Presented at the 12th meeting of the OECD Water Governance Initiative, on 20 - 21 June, 2019 in Berlin, Germany

1. The Role of Women in Water
Decision-Making
Hakan Tropp, Head OECD Water Governance Programme
OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities

2. • Collaboration between the OECD and the
Women for Water Partnership (WfWP)
• Main objectives:
– Assess the current state of play of women in water
decision-making
– Identify bottlenecks and enabling factors
– Identify the impact of women’s involvement in
water governance
Introduction

3. First phase: Desk review of available
literature
Desk review of 50+
research initiatives, papers
and toolkits from
companies, NGOs and
international organisations
to gather:
• Evidence
• Gaps
Methodology:
• Design of indicators
• Survey
• Interviews
• Best practices and Case
Studies

4. • Target audience: national, local and
transboundary/basin level public water
sector and private and non-for-profit water-
sector organisations.
• Geographical spread: 50-60 OECD and non-
OECD countries.
• 10 – 15 stakeholders for deeper interviews (6-
8 countries and 6-8 non-state actors).
Survey: Key information

5. • What is the state of play on women’s involvement in water
governance?
• What are best practices of women’s involvement at
different levels of governance (national, basin, local) in the
water sector?
• What are the main drivers and enabling/facilitating factors
to engage policy implementers and women that lead to
their increased involvement in water governance?
• How to reinforce the involvement of women for effective,
efficient and inclusive water governance?
Scope and methodology

6. • What is the decision-making capacity of women in
the water sector?
• What is the impact of more women- inclusive
decision-making in the water sector, both in the
decision-making processes and in ensuing outcomes?
• What are the bottlenecks and incentives for more
women-inclusive governance?
• How are water-sector organisations encouraging
more women-inclusive governance?
Survey: gaps to be filled

7. Survey: Share of representation of women in decision-
making roles in water governance and decision-making power

8. Survey: Determining what makes up an enabling
environment and bottlenecks to women-inclusive water
governance

9. Survey: Determining the impact of
women-inclusive governance

10. Survey: Assessing predominant
attitudes

11. • Flag additional reports and evidence
• Share insights and knowledge on the topic in
order to reinforce the design of the project, including
the methodology.
• Make suggestions on improving the
methodology, including the scope of the Survey, the
target respondents and the Survey questions.
• Express interest in forming part of the
implementation of the Survey.
WGI Members: what can you do?