# Water Gender Indicators in Agriculture: A Study of
## 1 Introduction
### Research Questions  
This work tries to partially answer the following question: is it possible to summarize and clearly show the whole described complexity through a simple system of indicators, directed to assessing and describing the gender (in) equalities in the water access, use and management in agriculture?  
To achieve this goal, some fundamental sub-indicators referred to three types of farmer organizations (male, female, mixed) are proposed and analyzed, in order to facilitate their overall interpretation and application. The research background is a horticultural program carried out in some rural settings of three Senegalese regions. Since a joint management of drip irrigation systems is often fostered, it is interesting to analyze the correlations between this entrepreneurial model, the social capital (represented by the selected local FOs) and the gender implications. Other analyseshave shown both the controversial [20; 41; 53] and the positive [54; 55] effects of drip irrigation among small farmers in general, but without analyzing in depth the possible gender implications of such interventions among different types of FOs. Actually, even what may happen at the FO scale may positively or negatively affect the rural intervention. The overall idea behind the choice to compare three types of FOs (female, male and mixed) has been influenced by the conviction that selecting only women (and women organizations) as the only beneficiaries of such development programs doesn't mean achieving the actual success and sustainability [43; 44]. The micro-reality of the field is complex and multiple. For instance, looking at the context of the study, previous surveys clearly showed how, in the case of mixed FOs, generally women occupy only one position of responsibility on the total of six, which are generally accounted within such type of FOs [13].  
In this work, some indicators are studied, in order to analyze the possible (social, economic, gender,...) inequalities engendered by drip irrigation systems. The elaborated indicators may have several purposes. First, they can highlight the existent gender inequalities (in terms of access and management of resources first water and decision-power) between the different types of selected FOs. Second, they may allow the involved stakeholders both to better picture the initial situation in which the program is inserted and to better adapt the following future actions, in order to ensure a real, effective and sustainable participation of women within such water and agricultural programs.  
The paper will be organized as follows. First, a synthetic description of the study area is provided. Afterwards, the specific methodology and the relative system of water gender indicators divided in five categories (social, plot, water, water technique, economic) are illustrated. Data for this study come from semi-structured questionnaires, submitted to a large sample (144 respondents) of local farmer organizations' representatives (women, men and mixed--both women and men) in three regions of Senegal (Thies, Fatick and Diourbel). Therefore, the final results of the research are presented and critically discussed. Hereafter, the paper discussion is focused around the lack of gender-disaggregated data observed during the data gathering process, the possible ways to manage this type of problem and the implications of this gap in terms of Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) and operationalization of the gender mainstreaming in practice.