Measuring What Matters: Women and Productive Water Insecurity

By Mou Rani Sarker, IRRI

Coastal Bangladesh is a unique ‘land-water-scape’ in which water and land are intricately interwoven. Yet this region, crisscrossed by over 900 rivers, is known as a “desert in the deltas”. Water is the pulse of local livelihoods, yet it is increasingly unreliable.  Salinity intrusion, erratic rainfall, and increasing marine aquaculture make freshwater a contested resource. With no freshwater, crops fail, livestock suffer, and men often migrate in distress, leaving women to manage both household and agricultural needs. The water insecurity experiences of marginalized smallholder women farmers are largely undocumented and therefore invisible.

The Agricultural Water InSecurity Experiences (AgWISE) tool was designed to help change the lack of attention to gender in agrifood systems. Building on the Water Insecurity Experiences (WISE) Scales and in consultation with local communities, the AgWISE module includes 12 questions that assess the magnitude of water challenges relating to crops, livestock, and fish —three key livelihoods of millions of smallholder and landless households. The survey takes less than 5 minutes per respondent, and the collated data can be analysed from a gender and social inclusion framework to generate evidence that makes these experiences visible to key decision makers as well as for informing more inclusive water policies and strategies.

Water Insecurity Experiences

Pushpa, a 30-year-old farmer from Satkhira, knows water insecurity all too well. She grows vegetables in her homestead garden and raises cattle and poultry. But by December the water in her pond dries up, and the groundwater from the handpump turns saline. There is no freshwater till the next monsoon. “Most of the vegetables dry up,” she explains. “We buy less food, the children eat fewer vegetables. All my work goes to waste.”

For hundreds of women, this challenge must be faced on their own. For 39-year-old Atifa, “At the start of the dry season, we have no choice. My husband migrates for labour work in Jessore, or else we will die without food. Only God knows how I survive with my children in those days.”

The  AgWISE survey makes the productive water insecurity experiences of millions of women like Pushpa and Atifa visible and relevant to water policy decisions.

Stories matter and can inform policy-relevant evidence 

Productive water insecurity is about the lack of availability, access and use of water that impacts food systems and therefore health, income and wellbeing. It is also equally about psychosocial  stresses – the invisible labour and the emotional toll of water challenges. AgWISE data helps provide evidence of the magnitude of water insecurity, at the same time enabling a focus on the everyday experiences of the people most affected. The quantitative data and the stories they tell have helped shift policy focus towards more inclusive, climate-resilient solutions that meet the needs of Bangladeshi smallholder farmers, more than half of whom are women.

Evidence for Policy Impact

Supported by the CGIAR Asian Mega-Deltas (AMD) Initiative, the AgWISE module was piloted with 800 respondents in coastal Bangladesh. The results were striking:

• 5% of women and 73.7% of men reported insecurity in water for productive use.
• 5% of women and 29% of men reported insecurity in water for domestic use.
• 78% of women and 86% of men reported stress, anxiety, or harassment while trying to secure productive water.
• More than 45% of men and women reported food insecurity and diets that were hardly nutritious.

These results were presented in policy dialogues hosted by the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC). For the first time, the gender-water policy dialogues in Bangladesh focused on women’s productive water needs and not just domestic water challenges, and discussions on climate and water insecurity included challenges faced by growing numbers of women farmers.

Policy Shifts and Scaling Pathways

Evidence from AgWISE is already influencing policy. The tool’s findings inform revisions being made to the National Women Development Policy and discussions are underway with to pilot AgWISE in six climate hotspots through the Gender Responsive Budgeting instrument to ensure that gender and social inclusion are embedded in future water governance. Internationally, AgWISE has been showcased at forums such as the Gobeshona Conference and the FoodWISE Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting on Food and Water Security, with a view to scale AgWISE more globally with multiple other partners.

Know more about AgWISE:

• Measuring Agricultural Water Insecurity Experiences (AgWISE): AgWISE Module and User Guide based on Fieldwork in Bangladesh
• Water Insecurity in Coastal Bangladesh: A Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Perspective
• Enabling equitable access to water resources in coastal Bangladesh
• Towards inclusive canal water management for Resilient Agri-food systems in coastal Bangladesh

Read the full Enabling Environment Success Story: 

Compiled by the CGIAR Scaling for Impact (S4I) program, the “Enabling Environment Success and Failure Stories” is a collection of accounts that chronicles both the successful and unsuccessful efforts in creating a supportive environment for scaling agrifood system innovations. Through compelling narratives that highlight specific challenges, key players, and outcomes, this series is designed to demonstrate how CGIAR actively influences and strengthens these environments to achieve a wider, more impactful reach.