WATER PRIVATISATION AND GENDER
background information

NO TO PRIVATISATION!

Access to clean water is a right –or at least it used to be. In 1991, after the collapse of the Arusha Declaration of Ujamaa na Kujitegemea (Socialism and Self-Reliance), Tanzania’s government introduced of a water policy that was supposed to ensure every citizen access to clean water not more than 400 metres from where they lived by 2002. However, under the combined pressures of globalization and the forced introduction of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), capitalism and liberal economics became the guiding principles for all state enterprises. Water lost its priority status.

Economic liberalization meant the privatization of many key sectors and industries. In some areas water was privatized and foreign investors came to control this essential resource. Self-Reliance was traded for unreliable service and high prices for a product that many knew as free. In 2005, Dar-es-Salaam ended its contract with City Water in order to attempt to rehabilitate the water sector.

However, the situation of a severe lack of sources and access has meant that the country is still unable to provide clean and easily-accessible water for all citizens. Tanzania’s vision for water states that by 2025 every citizen will have clean and safe water. The Poverty Reduction Strategy Plan (2000-2005) established that water was the basic right of every human and especially for those in rural areas. Its main goal was to increase the supply and availability of clean and safe water on the national level from 48.5 percents in 2000 to 55 percents in 2003 However, due to the ongoing problems of water institutionalization, activists are worried that profit, and not national wellbeing, will continue to motivate the industry.

THE ROLE OF GENDER IN WATER POLICIES:
YES TO WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION!

Community participation is necessary to formulate a new water policy. Women and men need to engage in planning, operating, and implementing water policies. With privatization there is no room for community participation and women are the last to be heard. Even without privatization, there is no active plan to ensure that women’s positions and participation in the water are extended throughout public and private projects.

Marginalization is not the only reason women need to participate in water policy formation and implementation. Women need to have an active role in water policy making because they are the group most affected by water policies as the primary fetchers of water and as caregivers of children and of family members with HIV/Aids.

Home care for HIV/Aids patients increases the burden of looking for water in their families because they need the most for their cleaning and consumption. According to a study carried out by Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP) on the time and financial cost of nursing patients with HIV/Aids, time taken up by searching for water had drastically increased since before the patient required care.

Some of households expressed their concerns about rising costs of water. One family said that gathering water in a household caring for a person living with Aids cost about 4,500/= a day --about 43% of the average daily income based on per capita GDP (Source: 2005 estimates of the CIA World Factbook). The same study revealed that water from taps is not enough to serve an entire community given the high prevalence of HIV/Aids, especially in rural areas.

In rural areas, poor infrastructure means that there tends to be even less division of labour between men and women in fetching water and cleaning it for drinking and bathing.

Women’s involvement in designing and implementing national water policy is necessary. Join TGNP’s campaign to lobby for women’s participation now!

For more information, contact TGNP at info@tgnp.org.
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