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Land, soil and water

Water and gender

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Women play a central role in agrifood systems, including a critical contribution to the agricultural workforce. Yet, women often face poorer working conditions, lower wages and limited access to productive resources. Water is one of the most important resources for agricultural production, but women and girls continue to face significant barriers in accessing, managing and controlling water for agriculture.

Women farmers also face major challenges in accessing technology, irrigation equipment, extension services and finance. Female-managed farms produce significantly lower output than male-managed farms, largely due to unequal access to resources and services. Climate change is further deepening these inequalities.

Gender inequalities also exist in agricultural water governance and management structures. Women are often under-represented in water users’ associations or irrigation committees at local and national levels. This limits their capacity to influence water allocation, infrastructure planning and resource management decisions.

FAO works to address these inequalities by promoting gender-responsive approaches to water governance. This includes improving women's access to land and water rights, strengthening participation in decision-making processes and expanding access to water technologies, knowledge and services.

Closing gender gaps in agriculture and water management has the potential to generate major social and economic benefits, including increased productivity, improved food security and enhanced resilience of rural households. Empowering women in water management is therefore not only a matter of equality, but also a key pathway towards sustainable agriculture, climate resilience and rural development.


Over recent decades, international frameworks have increasingly recognized gender equality and the human rights to water and sanitation as essential pillars of sustainable development. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), through General Recommendation No. 34 on the rights of rural women, recognizes women’s access to land and water resources as fundamental human rights.

The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action also affirms the importance of substantive equality and the empowerment of women and girls, while the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development highlights the strong interlinkages between Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 (Gender Equality) and SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation). Together, these frameworks underline that equitable access to water is essential not only for human well-being, but also for food security, health, education and resilient livelihoods.

Several policy instruments support gender-responsive water governance for agriculture, including:

  • The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (VGGT), endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security in 2012, which promote the recognition and protection of legitimate tenure rights, including women and marginalized groups. While focused on land, fisheries and forests, the guidelines highlight the strong interlinkages between tenure rights and access to water in agriculture.
  • The Global Dialogue on Water Tenure and the Principles for Responsible Governance of Water Tenure, launched by FAO following a mandate from the COAG in 2022. These principles recognize that women have important water management responsibilities and specific needs yet are often excluded from decision-making processes.


FAO’s work on water and gender

Strengthening evidence through gender-disaggregated data

Sex- and gender-disaggregated data are essential to better understand inequalities in access to, and management of, water in agriculture. While the availability of such data has improved in recent years through household surveys and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)-reporting mechanisms, significant gaps remain regarding agricultural water use, particularly in irrigation.

Limited data on women's participation in irrigation systems, water users’ associations and water governance make it difficult to design evidence-based policies, assess the impact of investments and monitor progress toward gender equality.

FAO supports efforts to strengthen sex- and gender-disaggregated water data as part of its broader work on sustainable water management and rural development. Through the Integrated Monitoring Initiative for SDG 6 (IMI-SDG6), coordinated by UN-Water, ongoing efforts aim to integrate gender considerations across all water-related indicators, including those on water-use efficiency and water stress.

FAO’s Global Information System on Water and Agriculture (AQUASTAT), integrates gender-related variables into country profiles and collects sex-disaggregated data on access to irrigation.

Integrating gender in water management programmes

FAO integrates gender analysis into the design and implementation of agricultural water management programmes to assess their impact on women, men and children according to different socioeconomic indicators. This approach helps avoid reinforcing existing inequalities and ensures that interventions contribute to equitable outcomes.

Practical tools supporting this work include:

 

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