Women compromise the largest category of water users in the world, yet their voices are rarely heard when it comes to making crucial decisions regarding water and sanitation. Women, who have historically been in charge of the labor-intensive practice of providing water to their families, assume a leading role when technologies are non-existent or simple, but they lose their influence when technology becomes complicated or expensive.

For example, women in Malawi have long been in charge of water gathering in their communities. But during the mid-eighties when an international agency entered the scene with a water development project, the men took charge. Unfortunately, the men mismanaged the project by letting the meetings fall by the wayside and neglecting bill collection. The whole project fell into disarray. Finally, the international agency funding the project set a 60 percent quota for women's involvement. When this quota was met, and in fact, surpassed, local meetings resumed, bills were collected and the project turned into a success.

In addition to setting firm affirmative action goals, follow-up monitoring is needed to ensure that these quantitative goals are met in meaningful ways. While a project may claim to involve 30 percent women, these women are often relegated to cleaning the wells or keeping animals out of the water supply. Meanwhile, the men are the ones actually making the decisions such as where to sink the wells or where to place the dams.

Women also need to be included in all levels of water management projects, from the villages of rural Africa to the halls of power in Europe's capitals. Though ministers and water experts at Thursday's meeting discussed the importance of increasing the involvement of women in all aspects of water development projects, they should practice what they preach. Women are still not equally represented at high-level areas of governance. In fact, there are only 16 countries in the world where women's participation in parliament is above 25 percent. The average is 11 percent. Women are also overwhelmingly the ones pushing the gender issue in development. Men need to join the gender bandwagon.

One of the most important aspects of increasing gender equity is education. Results show that training specific to water management is more successful when it involves both genders. It reduces mistrust between the sexes and facilitates understanding. This is not to say that education programs should always include both men and women equally, as woman are now getting the short end of the stick. Currently, girls receive far less education than boys, and communities should focus new resources and funding the education of girls. In fact, many girls drop out of school, especially when they reach puberty, because they don't have access to latrines or other hygiene facilities.

But even when women and the poor are uneducated or illiterate, it is still possible to include them in decisions that affect their access to water. Unfortunately, there are very few cases where this is being done. For example, in one village in India, engineers refused to sink a well close to the lower-caste houses, explaining that there was not enough water in the aquifer to make it technically feasible. After intervention from a nongovernmental organization that specializes in consulting on water and development projects, the villagers were given three different options where the well could be placed. From these three sites, the villagers chose the one that would benefit the community the most. Though the villagers were poor and uneducated, they were the ones best equipped to make the decision.

Other steps that need to be taken in order to shrink the gender bias include the adoption of legislation that gives women and men equal rights to land ownership, property inheritance and water rights. Governments should mandate specific institutions to monitor gender across all sectors involved in sustainable development projects. Information should be desegregated along gender lines, as well