Ensuring water security in Africa requires gender-transformative change at scale

Water insecurity impacts agrifood systems across Africa— impacted by climate change, colonial legislation, lack of institutional capacity and resources, conflicts, and past initiatives on land and agriculture privatization. Underlying all these challenges are gender inequalities and social exclusions that make water insecurity a key factor in women’s economic growth and wellbeing. A review of literature shaped by a 3M approach (micro, meso and macro) reveals the risks of unsustainable, exclusionary water interventions and investments that have historically widened gender and social inequality. The report highlights three findings that will impact the ambitious goal for Africa’s Green Revolution.

Recent interventions and investments to transform food systems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) support the goal of Africa’s Turn: A New Green Revolution for the 21st Century. Triggering agricultural productivity in Africa will rely on water security, but the region is one of the most water-stressed regions in the world— where communities, economies and ecosystems are hard hit by escalating climate stress. Another issue to consider is if the planned second Green Revolution in SSA will level gender equality in the region. Women in Africa contribute significantly to agrifood systems, in many countries even exceeding the global average of female contribution to agriculture. However, this contribution and engagement in agriculture is also said to be what keeps women trapped in poverty because of inequitable access to necessary assets, resources, credit, services and markets.

Inequalities in women’s access to land, infrastructure, services and technology in SSA are well documented, but relatively little is known about their access to and use of water for agrifood systems livelihoods, especially in the context of increasing climate-induced water stress and insecurity. What is well documented though, is that agronomic and technological climate-resilient innovations are often gender blind and overlook the deep-rooted social norms, cultures and values that shape women’s engagement in and gains from agrifood systems.

3M approach reveals risks of unsustainable interventions

Building on feminist theory which emphasizes that inequalities by gender are multidimensional and scalar, a 3M (micro, meso and macro) approach was applied to review literature on gender inequality and social inclusion relating to water for productive use. (e.g., for locally practiced livelihoods and food needs).

This approach allowed us to analyze: (i) how political histories and other drivers shape water investments, infrastructure and outcomes at the macro level; (ii) the gendered dynamics of formal and informal water institutions and cultures at the meso level; and (iii) gender, social and power dynamics that shape access to, use of and gains from water for productive purposes at the micro level.

Climate, colonialism, conflicts, commercialization challenge water access and use

Currently, only 6% of the total area in SSA is cultivated, and only 6% of this cultivated area is irrigated. In other words, 95% of agriculture in Africa is rainfed.

While there is scope for water development at a continent level, there is significant variability across regions—hydrology and climatology reveal that large parts of the region are arid to semi-arid—and water scarcity is expected to escalate due to climate impacts. Increasingly, water stress in the region has been linked to ecological, economic and socio-political crises.

While South Asia was able to get a head start in the 1950s Green Revolution, this did not happen in SSA primarily because colonial governments persisted longer, legitimizing unequal land and water appropriations and directing investments and interventions for productive water use against local populations, livelihoods and food needs.

Our review of literature shows that the colonial legacy of water dispossessions in SSA still foundationally shape water policies and institutional practices, and are hard to reverse. As a result, water-related infrastructure remains exclusionary for smallholder, particularly women, farmers who continue to rely on rainfed agriculture in large parts of the region.

There is also the challenge of more sustainable financing of water resources because of political conflicts, instability, civil wars and governance breakdowns across the region. According to the African Development Bank, an investment of US$64 billion is necessary to achieve water security for all in Africa by 2025. Yet, investment in water currently stands between US$10 and 19 billion.

Climate stress adds to these conflicts. The most recent example was that of extreme heat and drought in the Horn of Africa resulting in severe crop failures, loss of livestock and widespread food insecurity. These are the macro-level issues that shape deeply gendered water inequalities at micro levels in the region, with diverse impacts on SSA’s unique agropastoral farming system.

The challenge in SSA is not just about water availability, but also developing and managing available water resources. The region’s protracted colonial history has resulted in comparatively under-resourced public water institutions and services.

Because of this, there is a tendency to rely on markets and the private sector to transform agrifood and irrigation systems in the region. However, in SSA, privatization and commercialization of agriculture and irrigation in the recent past have resulted in practices of land and water grabs or appropriations by powerful external actors and investors.

This shifting of control of vital resources—water and land to elite individuals or corporate entities—has also compromised customary rights to water for marginalized groups and women (even if not always in their favor).

In SSA as elsewhere, at the meso level, formal and informal water institutions are masculine, and affect exclusionary structures and cultures of water governance. Only 28% women are board members in water institutions across SSA, and only 8% function in senior management roles. While a number of studies point to these meso-level institutional challenges of gender inequality and social inclusion, there is little evidence of interventions designed to address these gaps.

End result: women farmers disproportionately less productive than men

All of the macro- and meso-level challenges we have discussed combine to make outputs from food systems in SSA for women disproportionately less productive than men.

In rainfed agriculture systems increasingly impacted by climate change, women are often the most water insecure, because they lack assets, resources, investments in irrigation infrastructure, services and innovations, and representation in formal and informal water governance. Customary rules and water laws in principle are more egalitarian but, in practice, subject to encroachment by powerful external actors and often shaped by patrilineal norms, traditions and customary practices.

Women are particularly vulnerable to changes in access to and use of water as a result of climate-induced challenges of migration, livelihood adaptation, social unrest and political instability as social norms restrict their mobility, shape disproportionate work burdens, and increase food and livelihood insecurity—especially during periods of social, political and economic crises. This includes outcomes of the rampant land and water grabs discussed.

Key findings

The first key finding from our study is that gender-equitable outcomes for productive water governance, access and use will not be possible unless the overlap of ‘3M challenges’ (interlinked macro, meso and micro) are tackled at scale.

A second key finding is that water for domestic and productive uses are interrelated challenges, and interventions that address one, but not the other will not help address the complexity of water insecurity. While acquiring domestic water in challenging local contexts is mostly a task for women, and this challenge poses key challenges to women’s engagement in productive activities, women also make up more than half of Africa’s smallholder farmers. In other words, water for productive use needs to be targeted equally to women farmers.

A third key finding is that the focus on equitable access to water must look at intersectional vulnerabilities that affect people of various genders, classes, ethnicities and ages.

To conclude, the vision for a 21st-century African Green Revolution must tackle water insecurity, which is shaped by deep-rooted fault lines in the region’s history, economy, policies and politics that impact the livelihoods, economies and well-being of women and marginalized groups. More simply put: if agrifood systems investments and interventions overlook the gendered nature of historical, economic, political and ecological dimensions of water stress and insecurity, there will be no Green Revolution in Africa.

Read the productive water use literature review here.