Examines the socio-economic status of women in Nepal, including issues of education, gender-based violence, access to political and administrative decision-making, and rural infrastructure, with the aims of eliminating gender inequality and empowering women.
India's irrigated agriculture sector has been basic to India's economic development and poverty alleviation. One of India's major achievements is its rapid expansion of irrigation and drainage infrastructure. However, the major emphasis on development has been achieved at a cost. The importance put on new construction has diverted attention away from the need to ensure the quality, productivity, and sustainability of the services. Further, a governmental subsidy based approach has been used and this has resulted in irrigation and drainage services which, while enabling significantly higher productivity than from non-irrigated lands, are well below their potential. 'The Irrigation Sector' discusses directions for future growth, the framework for reform, and the reform agenda.
This research has its roots in de evidence that was produced in the eighties on the detrimental impact of irrigation projects on gender equality. Why it is that irrigation development negatively affects gender equality? Out of an explicit feminist commitment, the linkages between gender (in-equality and irrigation development are explored from two different angles. The first angle consists of a critical discussion of current theories that underlie irrigation planning and policies. In many ways, these theories make it difficult to properly recognize and accommodate gender relations. At the same time they are based on an incomplete and often inadequate understanding of these relations. The second angle consists of a number of case studies undertaken in different countries (Nepal, Sri Lanka, Niger, Burkina Faso) to empirically explore how and where gender relations affect and are affected by irrigation management policies and practices.