming to
practical application in
development
– Alignment with the SDGs (5, 6
and others) as a primary
development objective to
achieve coherence and more
effective development outcomes
– Build on centrality of equality as
a moral imperative and
development challenge
– Relevance to the outcomes of
land and water investments in
the Eastern Nile, particularly at
basin and sub-basin scale
National
gender
strategies
Project-level
recognition, but
how to
achieve?
NBI gender
strategy

Project
aspirations
and goals
Project
levers
Project
impacts
NBI: Strategic understanding
• Builds on Africa Union
Declaration on Gender
Equality in Africa (2004)
– “Gender inequalities
often lower the
productivity of labor,
in both the short and
the long term, and
create inefficiencies
in labor allocation for
households and in
general economy.
They also contribute
to poverty and reduce
human wellbeing”
• The NBI gender
strategy:
– Opportunities for
improving the
programs and
projects’ impact
through gender
mainstreaming
include project
responsiveness to
gender issues and
the alignment of
NBI policies,
processes, and
resources to
support such
interventions

Project-level recognition: Baro-Akobo
• Baro-Akobo-Sobat Multi-purpose
Water Resources Development
Project:
• “Gender and social equity
considerations will be
mainstreamed into the
implementation of the project
including”: including
– Stakeholder involvement
(including women and their
representatives in all project
planning
– Infrastructure design to include
equitable access to services
– Institutional framework to
ensure all voices are heard
(particularly women’s)
– SSEA process will focus on
assessing specific impacts on
women and other vulnerable
groups (relocation, migratory
labor forces, etc.)

An opportunity for advancement

Basin Gender Profiles
• Active since 2014, (4)BGP aims to
provide an evidence base for analysis
of gender disparities and implications
for basin development
• Open-source, sex-disaggregated data
(focus on water and land), where
available (and identification of gaps,
where not)
• Potential users: Policy makers and
basin authorities, researchers and
civil society, planners and
implementers
• Identification of gender-related R4D
needs in basins
• Not an end in itself, but a tool for
interpretation and analysis
– http://maps.vista-
info.net/gis/htm/IWMIBasinMaps/

Presenting data mapped to basins
• Interpretation of data in relation to
wider social development
knowledge:
– e.g. challenges of gendered division
of labour in agriculture
– access to land and nutritional
decision making
– Identification of data gaps
• Support identification of
investment options and social
development impacts
• Capacity for overlaying data and
building a composite index

Baro-Akobo: Basin Gender Profiling
• (a) Component 1: development of an
integrated water resources
management and development plan
for the Baro-Akobo-Sobat (BAS) sub-
basin based on a comprehensive
assessment of options through a
Strategic Social and Environmental
Assessment (SSEA) as well as through
a technical, economic, financial and
institutional assessment;
• (b) Component 2: Preparation of
priority projects (feasibility studies) in
the field of hydropower, irrigation,
water supply, navigation, flood
control, or watershed management.
• (c) Component 3:Identification of
medium to long term infrastructure
projects.
Help develop a a strategic
overview of basin gender and
development challenges e.g.
divided into: barriers and
investment opportunities,
institutional arrangement
and anticipated outcomes
Support operational application
of profiles within decision
making, and protocols for doing
so at project level
Socio-economic gender profiling
/ mapping sheets could
accompany infrastructure
project identification

Ways forward
• Establish potential uses and entry points
• Test application and linkage to decision
making in project environment
• Review and refine tools and procedures with
social development / mapping experts
• Write up and record results in a practical form
• Contribute to next 10-year strategy and basin
development planning process

THANK YOU