A watershed for equity

Rainwater harvesting in India provides a local, sustainable solution to problems of water scarcity. Many theorists also contend that traditional rainwater harvesting systems will also engender greater equity. Traditional systems, however, do not guarantee equity either in water allocation or in its associated costs and benefits. Moreover, equity is rarely defined to reflect the many points of view found within beneficiary communities. This research provides new insights into community-defined equity as manifest in the labor contributions, resource allocation, and gender implications of rainwater harvesting in Rajasthan. I argue that the conceptualization of equity typically employed by the community-based natural resource management literature too narrowly equates costs with inputs and benefits with outputs. Sometimes important benefits can accrue from the allocation of inputs, without regard to outputs---in this study significant symbolic capital is acquired through sharing costs equally, a practice that allows participants to claim equal membership in the community despite power asymmetries. This in turn perpetuates a sense of community that is essential to the intervention's success. For this reason, employing community-based valuations of equity enables a more catholic approach to costs and benefits that strengthens any theoretical treatment of equity in particular, and development interventions in general.