ASSESSMENT OF GENDER INCLUSIVE WATER MANAGEMENT SCHEME IN THE SUSTAINABLE IBADAN PROJECT, NIGERIA

Abstract

Water is an important environmental resource and it is very essential to life such that it needs to be managed in a sustainable manner. Both gender (male and female) use water but women are mostly hit by its unavailability or scarcity as they have the responsibility of sourcing for water for domestic use in terms of cooking, washing, bathing and storage. Women, who are more hit by water issues, are rarely involved in development of water projects. Ibadan city is selected as case study for the research as the Water Corporation of Oyo State (WCOS) could not supply the required volume of water by the Ibadan residents and Ibadan city, both in its rural and urban settings are endowed with other sources of water like streams and springs which could be harnessed to complement the shortfall from WCOS. One adult in each of the 5 percent of the buildings within 500-meter radius in the 9 host communities of SIP water projects which gave 729 respondents were sampled. Focus Group Discussion (FGD) was equally held in the 9 communities with the members of the Project Management Committee (PMC) or Community-Based Organisation (CBO). Empirical findings revealed that males are dominant (67.6%) of the respondents and they are educated as 90.3% has at least primary school certificate. Apart from the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, preservation of the cultural heritage is an important factor that informed the initiation of the SIP water projects in some of the host communities, especially communities with natural spring projects. The recommended volume of water of 50 litres per person per day was not available to the residents of the host communities of the SIP water projects. The level of involvement of both male and female in stages of development of the SIP water projects was significantly different except at the evaluation stage. Eighty-eight percent of the respondents are aware that the community should be involved the management of the projects and projects that involved more women are better managed. The study therefore recommended that water projects be replicated in more communities, more women should be involved in similar projects and that membership of women in the PMC should be increased to at least 4 out of 9 members.