Barriers to women’s attainment of leadership among Lilongwe water board water users’ associations.

Abstract

The paper arose from the background that both men and women are good leaders in organizations based on specific leadership traits that each of them may hold. Despite this fact, the study focused on examining barriers that women face in water management and why they remain underrepresented in many senior leadership positions in a case study of LWUAs. The study was imperative because it added to the body of literature on the causes of underrepresentation of women in LWUAs, understand the experiences of women in male dominated governance structure and proving the perceptions of stakeholders on the strategies to deal the inequitable participation of women in LWUAs. The study employed mixed method approach, qualitative data was collected through interviews and focus group discussions and quantitative data through questionnaire. The study revealed that women remained underrepresented in both the Board of directors and Executive committee of WUAs in Lilongwe as they only constituted 23% and 24% respectively. This also implied that men constituted 74% and 73% respectively in the Board and Executive of WUAs in Lilongwe. The study further exposed that the factors caused this underrepresentation in leadership position in women included; religion, low confidence in women, low education levels in women and low capacity in women, culture and the perception that women are good leaders in domestic affairs than at office. Furthermore, the study found that few women in leadership positions experiences demonstrated that they are able to deliver duties in male dominated work place, involved in decision making and not experiencing any form of sexual harassment. Finally, the study looked at perceptions of stakeholders in establishing mechanism to reduce the disparity that existed between Women and Men in LWUAs: capacity building which could be done through sensitization or civic education or training in which women ought to be updated with developments of WUAs, Constitutional review towards advocating for 50 to 50 percentage of men and women respectively and effective leadership. The study concludes that women are underrepresented in LWUAs governance structure. Therefore, the study recommends that Constitutional Review to meet 50 to 50 percentage shares of the leadership positions.