UN-Water/Africa and ECA seminar on mainstreaming gender in Africa’s water activities opens
By Saskia Ivens with Yinka Adeyemi, Communication Officer, ECA
09 March 2004

About 65 participants are taking part in a UN-Water/Africa one-day Seminar on Gender and Water Resources Management in Africa which opened today in Pretoria.

Co-organized by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Sub regional Office for Southern Africa, the seminar is aimed at translating the gender commitments made by the African Minister’s Council on Water at PANAFCON December 2003 to implementable actions and to define responsibilities for all partners involved in water

Participants, who are gender and water experts from Governments, inter-governmental organizations, NGOs, research institutions and UN agencies, will work on a 10-year action plan for mainstreaming gender in Africa’s water policies, programmes and projects, to coincide with the International Decade for Action from 2005-2015 ‘Water for Life’.
Special attention to gender mainstreaming in water management around the globe is needed because of the often-neglected central role women play in domestic and productive water management.

Prior to the seminar today, UN-Water/Africa, ECA’s subregional office in Lusaka and its Development Information Services Division held two workshops on the African Water Information Clearing House and the implementation of the integrated water resources management for the Southern African Region.

The workshop on African Regional Water Clearing House (AWICH) taught the participants to create metadata records using real data brought by them. The second workshop trained the participants in integrated water resources management. These activities are part of the “Water 4 Life in Southern Africa” week initiated by UN Water/Africa.

:: Statement by Mr. Dickson Mzumara, Director of the ECA Office in Southern Africa.

:: Statement by H.E. Buyelwa Sonjica, Minister for Water Affairs and Forestry, South Africa