Women’s Participation in Rural Water Projects: The Case of Kwaebibirem District in The Eastern Region of Ghana

ABSTRACT 

Participation is viewed as an essential element of community development. Women‟s involvement in rural projects is treated as an unrelenting subject in the field of development. The effective management and sustainability of RWSPs has been linked to the active involvement of women throughout the RWSPs processes. There is no doubt that certain mechanisms such as affirmative actions have succeeded in boosting women‟s representation on decision- making platform. Over the years, the participation of rural women in RWSPs in Ghana though encouraging, yet only limited to the implementation and management stages of the RWSPs. This current study examines the drivers of women‟s participation in RWSPs in the KbD. Three communities (Pramkese, Abaam and Otumi) were purposely selected from the KbD for the study. A purely qualitative approach of research was used for the study. Primary data was collected from in-depth interviews of twenty-five (25) key respondents, and three FGDs across three selected communities in the KbD. The findings of this study revealed that women who are driven by the need to serve their community, future aspiration and by the need for water appear to be women, who have high level of education, are older, unmarried and very courageous. These women participate better at the decision-making and planning stages of the project. On the other hand, women who were driven by fear of punishment, the need for water and nomination were mostly women who had low levels of education, and mostly unmarried. These women are more active at the implementation and post implementation stages of the project rather than at the decision making level. Nonetheless, the involvement of women at all stages of the project, particularly their financial contribution in terms of buying the water at point sources, was found to be very crucial in sustaining the water facilities till date.