WaPOR Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Strategy: from principles to action

The WaPOR Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) strategy provides practical guidance on how remote‑sensing data and digital tools for agricultural water management can be designed and used without reinforcing existing inequalities. It responds to evidence that data‑driven water solutions, if developed without social considerations, may overlook who accesses resources, who benefits from interventions and who bears the risks.

Developed by the International Water Managament Institute (IWMI) and IHE-Delft Institute for Water Education in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the strategy is informed by literature review, engagement with WaPOR technical teams and field‑based case studies in Jordan and Tunisia. These case studies were used to test how gender roles, power relations and institutional arrangements influence access to land, water, technology and decision‑making, and to translate these insights into operational guidance.

The strategy is structured around five operational principles that guide WaPOR implementation:

1. Make labour and agricultural roles of marginalized groups visible. Remote‑sensing data does not capture who performs agricultural work or who benefits from it. Field evidence showed that women’s and informal agricultural activities are often invisible in standard datasets, increasing the risk of exclusion in policy and investment decisions.
2. Expand the focus from productivity to equity. Higher water productivity does not automatically translate into fair access to land, water or income. The strategy emphasises that equity must be considered explicitly alongside efficiency to avoid reinforcing existing inequalities.
3. Plan beyond access to technology. Access to data and digital tools alone is insufficient where users face constraints such as land tenure arrangements, water governance rules, literacy or infrastructure gaps. Tools must be designed around real‑world institutional and social conditions.
4. Build two‑way dialogue with end users. Top‑down delivery of digital solutions can limit uptake and relevance. Continuous engagement with users helps ensure that WaPOR tools respond to actual needs, priorities and constraints.
5. Assess gender and social impacts over time. Digital water interventions can influence labour relations, resource access and decision‑making in unintended ways. Monitoring social impacts over time is necessary to identify risks and adjust implementation accordingly.

Application of WaPOR's GESI strategy 

The GESI strategy is applied as a decision‑making filter within WaPOR activities, rather than as a standalone intervention. It is used during the design and review of WaPOR‑related tools to check underlying assumptions about users, data and institutional contexts, and to identify potential exclusion risks before tools are deployed or scaled. This includes assessing who can realistically access and use a tool, how governance and tenure arrangements affect its use, and whether design choices may unintentionally reinforce existing inequalities.

To support implementation, the strategy identifies concrete actions, including the use of assessment tools to evaluate digital inclusiveness and the application of gender‑responsive scaling approaches to anticipate and mitigate exclusion risks as WaPOR tools are developed and expanded. These actions help translate strategic commitments into practical design and governance choices.

The WaPOR GESI Strategy is intended for partners, tool developers, government institutions and practitioners working with WaPOR data. As a practical reference, it supports more informed decision‑making and helps ensure that digital water information contributes to equitable, responsible and sustainable agricultural water management across diverse country contexts.