AbstractsGeography &GIS

In many Sub-Saharan countries, including Tanzania, people living in rural areas have difficult access to clean water and adequate sanitation. In these areas, traditionally women are responsible for the collecting of water and domestic activities, but at the same time they are not involved in the public decision making. Therefore, a focus on gender has become relevant in development aid practices, including project evaluation. Evaluation helps assessing relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of the implemented actions, compared with the proposed outcomes. Furthermore evaluation procedures of water and sanitation development projects should not ignore spatial factors, which are intertwined with societal factors in the operational environment of development projects. This requires acknowledging that interaction between gendered subjectivities and spatial and societal factors produces and reproduces gendered spaces. More particularly, this thesis considers a case study of a rural development project based in Kishapu District, northern Tanzania, implemented by Tanganyika Christian Refugee Service (TCRS). An evaluation framework is formed and used for unofficial evaluation of the project component in household water supply and sanitation. The framework has its emphasis in the beneficiaries of the development project and in gender equality, which are central for social sustainability. Emphasising social sustainability also furthers realisation of environmental sustainability. This research applies mixed methods, using both qualitative and quantitative analysis. The main data consists of semi structured stakeholder interviews, analysed using content analysis. The data includes also field observations, discussions, and GPS coordinated (geotagged) photographs of the main water sources. Development project documents are used as supporting material for the evaluation. An evaluative approach can be used as a scientific method in development geography, providing a critical viewpoint to the research and helping to connect research results with practical solutions. Evaluation shows the importance of exploring the views and knowledge of the beneficiaries. Through evaluation one can discover the positive effects, possible failures and possible future improvements and the sustainability of a development project. The household water and sanitation sector is a combined field revealing different gender needs that are rarely addressed in any development project, such as the use of toilets, or issues related to menstrual hygiene. There is a need to analyse how space is gendered and what kind of changes the development initiatives cause. For example, in the case study area of this thesis, there was clearly an attempt for public space to be more open to women, but the traditional division of public space being masculine and private space feminine was still dominant in practice. There is a need for change, because this division limits the participation of women and their ability to bring out their needs. The…