All over the world, women play a critical role in providing, managing and safeguarding water resources. Yet too often, governments ignore women’s lives and perspectives when making decisions about water. Years of experience have shown us that dams and other water infrastructure impact communities in gendered ways.
Why? Dam projects often exacerbate existing power imbalances between women and men.
In many cases, women suffer the negative impacts of dam development disproportionately, facing gender-based violence, insufficient compensation, lost livelihoods, and a lack of access to information, decision-makers and justice systems.
Our Work to Promote Gender Equity
We must solve this disconnect. We partner with women who are standing up against so-called “development” that often destroys homes, families and communities. We work to promote women’s leadership in work on rivers and freshwater resources, improve the state of knowledge on women and rivers, and offer a new set of gender-aware principles to guide the process for any proposed development.
Woman and Rivers Network
In 2019, International Rivers and partners joined together to create the Women and Rivers Network. The Network is committed to protecting free-flowing rivers and the lands, forests and territories they sustain, to ensuring women’s leadership in decision-making at all levels over freshwater resources, and to strengthening alliances and growing our movement – for the future of ourselves as women, our families and communities, our rivers and our planet.
Through the Women and Rivers Network, International Rivers empowers:
- Women’s leadership in decision-making over freshwater resources.
- Economic justice for women who depend on rivers for their livelihoods, and women’s-led livelihood projects that benefit both communities and the environment
- Women-led efforts for energy democracy, including energy policies and projects that ensure access for women and marginalized communities while safeguarding rivers and the environment.
We do this by:
- Providing women river defenders and stewards with opportunities for skill-sharing and capacity building, through convening events, trainings, and sharing tools and resources.
- Providing opportunities for networking and coalition-building among women river defenders and stewards.
- Building and publicizing an evidence-base that demonstrates the critical role of women in water stewardship.
We believe that when women river defenders are equipped to tell the stories of their rivers and communities, and to strategically advocate for them in their local, national, and international governing bodies, we can together transform the way our waters are treated. Together, Women and Rivers seeks to respect and uphold the rights of all rivers and people.
Learn More
Latest News
- Water, Women, and Governance: What are the challenges for gender equity? (Webinar)
On March 30, 2021, at 5 pm, Brasília time, the Water Governance Observatory (OGA), the Institute of Water and Sanitation (Instituto Água e Saneamento, IAS), International Rivers and Fundación Avina… - Op-Ed | Women Bear the Highest Cost of Injustice
By: Pai Deetes, Regional Campaigns and Communications Director, Southeast Asia ProgramInternational Rivers Op-ed originally published on Bangkok Post Soithip, an ethnic Karen-Thai woman from Bang Kloi in the Kaeng Krachan… - A legal challenge to dams on the last free flowing stretch of the Teesta: Ms. Mingma Lhamu, a Sikkimese lawyer up for the challenge!
A young women lawyer working with indigenous Lepcha activists to protect the last free flowing stretch of the Teesta from a destructive dam. By: Ayesha DSouza, South Asia Program Coordinator… - Speaking up for a silenced river
By: Ayesha DSouza, South Asia Program Coordinator & guest writer Melanie Scaife Mayalmit Lepcha grew up listening to the sounds of the Rongyoung River, which flows past her village in…