Context
Framed by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development under SDG 6, the UN recognizes that access to affordable water and sanitation together with the sustainable management of water is a universal right. However, recent numbers highlight that currently 3 in 10 people still lack access to safely managed drinking water services, while 6 in 10 people lack access to safely managed sanitation facilities. Moreover, water scarcity affects more than 40% of the global population and is expected to continue to rise.
The MENA region alone contains 12 of the 17 most water-scarce countries in theworld, with more than 60% of the population concentrated in places affected by high surface water stress. The surface water resources of the Middle East and North Africa are not only the scarcest, but also the most variable and unpredictable in the world. While access to adequate sanitation and hygiene supplies varies across the region, protracted conflicts in certain countries, namely Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, have led to overall weakened WASH supply systems and services.
The impact of WASH on gender
Given the heightened worldwide water stress and the essential role of water in both social development and economic prosperity, ensuring access to water through effective water management has become a global priority. One of the most important dimensions of the social and economic impact of water is the relationship between water and gender. For instance, the disproportionate burden of water collection placed on women has been widely documented. Because women tend to be the main household actors involved in water provision, an often laborious and time-consuming task, when communities lack adequate WASH facilities, women and girls’ attendance and school performance may be negatively affected as water collection becomes a priority over education. Moreover, women and girls face an increased risk of sexual assault and violence while travelling to WASH facilities (including water points, cooking facilities and sanitation facilities). Therefore, understanding the unique WASH needs and practices of women and girls is key to tackling the concerns and risks that may disproportionately affect women, especially during humanitarian crisis and emergencies.
Access to water
According to UNICEF, globally women and girls are responsible for water collection in 8 out of 10 households and spend 200 million hours every day fetching water. Water collection may require traveling long distances and entail lengthy waiting periods of up to almost an hour at water points or sanitation facilities. The significant amount of time invested in water collection does not negatively impact women alone, but may also affect the rest of the household families, particularly young children, as women often take over the role of main caretakers and therefore must juggle childcare responsibilities with fetching water and determining whether it is safe for consumption. Women may need to choose between bringing the children along, exposing them to the risks associated with water collection, or leaving them behind unsupervised if education facilities or other family members are unavailable. Moreover, as water collected has the potential to be unsafe, it may also affect women and their families’ health.
Education and training
As mentioned above, women’s leading role in the provision and management of household water is one factor that may hamper women and girls’ access to education, as collecting and purifying water to be used for drinking, cooking and cleaning combined with childrearing responsibilities takes up a lot of time and energy that could otherwise be invested in studying and attending classes. However, one of the most basic factors that can hinder school attendance for women and girls is whether school centres have adequate facilities for the management of menstrual hygiene. Several studies have shown that girls may skip a week of school or drop out altogetherif there are no private latrines and hygiene supplies in their place of education. Seeing as in many cultures menstruation bears a wide range of cultural taboos and social stigmas, it is important to ensure that sanitation programmes address the specific needs of women and girls while also providing comprehensive information to both women and men so as to normalize this biological imperative.
Economic empowerment
The unpaid labour associated with WASH not only limits women and girls’ opportunities for basic education and training activities, but also their opportunities for participating in income generating activities as a result of time constraints and lack of education. One way in which WASH can positively contribute to women’s economic empowerment is through the provision of easier and safer access to water. With increased water resources water available for land irrigation and gardening, surplus food items may be harvested and sold. However, often women do not own the land they farm, so it is important to take gender asymmetries in land ownership and access to water services into account in WASH programs as well so as to not reinforce gender inequalities.
Gender-based violence (GBV)
WASH programmes that fail to incorporate a gendered design can exacerbate the risk of exposure to sexual and other forms of gender-based violence (GBV). Some of the factors linked to heightened exposure to GBV in WASH include poorly lit and isolated WASH facilities that are located at long walking distances from home or work spaces, and lack of sex-segregated latrines and bathing facilities that provide privacy. Another often overlooked GBV aspect that stems from WASH is that women and girls may be subject to physical punishmentwithin their household for failing to fetch enough water or returning at late hours due to long waiting lines. Despite growing awareness and reporting of increased vulnerability to violence linked to WASH, there remains a significant data gap regarding women and girls’ experiences of WASH-related violence in contexts around the world, including the MENA region.
Decision-making and sustainability
Participation is essential to ensuring prolonged sustainability of all interventions, and WASH is no exception. Programs that include women at all stages of planning, implementing and monitoring are more efficient, effective and sustainable compared to those that overlook the central role women play in water and sanitation. Evidence also suggests that when women run water cooperatives, for example, they are significantly more likely than men to invest profits and time saved back into their communities Water management and policies therefore should not only be gender-responsive, but also encourage women to influence water governance institutions, such as community water committees, that will be responsible for designing and implementing WASH initiatives.
Conclusion
Given the strong nexus between gender and water, an increased effort must be made to capitalize on the central role women and girls play in the provision and management of water to lessen the disproportionate burden placed upon them. Investing in gender-responsive WASH programs that address gender differences and involve women in the decision-making process not only increases the sustainability of the program, but also has significant socioeconomic impact on women in the long run, as well as on the community overall.
About the Author
Ona is a Junior Officer in the TPM/Research department at Trust. She holds a master’s degree in International Relations with a focus on International Political Economy, and her main areas of interest lie in armed conflicts, human rights, gender and protection.
Read more about Ona on LinkedIn.
Sources
CARE. (2020). Rapid Gender Analysis – Middle East North Africa (MENA). CARE.
Council on Foreign Relations. (27 March 2017). Water Access is a Gender Equality Issue. Retrieved from: www.cfr.org
Gender & Development Network. (2016). Achieving gender equality through WASH. Gender & Development Network.
Hofste, R., Reig, P., & Schleifer, L. (06 August 2019). 17 Countries, Home to One-Quarter of the World’s Population, Face Extremely High Water Stress. Retrieved from World Retrieved from: https://www.wri.org/
IASC. (2015). Guidelines for Integrating Gender-Based Violence Interventions in Humanitarian Action. Global Protection Cluster and IASC.
Nonay, C., & Advani, R. (03 August 2020). From emergency response to resilient recovery: How we are helping the water sector in MENA cope with COVID-19. Retrieved from: https://blogs.worldbank.org/
Sommer, M., Ferron, S., Cavill, S., & House, S. (2014). Violence, gender and WASH: spurring action on a complex, under-documented and sensitive topic. International Institute for Environment and Development, 105-116.
UNICEF, WHO. (2017). Progress on Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: 2017 Update and SDG Baselines. Switzerland: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Health Organization (WHO).
UNICEF. (29 August 2016). Collecting water is often a colossal waste of time for women and girls. Retrieved from: https://www.unicef.org/
WaterAid. (2015). WASH and gender equality toolkit. WaterAid.
World Bank Group. (2018). Beyond Scarcity: Water Security in the Middle East and North Africa. Washington: World Bank Publications.
World Bank Group. (2016). Toolkit for Mainstreaming Gender in Water Operations. Washington: World Bank Publications.
