Water is at the heart of many of today’s struggles. Decisions about how our waterways are used, managed, and developed affect the lives of millions – often causing upheaval to traditional livelihoods and societies, altering relationships between people and their environment, and causing devastating impacts to native ecosystems and biodiversity.

And women often bear the heaviest burden of these challenges.

Women are often the primary users of water in their households and communities. Tasked with securing, maintaining, and using water resources in agriculture, fisheries, forest and land management, women sustain life through their relationships to water.

Despite this, women are far less represented in decisions about how water and rivers are managed and developed. Deep inequalities persist from the household level to regional and national governance, with men holding a majority of the decision-making power and influence—and with communities and the earth paying the price.

Yet faced with these immense challenges, women river protectors have stood up for their communities and sought to envision another way forward. They have become political leaders, and the voices of movements in their own right. They have developed bodies of knowledge, strategy, and experience that are being leveraged to address the most pressing issues facing our planet, including the health of our rivers.

In 2019, International Rivers held a Women and Rivers Congress that convened women leaders from throughout the network to strategize together and identify ways to support each other in our shared efforts to protect rivers and all the life that depends on them. During this gathering, there was a resounding request for more opportunities to build capacity, share best practices, and build a powerbase among women river protectors in the International Rivers global network.