Problem: Women’s needs regarding water have a low priority in many communities.

Response: Organize and come up with positive action strategies for persuading the men of the
community to include women in all decision-making situations that affect the community.

Example: Severe water shortages often face the Mossi people of Burkina Fasso where rains are infrequent and the water sinks rapidly into the dry earth. Women, who are responsible for growing their families’ food, suffer especially from this water shortage. Yet despite their central role in the village economy, Mossi women traditionally have had little voice in community affairs.

In Saye, the village women’s local Naam group (an NGO with a history of active participation in the community) organized around the problem of water shortage. Together, they decided on a solution: To build small earthen dams that would collect water during the rainy season. The men were skeptical, but as a group, the women demanded that the dams be built, threatening to return to the villages of their birth if the village would not cooperate. In 1981, the women’s Naam group, working with the entire village population, built the first "Women’s Dam". The national Naam office was able to organize resources, which were locally available ones whenever possible. Materials were donated by international agencies, and the federation of Naam groups provided financial assistance to help purchase sand and a truck. Not only was the dam successful, but it cost only a fraction of what the government spends on similar projects, and the villagers can maintain these dams by themselves.