Conflicts over Water and Water to Solve Conflicts

Sunday 17 August
Morning Seminar

Convenors: Saferworld and Gender and Water Alliance (GWA)

Conflicts over water increasingly take place on different levels worldwide. Scarcity of water, particularly in areas where there are already societal conflicts, can aggravate and escalate these conflicts. Enabling access to water, however, can help solve conflicts and bring diverse and often oppositional communities and individuals, women and men, together in water management institutions. Water governance needs to address key questions around gender, power and inclusion by multi-stakeholder dialogues and participatory learning processes: which women or which men participate in decision-making? In India, communal violence has made shared water facilities in some areas unsafe places for women. Improved access to water and sanitation proved to be crucial in peace building. Work with local governments and civil society in Eastern Africa shows how water provision can prevent conflict and contribute to peace. Conflict sensitive approaches are applied to various development programmes. Lack of sanitation can cause conflicts while the provision of access to new facilities can solve them. This, however, depends on the equal involvement by men and women users and is based on users cultural perception of water and social power relations. This seminar draws on critical insights from Saferworld and Gender and Water Alliance members in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Seminar Programme             09:00-12:00, Room K23

Chair: Dr. Sara Ahmed, Chairperson Gender and Water Alliance, India
Co-chair: Hesta Groenewald, Conflict Prevention Adviser, Saferworld, United Kingdom
Rapporteur: Ms. Esther de Jong, Programme Officer GWA, the Netherlands