Community of Practice

Over the past few decades, there have been significant global advances to ensure more equitable gender representation for inclusive decision-making, especially in the education and healthcare sectors. However, in issues related to the Water-Energy-Food Ecosystem Nexus, women’s role remains an underappreciated ‘asset’ in most parts of the world.

Globally, women and girls collectively spend over 200 million hours every day fetching water from far-off wells, rivers, and collection points. This unpaid labor prevents them from participating in and contributing to the formal economy. This is also true in the energy sector where women’s inputs are needed to understand how domestic labor and rural industry consumes and conserves energy in relations to water, food and the environment. A growing body of evidence suggests that increasing access to modern energy services and water management can make a significant difference in women’s lives in terms of their health, time, education and income. Unfortunately, most work in this direction has been in the form of pilot projects and not taken to scale. In this context, women continue to represent an unrealized potential asset for the development of the water and energy sectors.

Nevertheless, more and more projects and programs aimed at developing the Nexus approach include gender aspects as a primary factor for successful implementation. In this regard, the 16^th WEFE Nexus lecture (organized by USAID Central Asia’s Regional Water and Vulnerable Environment Activity) will discuss how to assess gender participation and contributions to water and energy resource management, including the role of women in developing food security and ecosystem services, and which successful practices for involving women in decision-making processes can be applied in Central Asia.

In recent years, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has been working to integrate a gender perspective and increase women’s role in water management through a Women, Water Management, and Conflict Prevent – Phase II. In line with UN Security Council Resolution (S/RES/1325) on Women, Peace, and Security, the project seeks to increase the participation of women professionals in the field of water management by building capacities for gender-sensitive water negotiation and mediation skills as a contribution to conflict prevention and comprehensive security in the region. The project also empowers female water professionals through support to career development and networking activities, equipping them with tools and knowledge for increase participation in policy development and decision-making at all levels. In this context, the Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities established, together with relevant partners (CAREC and SIWI), has created a Network for women water professionals in Central Asia and Afghanistan.

The 16^th WEFE Nexus lecture will focus on the following issues:

• Challenges that impede gender equality across policies, raising the profile of women and making the Nexus sector jobs more attractive to women
• Opportunities for building capacities and institutionalizing gender mainstreaming practices in natural resources management: a specific focus on women and water management
• Interesting examples of gender policy implementation.

The 16^th lecture will be organized as an interactive session, and we are pleased to introduce our distinguished speakers:

• Dr. Saule Ospanova, Senior Environmental affairs Adviser, Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities

Presentations:

• Mainstreaming gender in nexus WEFE, Saule Ospanova
• USAID's Engendering Industries: Vision. Approach. Impact