Improving access to irrigation may provide benefits that go beyond enhancing agricultural production.

 

Agrifood systems are a major source of employment and livelihoods. As of 2019, 36% of working women and 38% of working men were engaged in agrifood systems. In some regions, women’s involvement has been even higher. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 66% of employed women were reported to work in agrifood systems in 2023 compared to 60% of men. In Southern Asia, the 2023 reported figures rose to 71% of working women compared to 47% of men. The proportion of women working in agricultural production is higher in the poorest countries, where alternative livelihoods are not available. Often, women are unpaid family workers or casual workers in agriculture. On average, in 2023, women were reported to earn 18.4% less than men in wage employment in agriculture. Furthermore, women often have less control than men over the outcomes of their labour in agriculture. The degree to which they can decide on how to benefit from what they produce depends largely on intra-household power dynamics, which may be restricted by gender or social norms. Access to water is essential for agricultural production, particularly in dry areas where increasing water insecurity due to climate change and environmental degradation threatens livelihoods, food security and nutrition. Access to and management of water in agriculture can be highly gendered and influenced by discriminatory sociocultural norms and other social factors such as age, ethnicity or class. Women and girls in rural areas may face greater obstacles to accessing and controlling water for irrigation, livestock, aquaculture and domestic use compared to men in many areas. Furthermore, even when women are involved in water management in agriculture, their role is often not recognized, limiting their power-sharing and economic potential. “Employment comprises all persons of working age who during a specified brief period, such as one week or one day, were in the following categories: a) paid employment (whether at work or with a job but not at work); or b) self-employment (whether at work or with an enterprise but not at work)”. Gender inequalities in access to land management of water resources in agriculture can negatively affect girls’ access to education, women’s livelihoods and empowerment, and household health and nutrition. These inequalities exacerbate women’s exposure to food insecurity. Globally, women face higher levels of food insecurity and malnutrition than men. This gender gap widened considerably during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, then it narrowed from 2022 to 2023. New estimates show a widening of the gap between 2023 and 2024 (from 1.3 to 1.9 percentage points in the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity and from 0.6 to 0.8 for severe food insecurity). In terms of food security, no progress seems to have been achieved, as the gender gap in 2024 was about the same as it was in 2015, when the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was launched.

Significant differences persist at the regional level. For example, the Latin America and the Caribbean region has the largest differences in the prevalence of food insecurity between men and women in the world (5.3 percentage points at the moderate or severe level and 1.3 percentage points at the severe level, in 2024). In country disparities also exist; food insecurity is more prevalent in rural areas than in urban areas. Out-migration is reshaping gender roles in agriculture. In many countries, there has been a rise in female-headed households because of male migration. The impact of migration on women’s empowerment (measured as decision-making in agricultural production, control over income, group membership and workload) depends on factors such  as household land ownership, women’s position within the household and whether the household receives remittances. For example, in Tajikistan, “women in households with a migrant are more likely to be involved in decisions in productive activities on the household farm, control income, own assets and achieve workload balance than women in non-migrant households”. And in Egypt, women are not always formally recognized as legitimate farm managers or decisionmakers, limiting their access to land and water rights, credit and services.

Access to land and water is strongly interconnected. In many contexts, water tenure depends on legally recognized land or forest rights. Therefore, land rights may be critical in determining women’s ability to access, use and manage water resources. Fewer than 15% of agricultural landholders were reported to be women in 2018. Between 2009 and 2023, data on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 5.a.1 showed that in 43 of the 49 countries reporting, fewer women owned agricultural land compared to men, with the share of men with ownership at least twice that of women in almost half the countries. Even when women owned land, they were less likely than men to hold legal documentation or to have their names formally registered, and they tended to own significantly smaller plots. Customary norms and legal frameworks in land and water tenure often hinder progress in gender equality. SDG Indicator 5.a.2 tracks where the legal framework (including customary law) guarantees women’s equal rights to land ownership and/or control. The latest data show that only 17% of 84 surveyed countries provide high or very high levels of protection of women’s land rights; 24% of countries offer medium levels of protection; while a striking 59% of countries provide low, very low or no protection at all. Legal protections for women’s land rights vary significantly by region. Asia, Europe and Latin America generally have stronger inheritance laws and spousal consent requirements, while regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa and Western Asia lag behind. With regard to water tenure, water laws, in many cases, remain gender-blind, lacking provisions that account for the specific needs, roles and disadvantages of women. This invisibility can reinforce and perpetuate existing gender inequalities and discriminatory cultural norms. An assessment of 39 community-based water tenure regimes9 found communities’ legal rights to fresh water depended on their recognized land or forest rights in over 60% of community-based water tenure regimes. In addition, laws regulating community-based freshwater rights were typically gender-blind, with only one-third protecting women’s specific rights to participate in freshwater governance. Formal ownership of land and water resources does not guarantee control, especially when use rights (access and withdrawal) are distinct from control rights (management, exclusion and alienation). For decades, women have frequently held weaker use rights and lacked control rights, constraining decision-making authority. A gender-responsive water assessment conducted in Egypt showed prevailing gender and social norms have significantly influenced women’s access to and control over land and water resources. According to 2014 data, although Egyptian law and the Islamic sharia grant women the right to own land, only 5% of agricultural land in Egypt was owned by women. The disparity was largely due to prevailing socio-cultural inheritance norms, which resulted in women receiving significantly smaller shares than men in inheritance divisions, despite their legal entitlement. 

  Cultural norms that restrict women’s land and water ownership can constrain their capacity to access water technologies, engage in training opportunities or participate in water user associations (WUAs) and other irrigation management institutions, thus reinforcing their exclusion from decision-making processes in water governance and control over income. Women’s water tenure security can improve when interventions adopt gender-transformative approaches to challenge patriarchal values. These include: ensuring joint registration of marital rights; documenting and demarcating land for female-headed households; closing gender gaps in knowledge of land rights; establishing robust enforcement mechanisms; reforming inheritance laws; strengthening women’s associations; setting legal quotas for women’s participation in land and resource governance bodies with training for meaningful engagement; and mobilizing collective action for equal access to services and local institutions that support land use.

Customary norms and legal frameworks in land and water tenure often hinder progress in gender equality

In 2023, the gender gap in land productivity between female- and male-managed farms of the same size was estimated at 24%, largely due to unequal access to resources such as water, technology, credit or extension services. Women farmers may face significant impediments in accessing digital agricultural technology – including for irrigation and water management – thus restricting their employment opportunities and constraining the full potential of agricultural systems worldwide. For example, in the Near East and North Africa region, although digital infrastructure has developed considerably over the past two decades, there is still a pronounced rural–urban and gender digital divide. Key obstacles include high cost and limited affordability, insufficient knowledge and technical skills (education and literacy rates are particularly low among rural women) and discriminatory social norms. This digital divide can constrain women’s access to efficient irrigation technology and water information, as well as finance. Many studies have highlighted the importance of promoting people-centred design processes, facilitating gender and marginalized group responsiveness and providing digital skills training in a way that is responsive to the needs of marginalized groups. Data gaps do not allow a worldwide assessment of women’s access and management of irrigation. However, case studies point to persistent inequalities. A comparative analysis of gender-based differences in agricultural productivity using household surveys showed female-managed farms were generally less likely to have access to irrigation than malemanaged or jointly managed farms in countries like Ethiopia and Guatemala. However, in Cambodia and Peru, female-managed farms were more likely to be irrigated. In Uganda, no gender gap was observed, but overall irrigation rates were extremely low. Timeseries data from five Sub-Saharan African countries suggested gender disparities were more pronounced where irrigation infrastructure was more widespread, as in Ethiopia and Malawi. Despite these variations, the overall use of irrigation remained low across most of the countries studied, and there was little improvement in gender gaps over time. A study conducted in Ghana and Zambia showed there have been gender differences related to the adoption of small-scale private irrigation technology. Female-headed households adopted irrigation at a rate of around two-thirds that of male-headed households. Female-headed households also tended to rely on labour-intensive manual irrigation techniques, such as hauling water with buckets, whereas male-headed households more often used motorized pumps and river diversion. Land ownership emerged as a key enabler. Women who owned plots showed higher adoption rates and greater decisionmaking power on irrigated land. Constraints such as heavy workloads, domestic responsibilities, and less access to finance, equipment, electricity and markets have limited women’s capacity to transition into irrigated agriculture. An analysis conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Global Information System on Water and Agriculture (AQUASTAT) using agricultural census data from European countries has highlighted the gender disparities in access to irrigation in the recent past. In 2013, the percentage of irrigated land managed by women was significantly lower than that managed by men, and women operated smaller agricultural holdings, including those equipped for irrigation.

Women’s participation in integrated water resources management (IWRM) and governance remains low. As of 2023, out of 191 countries, only 27% reported high levels of women’s formal representation or regular consultation in water governance processes. Such a low level of representation can limit women’s ability to influence how water resources are allocated and managed, and may reinforce gender power imbalances in agricultural production. Women’s participation in WUAs, river basin organizations or irrigation committees has generally been low. Women’s exclusion from decision-making in agricultural water management is rooted in gender-based impediments and unequal power relations that are structural, institutional and socio-cultural. One major constraint lies in the membership rules of WUAs that exclude women. These rules often require individuals to be formal landowners or heads of households, which are criteria more commonly met by men due to prevailing patterns of land tenure and inheritance. As a result, many women are not considered eligible for membership, despite their active role in agricultural production and water management. For example, in Argentina, Azerbaijan and Ethiopia, land tenure has determined women’s participation in WUAs . Except for in female-headed households, women often lack legal ownership of the household plots they cultivate in those countries. Influence is also unequal, as WUAs often allocate votes in proportion to the size of titled holdings within the service area. This is a rule that can disadvantage members with smaller or fewer registered parcels of land. In addition, lower literacy rates (due to limited access to education and restrictive cultural norms) among rural women can reduce their ability to engage in formal institutional processes. Lack of time, due to women’s disproportionate responsibility for unpaid domestic and care work, livestock production and other agricultural activities may also restrict women’s involvement in community-level governance structures. Furthermore, social norms that confine women’s roles and mobility to the household or nearby fields can marginalize them from participating. In the particular case where WUAs are newly established as part of irrigation management transfer programmes, exclusion is often reinforced by planners’ preconceived notions of who the users are. These programmes have frequently linked participation with canal maintenance or infrastructure rehabilitation, which are activities seen as men’s work.

Climate variability and change, and environmental degradation, can exacerbate gender inequalities, particularly in rural areas of low- and middle-income countries. The impacts of extreme climatic events, such as floods or droughts, are not experienced equally across populations. A study of 109,341 rural households in 24 countries, indicated that floods can increase the income gap between poor and non-poor households by more than 4%. Women are disproportionally affected: a 1°C increase in long-term average temperatures reduces the income of female-headed households by 34% more than that of male-headed households and women’s weekly labour hours can increase by 55 minutes relative to men. These disparities are closely linked to water access and management. Women farmers have typically less secure water and land rights and reduced access to irrigation and finance services. When climate shocks affect water availability (salinization, pollution, drying) or disrupt water infrastructure, women may face longer water collection times and greater losses in productivity and income, reinforcing vulnerability. Climate exposure also intervenes in widening the gender gap. Female-headed households are more likely to live in hotspots where temperatures are rising fastest and floods recur more frequently, partly because male out-migration under climate stress leaves women as de facto heads of household in high-risk areas. These findings show that gender inequalities should be taken into account when designing climate-resilient water strategies in agriculture. However, climate actions in nationally determined contributions and national adaptation plans only marginally mention women in rural areas. In 2017–2018, just 1.7% of tracked climate financing reached vulnerable small-scale producers, while only 3% supported climate adaptation in agriculture, forestry and other land uses. Only 6% of nationally determined contributions even mention women in a significant manner and only 39% of countries (25 out of 64 reporting) have established national coordination mechanisms to integrate gender equality into climate policy-making across sectors. 

Promoting gender equality in agricultural water management is a powerful development opportunity. Closing gender gaps in access to resources, services and decision-making can generate substantial economic and social benefits. In particular, closing the productivity and wage gaps between women and men could increase global gross domestic product by  an estimated 1% (equivalent to nearly US$1 trillion) and reduce the number of food-insecure people by 45 million. A number of strategic responses addressing the structural impediments and promoting more inclusive and equitable water access and management in agrifood systems are available.

United Nations agencies and international frameworks are increasingly recognizing the need to strengthen policies and programmes that promote women’s equal access and participation in water management. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, in its General Recommendation No. 34 on the rights of rural women, considers rural women’s rights to land and water resources to be fundamental human rights. It calls on governments and the international community to take measures to achieve substantive equality for rural women in relation to land and natural resources. This includes the design and implementation of comprehensive strategies to eliminate discriminatory stereotypes, attitudes and practices that may hinder women’s rights to land and water. Several policy instruments have sought to advance gender equality in water governance for agriculture, including:

 • The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security, endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in May 2012. These provide an international framework for the recognition and protection of the legitimate tenure rights of all, including women and marginalized groups, and urge states to ensure tenure systems are gender equitable, transparent and inclusive. Although focused on land, fisheries and forests, the Guidelines acknowledge that secure tenure rights are intrinsically linked to access to water, particularly in agriculture where land and water use are closely interdependent. The Guidelines were accompanied by 12 technical guides, including one to support the achievement of responsible gender-equitable governance of land tenure: Governing Land for Women and Men: A Technical Guide to Support the Achievement of Responsible Gender Equitable Governance Land Tenure.

 • The CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment in the Context of Food Security and Nutrition, endorsed by the CFS in 2023. These provide a global policy tool to support governments and stakeholders in advancing gender equality in agrifood systems. They call for targeted policies to secure equitable access to and control over natural resources, including water. They emphasize the importance of ensuring gender-equitable tenure systems, supporting women’s participation in WUAs and irrigation governance, and addressing discriminatory social norms and gender stereotypes that exclude women from decision-making. These Guidelines encourage integrated strategies that link water access and land rights, education and economic empowerment of women and girls. 

• The Global Dialogue on Water Tenure and Principles for Responsible Governance. While the governance of land, forests and fisheries tenure has advanced following the endorsement of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security, water tenure has remained underdeveloped due to the shared and fluid nature of water. In response, FAO, mandated by its Committee on Agriculture in 2022, launched a Global Dialogue on Water Tenure to discuss the principles of water tenure with FAO Members. The principles recognize that women have important water management responsibilities, unique water needs and differentiated priorities for water use and management, yet are frequently excluded from decision-making. They call for gender-sensitive policies, clear alignment of various legal frameworks (e.g. inheritance and marriage laws) that can affect the water tenure rights of women and girls, and ultimately the recognition and protection of equal water tenure rights for women and girls, including rights to participate in resource governance and decision-making. FAO is facilitating country-, regional- and sector-level dialogues to discuss the principles through a global political process under the CFS. The process will end with a Global Water Tenure Dialogue in late 2026. There are also some global initiatives that recognize the critical role of women in agriculture and food systems and which call for gender-transformative actions. These offer powerful advocacy platforms to drive policy change, resource mobilization and inclusive, equitable and sustainable food systems, including water management. Two examples are: 

• The United Nations Decade of Family Farming (2019–2028) places gender equality at the centre of its vision. Through its Global Action Plan, it calls on governments and stakeholders to advance gender equality in family farming and the leadership role of rural women. 

• The 2026 International Year of the Woman Farmer, designated by the General Assembly of the United Nations, presents a unique opportunity to recognize women’s contributions to agrifood systems worldwide. The year will serve as a platform to raise awareness, promote dialogue between stakeholders, share good practices and accelerate action to remove structural impediments.  

Improving women’s access to irrigation can be transformative for people’s livelihoods. However, interventions should be based upon a clear understanding of the gendered organization of farming systems and the intra-household power dynamics that determine who controls the benefits of the outputs.

Where farming is female or jointly managed, targeting women in irrigation projects has shown benefits in terms of production gains and gender equality. For example, the Transforming Irrigation Management in Nigeria programme, funded by the World Bank, has rehabilitated and expanded irrigation infrastructure and promoted men’s and women’s participation in irrigated farming. For women who received support through the programme, access to water has increased crop yields by up to 60% and has enhanced their economic independence and household contributions. Where male farming prevails and women face restrictive norms in terms of decision-making and resource rights, improving irrigation access alone may be insufficient to promote gender equality. Interventions should also confront structural economic and cultural discrimination that limits women’s productive potential 

Improving access to irrigation may provide benefits that go beyond enhancing agricultural production.

 Irrigation technologies can reduce labour and time burdens. When designed as multiple-use water services, they can support domestic and productive needs, in particular in poor rural areas where infrastructure may be limited. Men and women may have different priorities in terms of technology and associated benefits. For example, in Ethiopia, Ghana and United Republic of Tanzania, men have prioritized profit and labour savings, whereas women have emphasized profit and the ability to use water for multiple uses, which also entails saving time and labour. Technology choices can shape the outcomes of interventions. In India, projects that paired the adoption of time-saving technologies, including irrigation, with interventions designed to strengthen women’s decision-making power, achieved better outputs in terms of improved household dietary diversity and income, compared to interventions that promoted women’s participation in agriculture without addressing their labour burden. In Egypt, adapted irrigation technologies, such as tatweer, which allow control over scheduling thus reducing the need for night irrigation, and use simple on/off switches, as well as sprinklers and drip irrigation, have successfully increased women’s participation in irrigation. These technologies lower physical labour demands compared with traditional surface methods and movable pipes, making water application safer and more manageable for women farmers. In Gambia, improving women’s access to solar-powered irrigation technology has had a transformative impact on livelihoods, food security and climate resilience. It has reduced the time and physical burden of water collection, increased women’s incomes nearly eightfold, and strengthened community ownership and sustainability through local training.

The promotion of collective action by strengthening women’s groups and grass-roots organizations can amplify these gains. One example is the Dimitra Clubs, promoted by FAO, which have been enhancing community empowerment and women’s leadership in rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa since 2008. These self-organized, voluntary groups – comprising women, men and young people – enable communities to identify challenges and mobilize solutions. Dimitra Clubs have contributed to women’s social and economic empowerment and also to broader outcomes such as social cohesion and positive behavioural change at household and community levels. For example, in Niger, Dimitra Clubs have successfully supported women’s groups in securing land rights and mobilizing resources for small-scale irrigation infrastructure. The Clubs have also facilitated women to speak publicly, thereby helping to address discriminatory social norms and practices. Access to training is key for adopting irrigation technologies, as women and men often face different constraints and preferences to participate in learning activities. Farmer field schools have been effective to reinforce technical capacities and promote women’s participation in training activities. While focusing on empowering farmers in general, these programmes have succeeded in empowering women in agrifood systems, transforming the ways in which they act and are perceived within their communities. Women represent a large share of participants worldwide. This can help to break down gender impediments, reduce and overcome gender gaps, and empower women to actively participate in farm management, decision-making and leadership roles, thereby transforming the lives of women and also their communities. Moreover, these programmes are structured to reach low-literacy farmers, offering a supportive environment for experimentation and the adoption of diverse agricultural practices.

Over the last decade, there has been an increase in the availability of sex-disaggregated data, particularly through national household surveys, labour-force data and some of the SDG reporting mechanisms. However, there are significant gaps in systematically collecting the gender dimensions of water access and management in agriculture, particularly on access to irrigation. Data limitations hinder the possibility to draw evidence-based conclusions about the needs and impacts of women and men in water access and control. The absence of systematic and robust disaggregated data on women’s access and participation in irrigation systems and WUAs makes it difficult to assess the effectiveness of gender interventions, policy reforms or investment in agricultural water infrastructure. The Integrated Monitoring Initiative for SDG 6, coordinated by UN-Water, is undertaking a gender contextualization of global SDG 6 indicators. Gender considerations are being integrated into Indicators 6.1.1 (drinking water), 6.2.1 (sanitation and hygiene) and 6.5.1 (implementation of IWRM). Additionally, efforts are under way to reflect the gender dimensions of water-related targets, including SDG Target 6.4 on water-use efficiency and water scarcity, where agriculture – the largest water user by far – is central. Complementary, gender-contextualized Target 6.4 indicators have been developed to track equal opportunities and benefits, shared responsibilities, mitigation of adverse impacts and gender-responsive enabling measures related to water use in agriculture. The Self-Evaluation and Holistic Assessment ofClimate Resilience of Farmers and Pastoralists (SHARP) tool is designed as an instrument to assess the resilience of farmer and pastoralist householdst o climate change. The approach encompasses ecological and social elements. Following a survey-based evaluation of households’ climate resilience, gaps and weaknesses in the response of farmers and institutions to climate variability are analysed. By collecting qualitative and quantitative data on the multiple dimensions compounding resilience at household level – including water access and management – with some questions disaggregated by sex and capturing gender dimensions, SHARP offers the opportunity to make a gender analysis of such aspects and critically explore the nexus between women’s empowerment and resilience. The nature of the data collected through SHARP+ allows break down of the decision-making power beyond the gender of the household head and enables understanding of the nature of gender gaps and determinants of resilience. The gender-responsive indicators for water assessment, monitoring and reporting from the UNESCO WWAP Toolkit on Sex-Disaggregated WaterData provide a standardized set of 105 indicators across ten priority topics aligned with the 2030 Agenda to close the sexdisaggregated water data gap and enable gender-responsive, and ultimately gender-transformative, water policies. The Toolkit offers indicators that ministries, basin agencies, utilities and projects can adapt for national and subnational monitoring and reporting.