Critical Gender Analysis Guidance Note

The gender guide shows how researchers can apply a gender and social equity lens in their research. The note provides guidance on how to analyse the way gender and social inequalities influence water insecurity.

Applying a critical gender and social equality lens throughout SUMERNET research will help unpack the power relations that underlie water insecurity in order to understand and transform pre-existing socio-economic and environmental vulnerabilities that render some vulnerable at the expense of others. The purpose of this note is to provide guidance on how to analyse the way gender and social inequalities influence water insecurity. After introducing what a gender and social equality analysis is, this guidance note explains how gender should be considered throughout SUMERNET research through its inclusion in four main steps: conceptualizing the research framework, reviewing the literature and available information, data collection and sampling, and analysis and dissemination of the results. In order to guide researchers in this process, the note provides examples of relevant questions in four key water themes that together cover most of the research undertaken under SUMERNET: water governance, hydropower, domestic water supply and irrigation.