Where to Begin - Improving Physical Access to Water

One of the major factors, if not the main one, of achieving gender equality and promoting sustainable development goals is improving the physical access to safe water. 

In most African countries, women are the primary collectors, users and managers of household water - often having to travel far to search for water for household use. Hence, an improvement in access to water will allow women, as well as girls, to devote more time to their personal and “professional” pursuits - whether this is simply going to school or being involved in water and sanitation management projects. 

Despite their role and contribution to the management of water, women are often very minimally involved in the drafting of water-related projects. Although the overall objective is to involve women in all stages of the process, when focusing on increasing the physical access to water, there is a specific need of the involvement of women in the design-stage of the project. 

An example where this was largely overlooked is given by Grafton et al, in ‘Water Resources and Planning Management’, where women in rural villages in Nepal complained that their water collection time increased nearly four or five times after they received improved water services. This was mainly owing to the fact that the tap-stands were placed alongside a main road, which meant they could not bathe freely or comfortably wash their clothes used during menstruation for shame of being seen by males. In order to overcome this situation, women had to carry water all the way to their households several times a day - 3 villages even reported waiting until dark to collect the water. All of this would have been avoided if women had been initially involved in designing the tap-stands. 

The benefits of having an accessible source of water supply are immense, as is shown in the video below: 

The video highlights the benefits of a recent installation of a water point (financed by UNICEF) in a rural village in Somalia. The advantages of such an initiative can be summarised under four areas:

• Gender roles: women have more hours per day to use more productively on their farms, in their households and for other activities;
• Education: enrollment of girls in primary/secondary schools has increased relative to boys; 
• Access to water: farming practices have improved due to reliable access to water; and
• Health and hygiene: waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea have significantly declined.

As can be seen, providing physically accessible clean water is essential for empowering women and girls and pushing gender equality forward.