anthropologyworks: Call for: conference presentation proposals – Global Water and Gender Conference

A Gender Conference will be hosted by the Water Research Commission together with the Department of Water Affairs, the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), the Women for Water Partnership (WfWP) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Significant growth has occurred in the awareness of gender hierarchies in water development, management and utilisation over the past twenty years. In response, policy makers, governments and in particular the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) have translated this awareness into an unambiguous call for the intersect of class, race and gender equality within these water sectors. Nevertheless, gender gaps have widenedand the inclusion of women in decision making about water development and management at all levels is still lagging behind, while research on the different gendered uses of water remains limited and fragmented. Added to this, there has been an uninspiring pace of both policy and civil society advocacy for gender equality in the water sector; the outcome of this can be seen in the limited dialogue which still occurs between grassroots movements, civil society, policy makers, practitioners and researchers. A scarcity of funding has further exacerbated this dilemma, while an urgent need to increase the limited research skills capacity in this sector has also been identified. To address these shortcomings to facilitate the progress of innovative solutions to the gender, class and race divides, the Water Research Commission of South Africa, in collaboration with the Department of Water Affairs, AMCOW and Women for Water Partnership (WfWP) has taken the initiative to organise a global conference on gender in water, which is scheduled for 19 – 21 February 2014 in East London, South Africa. Participants should submit Abstracts and proposals in English by 15 September 2013, directly via the conference website, by clicking on this link. The best papers, conference proceedings and key messages will be published internationally as a book.