Women's access to safe water - In times of change and uncertainty - A case study from Mangapwani in Zanzibar, Tanzania

Abstract

The main concern of this thesis is to find out how the potable and safe water situation in one village in Zanzibar affects the lives of the women and how the women experience the situation. The focus is on what kinds of constraints there are on a local and administrative level that may affect women’s access to water. The current UN definition of access to water is in its definition an abstract rough measuring of distance and time spent. Research within the field show that access to water is more complicated as there are several constraining factors that affect whether water is accessible or not. On a global level there has been a policy shift within the water sector during the latest decades towards market-based solutions where water is being recognised as an economic good. As an effort to counter balance this process the UN has stated water to be a human right. Still, the neo-liberalisation of water projects in developing countries has led to structures of decentralising water management to the communities, tariff implementation, and cost recovery. Feminist critics have illuminated how, women as an effect of these implementations, have been pushed further to the margins even though they are considered important stakeholders because of their role as water managers in the majority of the developing countries. By examining the women’s situation regarding water in Mangapwani, Zanzibar we try to tie the complicated knots of access to water and the current neo-liberalisation of water policies to a local reality. Mangapwani consists of a poor population who are facing structural changes within the water supply system where an economic view on water is being applied. The women are central in this aspect as they are both responsible for collecting and managing water and hold a vulnerable position in the society. In order to address the purpose of this project a field study has been conducted in Mangapwani, a village area along the western coast of Unguja island in Zanzibar outside Tanzania Mainland. To fulfil the aim a qualitative approach was taken and semi-structured interviews; individual and group interviews, participatory observation and data collection through GPS were carried out. The GPS data analysis was done with GIS (Geographical Information Systems). An important finding of this study is that the water project initiated in Mangapwani that aims to increase the access to water might actually lead to a decrease in access to water because of the low paying capacity of the poorer sections of the population. Another finding is that the current definition of access to water is narrow. With the on-going neo-liberalisation of water management more effort is needed to evaluate how the impacts of water as an economic good will affect poor women’s access to water.