Presentation made by Mercy Dikito-Wachtmeister, Senior Officer-Global Initiatives at GWP, World Water Week, August 26-31, 2012, Stockholm, Sweden

1. The AMCOW Gender Strategy.
Concrete Actions: Advancing the Integration of
Gender, Water, Food Security.
Mercy Dikito-Wachtmeister
Senior Officer Global Initiatives: GWPO
27 August, Stockholm Water Week
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2. The AMCOW Gender Strategy
 In June 2011, AMCOW launch of Strategy for Mainstreaming Gender in Africa’s
Water Sector,
 Result of 3-year participatory process involving stakeholders in 40 countries, -
clearly most effective and consultative process ever undertaken in Africa.
 The GWP multistakeholder platform in Africa participated in this process, Simon
Thuo facilitated this on the GWP side.
 GWP welcomes and supports the AMCOW Gender Strategy
 Provides Pan African framework, informs , GWP Gender Strategy, - launch Dec
2012
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3. AMCOW Gender Strategy and Role
of Stakeholders
 It invites the inputs of multiple stakeholders in line with their
mandates and expertise
 A partner can :
-work to demonstrate approaches to economic empowerment through access to
water for productive uses (objective 3?),
-undertake analytical work to build evidence on the role of gender in food
security (objective 4),
-support training (objective 5) or work collectively with WSP and countries on an
M&E framework for AMCOW, etc.
 Emphasis is partnership rather than doing things alone, importantly
so that the best practices are institutionalized and go to scale.
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4. GWP
 GWP is a network of institutions that subscribe to the integrated approach of
water resources management
 Institutions are NGOS, government departments , research institutions, private
sector companies,, etc.
 Institutions in a country -Country Water Partnership; in a region - Regional
Water Partnership.
 The GWP fora at various levels facilitate multistakeholder dialoguing and
partnering for action at various levels, in the same way we are doing here at the
global level.
 GWP work in Africa and other regions adds value to regional and Pan African
process through multistakeholder forum.
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5. The Focus of the Session: INDICATORS
 Our side event is about CONCRETE actions.
 AMCOW strategy built on partnering, - our side event is partnering to
operationalize and concretise the pillars of the AMCOW gender strategy -
INDICATORS for gender, water and food security
 AMCOW gender strategy is at early stages of implementation, - one of the most
important tools in pushing implementation is the existence of key minimum
target and shared indicators for benchmarking purposes against which countries
can jointly report on gender, water and food security –
 With targets, we can develop indicators for joint learning on key issues, on
monitoring.
 Our interest is multiple water infrastructure and uses, women need water for
both production and domestic chores- our focus is holistic - livelihood approach
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6. INDICATORS Focus conti….
 There is considerable work on indicators by partners/organisations, wealth
of knowledge exists. Our session is about joint learning around indicators
 Its about pulling together and synthesizing a lot of work that has already
gone on in various organisations,
 It pulls partners experiences together for more consensus on broad targets
on what is meant by gender equality concretely in the water arena.
 We are thus creating a forum for more collaboration on this area through
the AMCOW gender strategy, we are putting procedures to do this in place.
 If we don’t operationalise matters this way, gender equality becomes lip
service,”Working with gender issues obliges organisations to set their own
houses in order” (Sweetman (1997)
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7. Evolution of Gender Sensitive Indicators
 Before 1970s, most attention paid to economic indicators- development focus
economic growth and infrastructure development. Neoclassical theories!
 Aid philosophies moved towards human-centred development and basic needs
1970s and early 1980s- "social indicators emerged – but not gender sensitive
 Mid-1980s- focus on indicators of empowerment and participation & gender
sensitive indicators- gender-sensitivity established as a necessary condition of
development efforts- but only in some areas
 Currently gender indicators assumed even great importance in donor agency
work (eg USAID, World Bank, IWMI, IFPR , FAO etc ) and NGO work
 Global trends: GDI, GEM, African Gender Development Indicator, Women in
Agriculture Empowerment Index, etc
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8. Why Gender Targets and Indicators?
Reasons include:
 Concretising gendered actions, -taking gender equality seriously-
defining goals/targets and road maps for change, and monitoring
progress (process and outcomes)
 Holding governments /institutions accountable- key tool of accountability
 Advising policy makers and program managers, enabling better planning
and actions for gender equality
 Clarifying messages for gender changes and advocacy
 Generating evidence (research) for policy influence
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9. Which Methods and Methodologies?
 Not everything can be counted, and not everything that is counted,
counts (Einstein).
 Quantitative (‘hard’ facts to build case for addressing gender
differential, trends, comparison)
 Qualitative methods (richer insights by indepth examination of social
processes and dynamics, unravelling causal relationships)
 Participatory approaches- men and women should be agents of own
development-
 Combination of both Quantitative and qualitative +participatory
 More work has been done on quantitative than qualitative indicators.
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10. Types of Indicators
There are different types of gender-sensitive indicators including:
 Input indicators , - concern resources devoted to gender in
workplans projects/programmes
 Process indicators, -achievement during implementation, track
gender progress
 Output indicators- identify intermediate results for gender targets,
 Outcome - longer-term gender related results of the project,
 Impact indicators- describe actual gender-related change arising
from interventions
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11. For M &E -This means keeping your eyes wide
open
Being attentive along the
journey is as important as the
destination

12. Thank you!
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