CHAPTER 1: THE GENDER-ENVIRONMENT NEXUS
Percentage distribution of the water collection burden, in sub-Saharan African households without piped water on the premises, 2006-2009
Figure 1.3: Percentage distribution of the water collection burden in Sub-Saharan African households without piped water on the premises, 2006-2009
Boys 6%
Girls 9%
Men 23%
Women 62%
Source: UN Women (2015) Women and girls are the primary water carriers for their families in sub-Saharan Africa
Linked to this is the need to “lift the roof off the household” (Seager 2014b) in order to shape our understanding of (and responses to) where change can happen. Almost all the available evidence, much of it reported in the GGEO, makes clear that, within a household, resource use, priorities and decisions are gender-differentiated (Himmelweit et al. 2013; Bittman et al. 2003; Haddad eds. et al.1997). Household-based, environmentally relevant decisions and behaviours are negotiated, often unequally, between women and men inside the household on matters such as water use, division of labour, energy-source choices, or financial allocations for agricultural adaptation. Intra-household dynamics are important in terms of resources and their use, conservation, consumption, and the ways women and men (may) act as agents of change. Many environmentally consequential decisions made within households are filtered through gender norms and roles (UN Women 2014).
Inequality and gaps in gender inclusion
Out of a world population of 7.4 billion, some 836 million people still live in extreme poverty and many more do not have access to basic services or social pro- tection (UN 2016). Although rates of extreme poverty have been cut by more than half since 1990, one in five people in developing regions still live on less than
US$1.25 a day and millions more do not earn much above this amount. In addition, many people risk slip- ping back into poverty (UN 2016). Economic growth needs to be gender-inclusive to provide sustainable jobs for women and men and promote gender equal- ity. However, recurrent economic and financial crises, on-going armed conflict and civil strife, growing food insecurity, epidemics of infectious diseases, and esca- lating biodiversity loss, climate change and occurrenc- es of natural disasters have intensified inequalities and risks everywhere. Each of these has different impacts on women and men, including on the realization of women’s rights and empowerment (UN Women 2015; UN Women 2014; UNDP 2012).
In many places in the world women’s ability to fully par- ticipate in decision-making within different economic and environmental sectors is limited despite their signif- icant role in production and consumption. In part, their lack of empowerment stems from reduced bargaining power within communities and households. Bargain- ing power is determined by a number of variables, in- cluding a person’s sex, age, family structure, number of children, education, financial assets, and control or ownership of land. The specific mix of factors contrib- uting to women’s influence can vary considerably from one region to another.
The 2000-2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) promoted gender equality and women’s em-
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