It starts by providing a critical assessment of the legal background to the EU internal and international obligations in the field of gender equality and water resources management. In particular, it considers the obligations to “gender mainstreaming” under Article 8 TFEU and the EU international agreements under the United Nations Millennium Development Goals for 2015.
It then aims to analyse official policy and legal documents on development, which reveals how the EU, through its EuropeAid Development and Cooperation actions, implements gender equality norms in water development projects in the Asian region.
Against this background, the paper investigates the sources of resistance underpinning the implementation of gender equality in the context of EU water development projects in the Asian region. It identifies internally generated resistances and external barriers specifically related to the specific Asia-EU relationship.
In conclusion, this paper reveals that the hindrances to implementing gender equality in water development projects can be traced to the EU’s inability to assert its self-proclaimed “constitutional” value of gender equality both within its internal and external actions. Although the EU aspires to lead the international community on a democratic path, it remains unable or unwilling to implement the general principle of gender equality through its international actions in the context of water. This impediment ultimately casts serious doubts about the EU’s international “actorness” abilities and fails to serve women in Asia.
