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Abstract
This paper discusses the Self Employed Women’s Association’s (SEWA)
Women, Water and Work Campaign which organizes women’s collective action in
Gujarat, India to sustain local water management. Some of the significant factors that
have sustained women’s collective action are the presence of strong grassroots
institutions, the establishment of a technical cadre of women, the ability of women’s
groups to transcend social barriers and continuous dialoguing with the state. Women have
benefited in terms of increased income, reduced drudgery, improvements in the
livelihoods of their families, reduced migration of both women and men and increased
participation in SEWA’s other programs. The most important impact observed is the
strengthening of women’s collective agency and women’s confidence to independently
negotiate in the public domain in the water management sector, which was earlier
occupied by men. Women’s collective agency has catalyzed some gender-equitable
change processes at the household level among SEWA leaders but the impacts are not yet
widespread.