The Dynamics of Women’s Participation and Support System in a Community Watershed Project

Authors

  • Rosana P. Mula International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)
  • Suhas P. Wani
  • Abishek Rathore
  • DS Prasad Rao

Keywords:

Women’s participation, community watersheds, support system, social networks, capacity building and spill over

Abstract

Community watershed project provided the platform for women’s participation and enhancement of their socio-economic condition. With improvements in the biophysical condition of the village, women’s livelihood improved. Watershed activities impacted women’s access to resources and expanded their choices due to training and exposure that allowed for building on women’s skills and hands-on experience in the management of resources. Enhancement of social networks and institutional links proved important for maintaining livelihoods and availing new opportunities for collective action and other economic prospects. To harness community involvement especially of women, the institutional architecture of research for development (R4D) initiatives like community watersheds should work to minimize gender asymmetry through capacity building with service complementation, strong social preparation to minimize over dependency, deliberate strategies for spill overs of innovations.

Author Biography

Rosana P. Mula, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)

Am originally from the Philippines but currently working in ICRISAT based in Patancheru, India for the last eight years.Am a social scientist and at the same time coordinating the capacity building unit of the Center.My research involvement includes assessmemt studies and gender-related studies.

References

• Alston, J. (2002). Spillover. The Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 46.

• Bandeira, O. & Rasul, I. (2006). Social networks and technology adoption in northern Ethiopia. Economic Journal 116, 869-210.

• Bantilan, C.S. & Padmaja, R. (2008). Empowerment through social capital build-up: Gender dimensions through technology uptake. Experimental Agriculture 44(1) 61-80 pp.

• Barnett, T. (1993). On Ignoring the Wider Picture: Aids Research and the Sobbing Social Scientist. Institute of Social Studies. Badhuisweg, The Hague. pp. 7-13.

• Boserup, E. (1970). Woman’s Role in Economic Development. London: George Allen and Unwin.

• Buchy, M. & Rai, B. (2009). Do women-only approaches to natural resource management help women? The case of community forestry in Nepal. In: Bernadette P. Resurrecion and Rebecca Elmshirst (eds). Gender and Natural Resource Management. Earthscan London. pp. 99-100.

• Carey, J. W. (1988). Health, social support and social networks in rural Andean community of southern Peru, Journal on Humanities and Social Sciences. 49 (10).

• Carvajal-Escobar, Y., Quintero-Angel, M & Garcia-Vargas, M. (2008). Women’s Role in Adapting to Climate Change and Variability. Advances in Geosciences. European Geosciences Union. 14. 277-280.

• Chamala, S. (1996). Adoption of formal agricultural credit by opinion leaders and other farmers in differentially developed villages of Bangladesh. Savings and Development. 20 (4), 431-445.

• Conley, T. & Udrey, C. (2000). Social learning through networks: The adoption of new agricultural technologies in Ghana. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 83 (3), 668-673.

• Foster, A.D. & Rozenweig, M.R. (1995). Learning by doing and learning from others: Human capital and technical change in agriculture. Journal of Political Economy 103 (6), 117-1209.

• Harris, C. (1990). Kinship. Open University Press, Buckingham

• Jackson, C. (1999). Social exclusion and gender: Does one size fits all? European Journal of Development 11 (1),125-146.

• Kuppannan, P. & Devarajulu, S.K. (2009). Impacts of Watershed Development Programmes: Experiences and Evidences from Tamil Nadu. In Agricultural Economics Research Review, Vol. 22, No. Conference Number (2009), pp. 387-396.

• Massiah, J. (1980). Indicators of women’s participation in development: A preliminary methodological framework for the Caribbean, Paper presented during the Meeting of experts on the indicators of women’s participation in socio-economic development. Rome. p. 22.

• Mula, R. and Niehof, A. (2000). Coping with Mother Nature: Households’ livelihood security and coping strategies in a situation of a continuing disaster in Tarlac, Philippines. BSU Research Journal No.29, Benguet State University, La Trinidad, Benguet, Philippines. pp. 97-113.

• Mula, R., Kesava Rao, A.V.R., SrinivasaRao, C.H. & Wani, S.P. (2007). Lessons and learnings from mid-term evaluation of watersheds: Experiences in God’s own country of Kerala, India. SAT eJournal, 5(1), 1-2

• Pathak, P., Wani, S.P., Ramakrishna,A. & Sahrawat, K. (eds). (2004). ‘Biophysical indicators for assessing the impact of watershed based technologies’ in Bekele Shiferaw and Ade Freeman, ‘Methods for Assessing the Impacts of Natural Management Research’, ICRISAT, Hyderabad.

• Smith, K. (1989). Livelihood and resistance: Peasants and the politics of land in Peru. University of California Press. pp. 16-39.

• Spielman, D.J., Davis, K., Negash, M., & Ayele, G. (2008). Rural Innovation Systems and Networks 2008 IFPRI Discussion Paper 00759. pp. 24-25.

• Wani S.P., Singh H.P., Sreedevi, T.K., Pathak P., Rego T.J., Shiferaw, B., & Shailaja, R.I. (2003). Farmer-Participatory Integrated Watershed Management: Adarsha watershed, Kothapally India, An Innovative and Upscalable Approach. A Case Study. In Research towards Integrated Natural Resources Management: Examples of research problems, approaches and partnerships in action in the CGIAR. (eds. R.R. Harwood and A.H. Kassam) Interim Science Council, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Washington, DC, USA: pp. 123-147.

Downloads

Published

2013-12-14

How to Cite

Mula, R. P., Wani, S. P., Rathore, A., & Rao, D. P. (2013). The Dynamics of Women’s Participation and Support System in a Community Watershed Project. Asian Journal of Humanities and Social Studies, 1(5). Retrieved from https://ajouronline.com/index.php/AJHSS/article/view/511

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 5 (2013): December 2013

Section

Articles

License

  • Papers must be submitted on the understanding that they have not been published elsewhere (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review, or thesis) and are not currently under consideration by another journal published by any other publisher.
  • It is also the authors responsibility to ensure that the articles emanating from a particular source are submitted with the necessary approval.
  • The authors warrant that the paper is original and that he/she is the author of the paper, except for material that is clearly identified as to its original source, with permission notices from the copyright owners where required.
  • The authors ensure that all the references carefully and they are accurate in the text as well as in the list of references (and vice versa).
  • Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
  • The journal/publisher is not responsible for subsequent uses of the work. It is the author's responsibility to bring an infringement action if so desired by the author.