Since August, gender training has been underway in all Amazonian countries as part of the implementation project of the Strategic Actions Program (PAE) for the integrated and sustainable management of the Amazon Basin, executed by the ACTO.

Considering the fundamental role of women in environmental management and the importance of their equal participation in decision-making related to water resources management, the training sessions are enhancing countries’ capacities to plan, monitor, and evaluate the incorporation of gender issues into the PAE implementation, as well as to deepen regional cooperation in this area.

The participants are professionals working in the field of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and other national agents interested in learning about mainstreaming gender perspective and being able to effectively incorporate it into projects, programs, and policies.

The skills acquired in the training will enable them to work towards promoting and establishing gender equity, contributing to ensuring that men and women have equal access to and control over natural resources, that women’s participation in natural resource governance is substantive, and that there is equitable distribution of socioeconomic benefits.

Women and Water

Women’s involvement in water management mainly occurs in the context of the care economy. Whether in the field of human consumption, where they are responsible for personal and household hygiene, or in the production of food, medicines, and fibers, they collect, store, and manage water in an exemplary manner. They use it rationally and efficiently, recycling it and seeking to protect it from contamination.

This managerial capacity of women has a positive impact on agriculture, the economic activity most dependent on water, which uses 70% of all water consumed worldwide for irrigation. According to UN Women, despite having less access to resources – land, seeds, training, and new technologies – and less control over their time, being excluded from decision-making processes, and experiencing gender-based violence, their productive strength ensures that family farming and the cultivation of essential products have more sustainable irrigation systems.

Considering that women are responsible for half of the world’s food production and represent an average of 43% of agricultural labor in developing countries, according to 2018 data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), what would be achieved if they had guaranteed access to resources and knowledge and were consulted on infrastructure or water management policies?

According to projections by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), family and peasant production incomes would increase by an average of 25%, agricultural production would grow between 2.5% and 4%, and hunger would be reduced between 12% and 17% in Latin American countries.

Training Methodology

The training offers participants theoretical-practical methodologies and tools aimed at incorporating a gender perspective into PAE actions, with the necessary cross-cutting approach throughout each project cycle.

“The facilitation methodology I use is based on transformative dialogue focused on action-reflection-action and on learning by doing. During practical exercises, I encourage groups to work collaboratively, applying the tools presented to a specific case and considering all phases of a project, from diagnosis/analysis to monitoring/evaluation. At the end of the exercise, a representative from each group presents the results to all participants,” explains Sara María Gómez Rivera, Gender Equity specialist and facilitator of the training.

The main premise being conveyed in the training sessions is that to mainstream gender perspective into policies, plans, programs, and projects, it is necessary to work participatively, involving various actors, including, above all, beneficiaries, with special attention to listening to women’s voices, their needs, dreams, and opinions, allowing projects to be co-constructed and co-implemented in the territory with diverse actors, which will increase their chances of success.

Gender Scanner

The central tool of the training is the Gender Mainstreaming Scanner created by ECLAC and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) in 2021. The Scanner can be tactically applied in the various phases of plans, programs, and projects, such as diagnosis/analysis, formulation/design, implementation/execution, and monitoring/evaluation.

This tool provides an instant X-ray of the project regarding its gender approach and allows identifying whether it is blind, limited, or gender-sensitive, and even if it is gender-transformative.

The training also introduces social innovation tools that operate at the operational level – for example, Design Thinking and the Kanban Board – and can be used to mainstream gender perspective into each project cycle.

Gender Equality Group

The various audiences of the completed training sessions are coming together to form a gender equality group within the framework of the Amazon Basin Project of the ACTO. This newly created collaboration ecosystem is an important instance in the process of consolidating the integration of the gender perspective into PAE actions.

The gender group, which will be joined not only by participants from future workshops but also by new interested actors, will allow mutual support in the implementation of plans, projects, policies, and programs of IWRM through the exchange of experiences, information, and opinions.

It will be a space for integration, promoting new initiatives, open to participation and feedback, from which progress can be made in promoting gender equity in the implementation of the PAE and for the sustainability of water resources in the Amazon Region and the increased resilience of its populations to climate change.