1. Lack of organization on the part of the affected women — To make their voices heard, women need to organize themselves into groups. When a group protests, the government takes notice. The water voices cannot be hidden inside houses but have to become a chorus screaming in public.

2. Bad agricultural practices — In the rush to get their pie of the "global food market," farmers have been forced by governments of the developing world to abandon their age old biodiversity practices and to grow seasonal crops that require more water. In India, over 80 percent of the freshwater resources are diverted for irrigating these crops, according to the National Commission of Integrated Water Resources Development Plan report published by the Indian Ministry of Water Resources in 2000. When the crops fail, thanks to drastically changing seasons due to global warming, drought ensues as the water resources dry up.

3. Water bottling plants — In the past decade, an amazing number of mineral water bottling plants have been constructed in the developing world. These plants are set up either at the origin of rivers or at the outskirts of villages. These companies bottle up the ground water at an astounding rate, as much as one million liters (approx. 264,172 gallons) of water per day (Dhavan and Kamat).

As a result, traditional water sources are being denied to people, since bottling plants are set up at primary water sources for villages (a river or a tributary from which villagers draw their water). When these water-bottling plants draw up more than one million liters a day, not only the river water, but also the groundwater in and around the village gets depleted. The villagers lose their primary water source. A case in point is the case of Plachimada in Kerala where a Coca Cola bottling factory depleted the water supply so much that the villagers went thirsty (Brown). The villagers were then forced to buy water from these companies instead of obtaining the water themselves. If the current trend continues, water is likely to become more expensive than gas in India. Currently a bottle of water costs 12-15 rupees (Rs.) (approximately US$ 0.3) per liter, while one liter of diesel is 30 Rs. (US$0.68).

4. Lack of proper infrastructure — Despite the increase in world population, the water infrastructure has not yet been upgraded to meet the people's needs. Especially with the village-to-city influx in population, there is more concentration on meeting the needs of the cities so that the villages are almost always forgotten unless headlines such as "Mass Farmer Suicides" are published in the media (Ainger; Sainath Jun 2004; Sainath Jul 2004).

Poor water management policies in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean are costing women their health, and many children their lives, as they both fall easy prey to waterborne diseases such as malaria and diarrhea. The policies also decrease the earning potential of a country because women, who form half the population of all these nations, spend a large part of their lives simply fetching water.

Women are thus unable to develop their other skills and realize their income potential. Another factor is the environmental costs which no one seems to factor in while calculating their country's budget. Yet polluted water kills not only humans but also destroys the environment, resulting in the disappearance of species of birds, fish, and animals.

So can anything be done? The answer is yes. Women are already doing it in parts of India and the Caribbean and maybe these models can be replicated elsewhere.

In the Deccan region of southern India, villages in central Andhra Pradesh, there were massive suicides of farmers and mass migrations of men to the cities.

As a result, village women organized themselves into self-help groups. Then they decided to boycott cash crops and to use their traditional knowledge to grow crops that consumed little or no water throughout the year (Sainath Aug 2004, Kennedy, and PBS).

Chinnama, a villager from the region, said, "Water is a precious resource. Too much of it is wasted on cash crops so that we never have enough to drink. If we are thirsty, how can we grow crops for others?" Chinnama, together with the women in her village, set up water systems at the community level. Community water pumps provide water collected through rainwater harvesting which is then filtered naturally through sand, clay, and rocks. These communities do not use bore wells (wells that pumped water) or jet-pumps, but rather their water source is village ponds from which they draw water via pipelines to their water pumps — an old and traditional method that was common practice 30 or 40 years ago.

Today, women heading such water systems are a force to be reckoned with and they are spreading the message of water management in agriculture across the thousands of villages on the Deccan Plateau. The water they have is so clean that I was able to drink water straight from the taps without getting sick. It seemed like a miracle!

The miracle can easily be explained as they do not use pesticides. The water managed by these women comes from unpolluted ground and surface waters. Also their sewage system, unlike other parts of India, does not get dumped in the groundwater source but rather is taken miles away through pipes and is used to fertilize barren lands.

In Tonga, an island nation in the Caribbean, Hanoli Vi and the National Women Commission have made sure their precious freshwater sources are not being polluted. Vi has led a campaign for sewage and sanitation systems and implementing waste collection and disposal. This includes the use of compost toilets instead of flush toilets to conserve freshwater resources. Compost toilets look like Western toilets, with the exception that they carry mud and leaves instead of water. Waste is collected along with the mud and leaves in a pit below, and solids are used to flush the toilet. These are then collected, dried, and used as fertilizers. Before the advent of compost toilets, the sewage system used to dump its contents directly into the freshwater sources of the island and therefore polluting it.

Therefore, by organizing themselves into groups, women can have a say at the community and regional levels. They can also be leaders who can challenge the water-bottling companies that make a profit at the women's expense; they can also lead changes in water-management at state and national levels.

However, the question remains: Can such models be replicated? The answer is yes because the benefits of good water management are high.

The four main benefits are as follows:

1. Fewer health costs on a national level, as occurrence of disease and mortality is considerably reduced.

2. Increased earnings on a national level as more women get into the workforce.

3. Better environment management that increases the tourism potential.

4. Lower costs to maintain infrastructure.

As for women, the water voices of the world, realizing their stake in water management will lead to empowerment of women — rural and urban alike.

It is time for governments of the world to realize that when it comes to water, "ladies first!" is still a good policy.