Monica Greens blogg

Water is highly related to gender and the unequal situation between men and women in the world. According to statistics from the UN:

In rural Benin, girls ages between 6 and14 spend an average of one hour a day collecting water compared with 25 minutes for their brothers.

In Malawi, women consistently spend four to five times longer than men on collecting water.

In Africa, 90% of the work of gathering water and wood, for the household and for food preparation, is done by women. Providing access to clean water close to the home can dramatically reduce women’s workloads, and free up time for other economic activities. For their daughters, this time can be used to attend school. 

Women have other roles to play than this, when it comes to water management. Very often, it has in fact become increasingly accepted that women should play an important role in water management and that this role could be strengthened through gender mainstreaming. 

As the Vice President of the Middle East Committee, the water situation in the Middle East region is for me close at heart.  Water resources issue in the Middle East has for a long time been a very important thing, and a new start of a possible cooperation could be based on negotiations and built on water resource management principles, building cooperation instead of confrontation and integration instead of fragmentation. Negotiation would result in safer access to sustainable water resources and a comprehensive peace.

In IPU 132a session the second Committee we disscuss this issiu