CGIAR Gender News

Staying alive: Navigating water, gender and poverty inequalities in Kafr El Sheikh, Egypt

A woman in a river Photo: Hamish John Appleby/IWMI

“water infrastructure… produces new kinds of spaces and reproduces inequalities or differences between them” (Guerrero, 2018)

CGIAR GENDER Platform supported project linked to the International Water Management Institute's (IWMI’s) Rewater-Mena project aimed to analyze the gender-power dynamics of irrigation at the tail ends of the drainage networks. IWMI interviewed 150 female and male irrigators at the tail ends of the highly polluted Kitchener Drain (also known as Drain Number 7) and conducted in-depth case study analysis with 9 respondents to understand the spatial and socio-political dimensions of fresh and drainage irrigation systems, water and agri-food systems governance, and women’s increasing work in irrigated agriculture in the face of a persisting patriarchy.