Clean water and better sanitation : a responsibility for all : gender participation in community water and sanitation. Volume 1. Summary proceedings of the Regional Gender Workshop, Pretoria, South Africa, November 1997 / gender asessments

The report contains the summary proceedings of the Regional Workshop on Gender and Water Supply and Sanitation held in Pretoria, South Africa in November 1997. It also outlines the regional follow-up initially focused on gender assessments. This activity is part of the global Participatory Learning and Action (PLA), an initiative on gender and participation in community based water supply and sanitation initiated by the Collaborative Council’s Working Group on Gender Participation in collaboration with the UNDP-WB water and sanitation programme and IRC.

The first section of the document provides the background to gender and participation in water supply and sanitation and outlines the launch of the PLA initiative. It shows the links between the initiative and the two days regional workshop.

The second part focuses on the discussions and outcomes of the workshop. The workshop intended to provide space to exchange experiences and lessons learned from current practices on gender sensistive approaches and reach a common understanding on how to assess linkages between gender participation and project performance, to develop methodological approaches and guidelines for assessing how gender sensitiveness contributes to project and programme performance and to define a strategy for the future. During the workshop, experiences from Uganda, Zimbabwe and Kenya were presented. At different levels all these experiences faced constraints in mainstreaming a GAD approach instead of only an add women on approach. Finally, the workshop participants analysed how far their countries have advanced in terms of gender at policy and management levels and which are the constraints and opportunities faced. Finally, key elements were identified when developing guidelines for implementation of gender approached in WSS projects and regional and country action plans were developed.

The last section of the document provides an overview of the regional and national activities agreed upon as the follow up of the workshop. The annexes provide the TOR and a detailed workplan for the regional gender activities.