Theme Governance, Gender and Poverty is divided into two strategic sub-themes, which are:
Governance and Political Economy
Governance and Political Economy focuses on research, communications and uptake that supports the development of more accountable institutions to deliver more equitable and sustainable outcomes for the poor and marginalized groups.
The sub-theme’s major areas of work include:
- Strengthening collective action for sustainable and inclusive natural resource governance across scales
- Integrate power mapping and analysis in ongoing policy discussions towards more deliberative policy processes
- Building more accountable local resource governance relying on grass-roots forces and its inter-linkages with other key stakeholders
Please contact Diana Suhardiman for further information.
Poverty Reduction and Gender Equity
We see women’s and men’s individual and collective empowerment as a critical process for poverty reduction, whereby individuals and groups are able to critically challenge unjust and unequal power relationships that are entrenched in everyday norms, knowledge and practices and reproduced by political economic structures and hegemonic discourses. We recognize that intersectionality is central to understand and reduce gender inequities and to promote women’s empowerment and see gender as one entry point to analyse power relationships, acknowledging that gender intersects with age, caste, class, ethnicity, religion, etc.
- Evolving gender relationships and agrarian structures under socio-demographic transitions
- Water security and women’s empowerment
- Data development and use
- Poverty reduction and the water-food-energy nexus
Please contact Floriane Clement for further information.
Enhancing capacity for system transformation
Strengthening and sustaining the enabling environment
Enabling gender and youth inclusion
Brokering knowledge for sustainability
Cultivating scaling preparedness
Fostering scaling partnerships
Co-developing innovation bundles
Scaling farmer-led irrigation requires strengthening human capacity and knowledge exchange among all actors and stakeholders involved. IWMI takes an action research approach, working with national and international research institutions, governments, extension agents and public and private organizations to co-develop the scaling ecosystem and strengthen capacity to drive scaling networks and collective action. We support the 
A lack of affordable credit, particularly for women and resource-poor farmers, is one of the main barriers to expanding farmer-led irrigation in low- and middle-income countries. But 
The ability of farmers to engage in or expand irrigation depends on the prevailing socioeconomic, ecological and political contexts, which are often complex, non-linear and changeable. Overcoming systemic barriers to farmer-led irrigation development while taking advantage of existing opportunities 
Population pressure and increasing water competition in a changing climate require us to take stock of the availability and use of water across scales. Water availability not only influences farmers’ commercial prospects but also irrigation-related enterprises and agri-businesses. Greater water scarcity could jeopardize irrigation and agricultural markets while excessive water use can lead to declining ecosystems, water quality and soil health. IWMI advises development partners and the public and private sectors on all aspects of water resource availability and use through a variety of advanced modeling and remote-sensing products and tools, including 
