Sustainable water management and gender equity are mutually supporting and interdependent. This report analyses four major water sectors - water for nature, sanitation for people, water for people, water for food - and provides strong arguments for the contentions that:

• Involving men and women in influential roles at all levels can hasten the achievement of sustainability in the management of scarce water resources.
• Managing water in an integrated and sustainable way can contribute significantly to better gender equity, by improving the access of women and men to water and water-related services to meet their essential needs.

These are the fundamental principles that led to the establishment of the Gender and Water Alliance in June 2000. This report is about the progress that governments and external support agencies have been making in applying these principles when framing their policies and legislative frameworks and reforming their water institutions.

A hard copy report is available by e-mail: I.K.Smout@lboro.ac.uk [1]