Matale, Sri Lanka.

Water provision services supporting the women of Matale

The installation of water pumps in Matale (Sri Lanka) was effective in improving water efficiency and services and in poverty alleviation, particularly for women.

Plant nurseries are a common means of employment in the village of Weligala in the Matale District. Obtaining water for the plants was a time-consuming and exhausting task that always fell to women and girls.

With micro-financing grants from the Matale Regional Economic Advancement Program, women have been purchasing water pumps for their nurseries.

The impacts have been striking:

• with the workload reduced for daughters, they are now able to return to school,
• the plants are now of a higher quality,
• output has increased by 20,000 to 30,000 additional plants,
• the monthly income of women who own these nurseries has sharply increased, and
• the additional income and time saved has resulted in many expanding their operations and building additional plant sheds.

The ICLEI Water Campaign is an international freshwater management program that aims to build the capacity of local governments to reduce water consumption and improve local water quality. For more information on ICLEI’s Water Campaign, please visit www.iclei.org/water.

In Africa, a new water project has been established with eight cities, towns and communities in the Limpopo river basin acting as the model for the local government water (LoGoWater) project with funding from the European Commission. Participants are located along the Limpopo river basin, bordering four countries: South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

Matale is one of 38 local governments in South Asia that are currently Members of ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability. For more information on ICLEI and its operations in South Asia in particular, please visit www.iclei.org/sa.

Source: ‘Gender and Energy Issues Related to Sustainable Development: Sri Lanka’, Energia, May 2006.

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