ABSTRACT
The interface between water, poverty and gender has been a less understood one. It rests primarily on the premise that water being one of the most critical resources for human existence and hence contested, may create space for women’s participation as well as empowerment. Access to adequate quantity of quality water, a basic need for all forms of life and for production of food, fibre and fuel, has a significant bearing on human well-being. Experience from micro-watershed projects in India testifies to how such initiatives help in mitigating the adverse impact of droughts and depletion of groundwater. Enhancing value of output per unit of water is yet another important mechanism for impacting farm production and thereby poverty reduction. The vision underlying the emerging scenario of water and agriculture in the next two decades thus reinforces centrality of irrigation, groundwater recharge and efficiency in market sense.
