Tanzania's women help build winning water strategy

Patricia Jones, manager of UUSC's Environmental Justice Program is traveling in Kenya and Tanzania to meet with partner organizations dealing with the global water crisis.

The Tanzania Gender Networking Program developed a strategy to address the problems that women and men face in Tanzania in 1993, the Gender Budget Initiative. TGNP focused on three strategic problems: HIV/AIDS, water, and health.

Since 2001 TGNP formed a country wide coalition that researched the problems, wrote policies to address them, and responded to the changing political situation in Tanzania. The government funding of the water sector has increased by 74 percent as a result of their efforts. In the midst of their work to improve water services, which affected women and girls disproportionately, the government was pressured by the World Bank and the African Development Bank to adopt a policy to privitize the capital's water services.

In 2003 a concession contract was given to City Water for Dar es Salaam's water service. The water services deteriorated to the point where the government canceled the contract for non-performance; City Water filed suit against Tanzania in the fall of 2005. The suit is still pending.

Yet, there is good news. A new government was elected, partially on a platform of improving the water services to guarantee the women's vote. Thanks in part to TGNP's efforts, President Jakaya Kikwete's government took power in January 2006 and announced the appointment of the new water ministry. Bolivia and Tanzania are the only two countries who have a ministry level appointment for water.

President Kikwete's government also has six women ministers and 10 deputy ministers in key positions, such as foreign affairs, finance and constitutional matters, among others. The women and men of TGNP are not resting on their laurels; they are working on a program of action to modernize the water sector to respond to Tanzania's needs, including working on environmental degredation, a human right to water, and a bottled water campaign. As if that were not enough, TGNP has been successful in having the government work on a study to recognise the unpaid labor of women, due out this year.

For TGNP, the effort to get water from distant sources, to clean it, and use it for household chores done primarily by women and girls, will be recognized as the women's contribution to the water services sector. Water may not be free, but if TGNP has anything to say about it, and they do, the time women take to get the water will be taken as their contribution to the water services in the country, and counted in the GDP. The lessons from TGNP are many. Remarkable women, remarkable efforts, with concrete results. Look out world, the women are coming!