Water, Gender and Development in Africa

In today's short post, I want to talk about how the meaningful participation of women in water management has been posed as an approach towards reaching gender equality in relation to water. If the needs of women in relation to water are to be considered and their knowledge is to be utilised effectively, then more women must be involved in water management ( Boateng and Kendie, 2015 ). However, there are factors which limit the potential for women's participation and arguably, including women in water management to fill gender quotas is not enough; to avoid tokenistic participation and have meaningful participation instead, a 'contextually specific understanding' of women's needs is required to create appropriate solutions ( Lasiter and Stawicki, 2014 ).  Figure 1: Women professionals in water management in Tanzania  Limitations to the meaningful participation of women: The lack of spare time that women have due to their commitment to domestic work, such as water c...

As ' World Toilet Day ' just passed (a day which raises awareness of tackling the global sanitation crisis to achieve SDG 6 ), I thought it would be appropriate to explore the links between water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and gender. Despite the fact that North Africa's coverage of access to sanitation is at 90%, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) only has a 30% coverage ( UN, 2014 ). It has been recognised that a lack of access to WASH facilities disproportionately affects the health of those who are menstruating ( Corburn and Hildebrand, 2015 ). Today, I will look at how a lack in WASH facilities can facilitate ' period poverty ' and how menstrual health management (MHM) can be improved.  Period Poverty I admittedly did not know about period poverty until a girl in my school started the ' Free Periods ' campaign. I soon learned that period poverty is the lack of access to 'sanitary products, menstrual hygiene education, toilets, hand washing facilities, and...

 In last week's post, I briefly touched on the topic of gender-based violence  (GBV) in relation to water collection. This week, I wanted to do a short post exploring the links between GBV and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), using informal settlements in Kenya as a case study. I will be looking specifically at the infrastructural causes of GBV (e.g. poor WASH facilities) and the social causes (e.g. societal taboos).  Figure 1: Toilet in Mathare slum, Nairobi, Kenya The lack in provision of adequate WASH facilities increases women's vulnerability to GBV. Women who lack these basic infrastructures are forced to walk to shared toilet facilities or to even openly defecate. Studies in informal settlements within Nairobi, Kenya found that women who had to walk even 100m to use a public toilet during the night would be at risk of being abused or harassed ( UN Water, 2020 ; Winter and Barchi, 2015 ). Due to poor security and a lack of sufficient lighting, it becomes easier ...

In my previous post, I looked at the inequality in the use and access to groundwater resources between men and women. This week, I will focus on the collection of water and how this affects women in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), physically and mentally. Restricted infrastructures and access to reliable water sources (e.g. piped water systems) results in the burden of extensive travelling to collect water; unfortunately, this responsibility usually falls on women and girls. Indeed, it is estimated that every day women and girls spend around 200 million hours collecting water ( UNICEF, 2016 ). Considering that more than two-thirds of those living in SSA have to leave their houses to collect water, it is integral that we understand how this burden disproportionately affects women ( Graham et al, 2016 ).  What are the effects on women? Across SSA, it is primarily women and girls who bear the brunt of water collection. A study carried out across 24 SSA countries by Graham et al (2016) f...