Women's participation in irrigation development projects

This paper reports the results of a field study of irrigated agriculture in Egypt. Specifically, it investigates the factors that determine women's participation in irrigation development projects. It is hoped that such analysis will help formulate strategies that can increase involvement of women in rural development efforts. A review of literature on women's participation shows that gender aspects are often not included in the design and implementation of irrigation development projects. As a result, women involuntarily do not use the improved facilities, and consequently lose their fair share of the project benefits. Necessary data and information for this study was obtained from the Irrigation Improvement Project (IIP) in Egypt. Findings of the study indicate that social barriers discouraged participation of young and married women in rural development projects. Older women and widows participated more in all project stages. There was no clear correlation between the level of education and participation, perhaps due to the high illiteracy rate among rural women.