The role of the GWA

The Gender and Water Alliance
The Gender and Water Alliance (GWA) was established to address the problem that a failure to take adequate account of the often diverse concerns, experiences and roles of women and men in any given setting is seriously hampering the effectiveness of work being undertaken in the water supply and sanitation sector.

These are issues that cannot be "added on" to a research project, education programme or water supply scheme at a late stage, but need to be at the heart of the formulation of any initiative from the very beginning -- an approach that has become known as "gender mainstreaming".

Through the GWA programme, member organisations strive to improve the practice of gender mainstreaming in the work done by themselves and their partners. As there are no blueprint solutions to gender mainstreaming, the learning by doing strategy builds sustainable capacity, knowledge and skill among the Alliance members, their partners and the communities they work with. It encourages mentoring relationships between members from the South and North; it promotes critical and applied thinking on gender concepts and approaches and builds an understanding of the issues among everyone involved in the work, which is key to promoting effective practice of gender mainstreaming.

Through the pooled experience and skills contained in this network, the GWA offers a mix of information and knowledge sharing activities such as:

• electronic conferencing
• a website
• advocacy leaflets and video
• annual reports
• capacity building and training opportunities, and
• pilot projects

Structure

The Alliance was launched as an open network at the 2nd World Water Forum in 2000, and now includes 232 organizations and individuals from 56 countries. It is governed by an independent steering committee and serviced by a secretariat.

More information is available on the GWA website.