Women and Water-Pumps in Bangladesh : The Impact of Participation in Irrigation Groups on Women's Status

The increasing availability of mechanized irrigation pumps in rural Bangladesh has opened up the possibility for NGO-supported groups of poor people to become owners of a pump and to use the water for irrigating household land and/or for sale. Women's participation and the impact on their status has been studied in 35 female and mixed-sex irrigation groups dispersed over the country, supported by five different NGOs and the Grameen Bank. The book describes the backgound, methodologies and conclusions to the studies in detail, with summaries of the policy implications.