Effective gender mainstreaming in water management for sustainable livelihoods : from guidelines to practice

This report summarizes and synthesizes the main findings of the project. It starts with a description of the background and process, in terms of activities, of the project. The different outcomes and write-ups of these activities are consequently used to further refine and sharpen the diagnosis, i.e. the existence of gaps between intentions and practice in gender mainstreaming in water. This diagnosis is linked to a brief discussion of different definitions of gender mainstreaming, and of different ways of achieving it, a discussion that helps frame the rest of the report. The following sections roughly follow the questions formulated in the original project proposal and use the information gathered in the project to answer these questions. This effort starts with an analysis of why gender mainstreaming is not happening in water management. It continues with an analysis and discussion of the adequacy and relevance of the available knowledge base and then proceeds with conclusions and recommendations on how to facilitate gender mainstreaming in water management, written in the form of a minimum agenda expressing the consensus among the consulted group of experts. In the last section a list can be found of the separate outcomes of the different project activities. This section also provides some insights in planned and possible follow-up steps to further develop and implement the proposed minimum agenda.