• by Busani Bafana (bulawayo, zimbabwe &)
• Tuesday, November 10, 2026
• Inter Press Service

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe &, November 10 (IPS) - Fetching water was once a back-breaking daily reality – one that Nomuhle SibandaMpofu will never forget.

Mpofu, from Inyathi village in Bubi District in Matabeleland North Province, is a horticulture farmer and livestock farmer. Water is everything to her livelihood. She has had to overcome the challenge of travelling many kilometres to fetch water for her family and for irrigating her crop and livestock farming enterprise.

For millions of women in the rural areas, increasing droughts, worsened by climate change, are not just an environmental crisis but mean a labourious and time-consuming daily water collection marathon.

Water scarcity could increase women’s water-collection time by 30%, while the shift of rural women into off-farm jobs could either create more resilient livelihoods or entrench inequality, finds a CGIAR GENDER Accelerator report, Advancing equality, transforming futures.

The CGIAR gender report warns that without deliberate policy action, climate change and economic disruption could leave women further behind in food, land and water systems by 2050. The report was released ahead of the 31st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP31) underway in Antalya, Türkiye, until 20 November 2026.

Farmers like Mpofu have insulated themselves against the risks of water insecurity by drilling boreholes and adopting water-saving methods.

“Before I drilled a borehole I used to fetch water from a community borehole and from a seasonal dam nearby,” Mpofu tells IPS. “I used a wheelbarrow to collect water from the dam, which dried up mid-year, and the community borehole more than a kilometre away was the closest source of water.”

Mpofu grows spinach, tomatoes, kale, onions, and occasionally potatoes on her two-hectare fenced plot.

“I used to wheel three 20-litre containers of water from the borehole before I bought a scotchart and donkey and was able to carry 24 containers of water for my vegetable garden. I would skip two days before I made another water run because of the labour of the task,” Mpofu recalled.

Long Walk to Water Freedom

Then three years ago she saved enough money and drilled a borehole in her homestead and erected a 5000 litre water tank, enabling her to easily water her garden and her goats, sheep, pigs and cattle.

“Before I had a borehole it was difficult collecting water, a tough task which I had to balance with other chores in the homestead, but now that difficulty is past, I now turn on the tap, and water flows.”

Drilling a borehole within her homestead helped Mpofu end at least five hours a day she spent collecting water, a chore that challenges millions of women in rural areas in Africa.

In April this year, ICRISAT helped and installed the Chameleon water-saving tool in Mpofu’s field. The Chameleon Tool is an easy-to-use tool that helps farmers apply the right amount of water to their crops. It consists of three sensors permanently installed at different depths in the soil. A hand-held reader shows blue light for wet soil, green light for moist soil or red light for dry soil.

“Before I used to water my crops almost every two days, but now I water after four days when it is hot and after five days when it’s cloudy, saving a lot of water that way,” said Mpofu.

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has helped smallholder farmers in Southern Africa manage irrigation water more efficiently using the Chameleon soil moisture sensor.

With the El Niño phenomenon – a natural climate pattern characterised by the unusual warming of surface waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean – now underway, there are growing fears of widespread drought in Southern Africa. The 2026–2027 El Niño is projected to cause water shortages and severely disrupt agriculture production across Southern Africa.

The CGIAR GENDER Accelerator report notes that the global food crisis — fuel, fertiliser, climate extremes, trade disruptions — has disproportionately impacted women over the past year. At the same time, women are central to building resilient food systems needed to guard against emerging threats.

Els Lecoutere, senior officer at the CGIAR Gender Impact Platform and one of the report’s authors, highlights that the report was motivated by the need to predict and prepare for an uncertain future, as negative impacts of climate change are seen in increasing droughts and water scarcity, which affected women differently.

“We do know that climate change is widening gender gaps, so what should we do now so that we avoid a future that could be more unequal in food systems rather than more unequal if all these crises happen?” Lecoutere said. “We sought to look into the future and learn from what we know now, as we have a lot of evidence of what works to increase gender equality.”

Projections based on the current trends show that by 2050 in a business-as-usual scenario, the Middle East and North Africa region will still have a female unemployment gap and a female earnings gap, and in South Asia the female earnings gap will improve, but a big female earnings gap will remain. While in Sub-Saharan Africa employment will go up in the most optimistic scenario, the female earnings gap remain stagnant.

“Water will be scarcer in some regions, and we already know that the task of collecting water falls on the shoulders of women and girls, and they spend so much time on that task, meaning the education of girls is affected, and women, for instance, cannot open their shops or attend to other activities,” Lecoutere said.

“Given the norm that women and girls are in charge, given the lack of infrastructure, the implications for women and girls are clear: that without a change of customs, the choices and options they have are reduced.”

Closing the Gender Gap

Opportunities to reduce gender inequality include institutional, legal and social reform, inclusive infrastructure, social protection, improved data-gathering and the responsible use of emerging technology, the CGIAR GENDER Accelerator report recommends.

Ismahane Elouafi, Executive Managing Director of CGIAR, notes that we cannot feed our future without including women in our food systems.

“The choices we make over the coming years will determine whether food, land, and water systems become more equitable or more unequal, more resilient or more fragile,” said Elouafi.

The Rome Declaration on Water Scarcity in Agriculture, adopted during the High-level Rome Water Dialogue in Italy in 2024, acknowledged that drought responses are contributing to crop failures in parts of the world and an acute food insecurity crisis in vulnerable countries. The Declaration noted changing rainfall patterns are resulting in increased droughts.

“I am aware that with any drought women are in a difficult situation where they have to collect water over a long distance. I encourage women to invest in boreholes; they are one solution to surviving the drought by bringing water closer to home and relieving them from the task of collecting water from afar,” Mpofu says.

The report also finds that digital technologies hold significant potential to bridge gender inequities across food systems, despite the current digital divide between men and women. It cites research showing that in Kenya, for example, women are up to 25% less likely than men to access digital climate advisory services due to structural gender barriers. The report calls on technology developers to involve women in the development of breakthrough technologies like AI before scaling their use.

“Investing in women, not as labourers, but as leaders, is the path towards unlocking the full potential of our food, land and water systems,” said Nicoline de Haan, Director of the CGIAR GENDER Accelerator.

IPS UN Bureau Report

© Inter Press Service (20261110114408) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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