LocationsWorld Water Day 2026: ‘Where Water Flows, Equality Grows’
Advancing Gender Equality Through Water Resilience in the Eastern Caribbean
March 22, 2026
Women’s meaningful inclusion in water governance is not only symbolic; it is strategic. Participants of the inception workshop of the Water for Resilience project in Saint Lucia with representatives from UNDP and Global Affairs Canada..
UNDP Barbados and Eastern Caribbean
Across the Eastern Caribbean, water insecurity is not a distant risk. Climate change is driving more frequent droughts, degraded watersheds, and increasingly unpredictable rainfall – placing growing strain on water systems and the communities that depend on them. But these impacts are not felt equally. When water systems fail, women and girls often disproportionately bear the burden.
This is why the Canada-funded Strengthening Resilient Water Resource Management (‘Water for Resilience’) in the Eastern Caribbean project is about far more than infrastructure. It is about equity and ensuring that resilience is built through inclusive systems. Canada’s partnership is instrumental in reflecting a strong commitment to gender equality and inclusive development. Through its support, the project is better positioned to integrate gender-sensitive approaches and ensure that the benefits of water resilience initiatives are equitably shared.
Implemented by UNDP in Grenada, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the ‘Water for Resilience project’ addresses water insecurity in vulnerable communities while intentionally advancing gender equality. It starts from a simple but powerful premise: water security and gender equality are inseparable.
Water for Resilience project team members speaking with farmers across the Marquis Watershed, Saint Lucia.
UNDP Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean
When Water Systems Fail, Inequality Deepens
Across many Caribbean households, women are responsible for managing water use, supporting family health, and sustaining food production – roles that become more demanding as water scarcity increases. Yet despite being a practical gender need and right issue, and the central role they play in productive and community management, women have historically been underrepresented in water governance, technical planning, and decision-making spaces.
For decades, water management has been treated primarily as a technical issue, often overlooking the social constructions that determine who participates, decides and benefits from water systems and who pays the cost when they fail. The ‘Water for Resilience’ project challenges this approach by embedding gender equality into its design, implementation, and governance structures.
Rather than viewing women only as passive beneficiaries, the project recognizes them as agents, knowledge holders, decision-makers, and leaders whose perspectives and participation strengthens water management outcomes for entire communities.
Katrina Coy (backing), President of the Union Island Environmental Alliance in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, leads a field visit with UNDP's Project Manager for the Water for Resilience project, Nickez McPherson.
From Infrastructure to Inclusion
The ‘Water for Resilience’ project supports countries to strengthen climate resilient, community-driven water systems while addressing the structural barriers that limit women’s participation. Its gender-responsive approach focuses on improving access, influence, and capacity across all levels of water management.
At the national and local levels, the project strengthens institutional capacity to deploy resilient water systems and improve water governance in ways that consider gender equality, environmental rights, and sustainability. This includes enhancing technical competencies and improving access to water and climate data; such as digitizing historical hydrometeorological records, to support better planning and adaptation.
Crucially, these technical advances are paired with deliberate efforts to ensure women are included in training, learning exchanges, and decision-making processes. By doing so, the project helps prevent new technologies and systems from reinforcing age-old gender-based stereotypes and inequalities.
Workshop participants in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
Women’s Leadership as a Climate Solution
As Small Island Developing States, Eastern Caribbean countries are on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Building resilience to mitigate droughts, floods, and environmental degradation is essential for long term development. But resilience that ignores gender inequality is fragile by design.
The ‘Water for Resilience’ project i mainstreams gender considerations into climate resilient water governance, recognizing that sustainable solutions require both healthy ecosystems and empowered communities. By promoting community driven and nature friendly approaches to water management, the project supports gender-sensitive adaptation strategies that reflect local realities and long-term sustainability.
Women’s meaningful inclusion in water governance is not only symbolic; it is strategic. Literature on gender, women, water and water resources management reveal Evidence shows that when women lead and participate in water decision-making, services become more inclusive, better maintained, and more responsive to household and community needs. By supporting women’s leadership in a traditionally male-dominated sector, the project helps normalize gender equality within water institutions and planning processes.
Water for Resilience project activities in Grenada.
A Blueprint for a More Resilient Caribbean
The ‘Water for Resilience’ project offers a model for how development initiatives in the Eastern Caribbean can respond to climate change while advancing gender equality and social equity. It demonstrates that resilience is not built through infrastructure alone, but through a more holistic and inclusive systems; one that values women’s knowledge, leadership, and rights.
By aligning water security with gender equality, climate action, and community empowerment, the project contributes directly to Sustainable Development Goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) and SDG 5 (Gender Equality). More importantly, it helps ensure that water resilience efforts leave no one behind.
As climate pressures intensify across the region, the Eastern Caribbean cannot afford gender blind solutions. Water systems that fail to address inequality will ultimately fail the communities they are meant to serve. The ‘Water for Resilience’ project shows that when women lead, participate fully and are empowered to shape water resources management decisions, resilience becomes stronger, fairer, and more sustainable for everyone.
Water is life. Ensuring that it flows through inclusive and gender-sensitive streams may be one of the most important investments the Eastern Caribbean can make, for today and for generations to come.
Field visit in Morne Felix, Grenada.
