Women as Stewards of Water: South-South Dialogues on Knowledge, Justice, and Conservation
Written by Micaela Cossio
On May 10th, 2025, The AWA Project and South Asia Young Women in Water (SAYWiW) co-hosted the virtual panel Women in Water Conservation – Regional Perspectives from South Asia and Latin America, a dialogue that brought together emerging voices in water governance, environmental law, Indigenous knowledge, and engineering. As one of the first collaborative initiatives between these two youth-led organizations from the Global South, the event served not only as an exchange of expertise but also as a testament to the importance of cross-regional solidarity in addressing climate and water challenges through an intersectional lens.
The panel featured four distinguished professionals: Celeste Kristal Flores Cuevas (Mexico), Sadia Ishrat Nisa (Bangladesh), Bella Almillategui (Panama), and Namrata Kabra (India), whose diverse disciplinary and cultural backgrounds contributed to a multilayered understanding of water conservation. The discussion foregrounded the ways in which women, particularly those from Indigenous and rural communities, have historically assumed critical roles in water stewardship, yet often remain absent from formal decision-making processes. By creating a space for their voices and experiences, the panel offered a necessary intervention into dominant water discourses that frequently overlook local knowledge systems and gendered impacts.
Celeste Flores, an Indigenous Mazatec researcher, offered a powerful reflection on how water is embedded within the spiritual and territorial identity of her community. Through participatory mapping and ethical knowledge-sharing practices, she works to reclaim and protect Indigenous epistemologies, arguing for their recognition as essential to biocultural sustainability. Her intervention underscored the value of relational approaches to water management, where rivers, springs, and mountains are not inert resources, but animate beings deserving of respect and care.
Sadia Nisa, a climate researcher from Bangladesh, presented her work on community-based adaptation to salinity intrusion in coastal regions, emphasizing the disproportionate burden borne by women in securing drinking water. Her approach of training women as micro-entrepreneurs to manage water treatment plants demonstrates how technological solutions can be embedded within inclusive, locally-led frameworks. Through co-design and long-term trust-building with affected communities, her work operationalizes resilience as a collaborative and gender-responsive process and not as a top-down mandate.
Bella Almillategui, an engineer specializing in groundwater systems, discussed the urgent challenges facing coastal aquifers, including seawater intrusion, unsustainable urbanization, and the lack of research infrastructure in Latin America. Her current doctoral research bridges technical expertise with ecological ethics, calling for stronger integration between engineering and local knowledge. In her view, any viable environmental intervention must be grounded in the lived realities of the people most affected, challenging the imposition of external models and underscoring the moral imperative of participatory governance.
Legal scholar Namrata Kabra traced the evolution of environmental and water law in India, noting the shift from gender-blind policies to more gender-aware frameworks. However, she emphasized that true transformation requires moving beyond inclusion towards a model that recognizes women as agents of change. Her research adopts an intersectional lens, analyzing how factors such as caste, class, and geography interact to shape water access and climate vulnerability. Through her work, she advocates for participatory policymaking that reflects the differentiated experiences and capacities of marginalized communities.
In closing, all panellists were invited to share messages with young women aspiring to enter the water sector. Their reflections collectively emphasized the need to honour one’s identity and heritage, remain intellectually curious, build networks of solidarity, and resist narratives that undervalue women’s contributions to science, advocacy, and governance. The discussion affirmed that water justice cannot be achieved without the leadership of those who have long safeguarded it, often without recognition.
This panel exemplifies the core values of the partnership between AWA and SAYWiW: South-to-South collaboration, capacity building, advocacy, and visibility for underrepresented voices. As we look ahead, this event stands as both a point of departure and a foundation upon which to continue building a global community that understands water not merely as a physical resource, but as a site of cultural meaning, political struggle, and collective responsibility.
