by Afsana Afrin Esha, REACH Research Associate and PhD student at Durham University, re-blogged from REACH
Every year, the southwestern coastal zone of Bangladesh faces weather-related disasters, worsening a perpetual drinking water crisis. Cyclone Sidr in 2007 and Cyclone Aila in 2009 caused widespread destruction. While people were still recovering, Cyclone Amphan caused heavy damage to infrastructure and contamination. Saltwater intrusion due to cyclones and storm surges is having devastating consequences on groundwater and freshwater resources. Different water treatment options and alternative strategies are being applied by the local government institutions, NGOs and aid agencies, whilst informal or small water service providers too, are on the rise, addressing critical gaps in public investments in the rural water sector. However, in the face of rising climatic changes along with other socio-political factors, water shortages persist. In this short piece, I portray the effects of disaster on drinking water sources to understand the nuances of climate resilience.
This is a guest blog by RWSN members D. Daniel, Trimo Pamudji Al Djono, and Widya Prihesti Iswarani, based in Indonesia.
Data tell us many things. We can learn the patterns of any phenomenon using data. In this blog, we bring you to the archipelago country of Indonesia where water access is still a challenge, especially in rural areas. As of 2020, only 82% of households in rural Indonesia have access to basic water services, while almost 95% of urban households enjoy those water services.
To tackle this, the Indonesian government launched the community-based drinking water supply program, called “Program Penyediaan Air Minum dan Sanitasi Berbasis Masyarakat (PAMSIMAS)” in 2007. Almost 22 million people in 32 thousand villages throughout Indonesia got PAMSIMAS access from 2008 to 2020. PAMSIMAS is one of the biggest rural water supply programs in the world. Unfortunately, not many stories from PAMSIMAS are shared with the global community, so we are here to tell you the story!
PAMSIMAS infrastructure
PAMSIMAS is conducted at the village level and managed by the community itself. If we talk about functionality, the data in 2020 indicates that 85.4% of the PAMSIMAS programs were fully functioning, 9.1% were partially functioning, and 5.5% were not functioning. Thus, we can say that the success rate for this program is quite high.
The main question now is what can we learn from the PAMSIMAS program? Here are some lessons learned from our study:
First, household connections have a higher chance of being sustainable (99%) than communal or public connection (69%), e.g., public tap. We can relate it to the payment system. Almost 40% of the communal connections had no payment system, compared to only 3.5% of the household connection. From the field experience, it is relatively challenging to implement and collect water fees in the communal systems, especially because there is no water meter measuring the actual use of households. We should take into account also that other people from outside often come and draw water without paying for it, which can cause jealousy from the actual beneficiaries and make them hesitate to continue paying for the water service. All of these can result in not enough money for the water board to maintain and repair any damage in the system.
Second, let’s talk about the contribution made by the community or beneficiaries toward the program. We all agree that it is important for the community to contribute to the program, either in form of in-kind, e.g., in the program planning, pipe and system construction, etc., or in-cash, e.g., monthly tariff or construction cost. We may think that the more people participate in those activities, the higher the chance of the water service being sustainable. And yes, it is true. However, our analysis found that community contribution in the form of regular-monthly payment is more influential than in-kind contributions at the beginning of the project to sustain the PAMSIMAS program. We again highlight that regular payment by the beneficiaries is important to sustain the program.
PAMSIMAS infrastructure
Third, the success of the rural water supply program cannot be achieved without favorable human factors, such as a well-performing water board and good support or contributions from the community. For the former, we suggest that mentoring of the village water board by the district facilitator can be done to ensure that the water board has sufficient capacity to efficiently manage the piped system, e.g., repair broken pipes or implement cost-effective operation & maintenance.
Fourth, financial support from the national and district government is critical, e.g., by providing extra subsidies or incentives outside the main fund scheme. In this case, only well-performing water boards or PAMSIMAS programs have a chance to apply for these extra funds. Thus, this will trigger the water board to perform well before they apply for it. In short, we need support from all governmental levels: national, district, and village.
Fifth, we have to understand the relationship between water board performance and support from the community. Let’s have a look, for example, at monthly payments: the well-performing water boards will increase the trust of the community and minimize any interruption in water delivery. As a result, the community would be happy to pay the water fee regularly and support the water board activities. In other words, this will create positive conditions for the water board.
Lastly, we know that water access is a human right. We (and the government) are trying to provide water to everyone in need, especially vulnerable groups, e.g., poor people or those who live in difficult areas. On behalf of human rights, the government is willing to spend a lot of money on those groups, which may result in a very high investment per capita. Some reasons for the high investment per capita are a small number of beneficiaries, wide coverage area of the water supply system, or scattered housing in remote areas. However, our analysis found that a high investment per capita is not associated with a sustainable PAMSIMAS program. We don’t want to say stop providing water for them, but rather the need for a comprehensive economic analysis and system design in the feasibility study before the project starts.
There are many things to share with you but we don’t have enough space to write everything here. If you are still curious, please check our scientific publications about PAMSIMAS below. See you!
Factors related to the functionality of community-based rural water supply and sanitation program in Indonesia. Geography and Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geosus.2022.12.002
The effect of community contribution on the functionality of rural water supply programs in Indonesia. Groundwater for Sustainable Development. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gsd.2022.100822
A System Dynamics Model of the Community-Based Rural Drinking Water Supply Program (PAMSIMAS) in Indonesia. Water. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13040507
About the authors:
(D.) Daniel is a lecturer and researcher at Public Health Graduate program, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia. His main topics of interest are water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) system in rural areas, household water treatment practice/behaviour, the sustainability of WASH services, drinking water quality at the household level, and public health issue in general.
Trimo Pamudji Al Djono has 25 years of experience in community development and empowerment programs/projects in urban and rural. Trimo has worked for the World Bank for 14 years managing national programs and has experience as a researcher and lecturer by becoming a Lecturer in Environmental Engineering at the Jakarta Sapta Taruna College (STTST) and Singaperbangsa Karawang University. Other experiences include working as a consultant at GHD, Plan International, Unicef, UNIDO, Aguaconsult, and NORC University of Chicago.
Widya Prihesti Iswarani is a lecturer/researcher in the field of environmental science and engineering. She is currently working at Avans University of Applied Sciences and Centre of Expertise Biobased Economy in The Netherlands. Her main topics of interest are water and wastewater treatment, resource recovery, and the sustainability of WASH in developing countries.
Photo credits: D. Daniel, Trimo Pamudji Al Djono, and Widya Prihesti Iswarani
As of 2020, Vietnam had the highest levels of rural water coverage among any country of comparable economic level, with coverage equivalent to countries with two to three times its per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP). We were curious: what was the contribution to this success by the billion dollar Asian Development Bank Water Sector Investment Fund (“the Fund”)?
En 2020, le Vietnam avait les niveaux les plus élevés de couverture en eau en milieu rural parmi tous les pays de niveau économique comparable, avec une couverture équivalente aux pays ayant deux à trois fois son produit intérieur brut (PIB) par habitant. Nous étions curieux : quelle a été la contribution à ce succès du Fonds d’investissement pour le secteur de l’eau de la Banque asiatique de développement (“le Fonds”), doté d’un milliard de dollars ?
Pour répondre à cette question, nous avons invité Hubert Jenny, anciennement de la Banque asiatique de développement (ADB) et maintenant consultant pour l’UNICEF, pour une conversation sur le podcast REAL-Water (disponible en anglais sur Anchor, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts, parmi d’autres plateformes).
1. More accurate and granular analysis of climate risk is needed to increase relevance of climate information
2. Metrics for monitoring climate resilience in water systems are critical to track progress and inform investments for water security
3. New institutional models that improve water security will be critical for climate resilience
The REACH programme has been partnering with RWSN since 2015.
Water security and climate resilience are interlinked.
This may seem like a simple statement, but in reality it is a complex relationship. Water security and climate resilience are both about managing risks – from water-related issues and climate-related hazards, respectively – to achieve better outcomes for all sectors of society. There are intuitive relationships at large scales, but underlying them are complexities shaped by the environment, and our interactions with it.
Climate change headlines often focus on temperature increases. These changes will be significant and have severe impacts as highlighted by the heatwaves in recent weeks in North America, Pakistan and India. These increases in temperature come with dramatic changes to our weather, in turn affecting the complex water systems that are essential to so much of our lives and our planet. Floods and droughts are the most visceral example of this impact, which also receive regular coverage on the news. But climate change is affecting water security for humans and ecosystems in many more subtle ways.
Climate change is impacting our drinking water supplies. There is a limit to how much capacity they have to absorb weather extremes, especially for smaller systems. Heavy rainfall is linked to many major waterborne outbreaks in developed countries. A major drought led to severe water rationing in Cape Town in 2018, nearly causing the city’s taps to run dry, known as Day Zero. The report highlights that for smaller water systems that people outside cities rely on the impact of weather is often less clear, but the evidence is that there is limited climate resilience.
Water quality varies with weather. Rainfall increases the mobility of faecal contamination, with different types of system more vulnerable to heavy rainfall, exposing the users to diseases such as typhoid. Without reliable water supplies, people use a range of water sources to meet their water needs year-round, trading off risks between reliable water supplies that might be saline or expensive, with seasonal but unsafe water sources. Climate change will increase weather extremes leading to increased contamination and less reliability.
Fresh water scarcity is increasing. Industrialisation and urbanisation are increasing both the demand for fresh water and its pollution, with toxic compounds that are difficult to remove. Climate change is amplifying these threats by reducing the availability of reliable water, increasing salinity, especially in coastal areas, and changing river flows that flush saline and polluted water. Reduced river flows from changing rainfall patterns will increase exposure to pollution for those who rely on river water for washing and bathing, and increase saline intrusion from the coast. Building resilience requires better management of fresh water resources to reduce the increasing contamination that is making water harder to treat.
Women using river water for washing in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Credit: Sonia Hoque
To build the adaptive capacity of water systems to cope with changes in climate, climate information needs to be available to water managers at the appropriate spatial and temporal scale. Ensembles of global climate models provide useful information about global climate, but analysis is needed to identify the relevant climate models that best capture local climate. More investment is needed to provide the tools that water managers need to make informed decisions to increase climate resilience, such as accurate projections at local scales and seasonal forecasting based on understanding of local climate drivers. The information needed varies for different users, but is critical to build resilience for managers of small water systems, reservoirs, and basins.
The report synthesises six years of interdisciplinary research by the REACH team across Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Collaborations in our Water Security Observatories have allowed us to understand how water security risks are experienced, how inequalities are created and reproduced with new policies, and how new tools and science can support better decision making. The report highlights the impact the REACH programme has achieved with funding from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), in partnership with UNICEF, for the benefit of millions of people. It concludes with three recommendations for to advance water security for climate resilience:
More accurate and granular analysis of climate risk is needed to increase relevance of climate information
Metrics for monitoring climate resilience in water systems are critical to track progress and inform investments for water security
New institutional models that improve water security will be critical for climate resilience
Climate change will increasingly affect water availability and quality, with devastating consequences for the most vulnerable. Improving water security is critical to build resilience to the changing climate.
Hi! A chemical engineer by education; I have been a water and wastewater treatment professional for last 24 years. Having started career at Ion Exchange (I) ltd; Mumbai in 1996, I moved to Singapore and worked with Hyflux and Chartered Semiconductor Mfg Ltd for around 5 years before moving back to India and starting on my own as “Nixie Engineers Pvt Ltd”.
en McLeod, who died of cancer in Cairns, Australia, on January 23rd at the age of 88, was recruited by Unicef to support India’s village water supply programme from 1974-1978, and played a pivotal role in the development of the India MK II hand pump.
by Rupert Talbot (former UNICEF and past Chair of HTN/RWSN)
Remembering Ken
Ken McLeod, who died of cancer in Cairns, Australia, on January 23rd at the age of 88, was recruited by Unicef to support India’s village water supply programme from 1974-1978, and played a pivotal role in the development of the India MK II hand pump.
The Government of India’s fourth, five year development plan (1969-1974) envisaged the ambitious goal of providing drinking water in the hard rock, drought prone regions of the country, using innovative down-the-hole-hammer drilling and deep well hand pump technology. Drill rigs were to be imported by Unicef and locally made, cast iron hand pumps, supplied and maintained by Government. In 1974, at the end of the plan period, hand pump surveys concluded that 75% of some 40,000 installations were not working. The viability of drilling and hand pump technology was in question and there was the real prospect of UNICEF, the Government of India’s main partner, withdrawing support. The programme was in serious crisis.
Ken McLeod, his 1942 Jeep, and Myra who designed the first India MK II hand pump poster, New Delhi, 1976 (Photo: Rupert Talbot)
Water well drilling was virgin territory for Unicef in the early 1970s and Unicef’s Executive Board had been divided over the decision to invest in such costly technology in the first place. It was now faced with the hard option of either scrapping the programme or keeping faith. It was a close run thing. Fortunately, the ‘pro’ lobby won with the eminently wise decision to halt the supply of drill rigs until the hand pump problem was fixed. Which is where Ken McLeod comes in.
Ken was a pragmatic, no–nonsense, straight talking, tell-it-as-it-is Australian with a diverse engineering background which ranged from marine and civil engineering to blast hole and water well drilling with down-the-hole-hammers. He had an innate sense of what would probably work and what wouldn’t. Obstinacy was also a hallmark. A serious asset as it turned out. Once he had made up his mind it was difficult to persuade him otherwise. And he had a droll sense of humour. His repertoire of stories and anecdotes are legendary within the water well fraternity. It would seem that seriousness of purpose combined with good humour are prerequisites for successful development enterprises. Ken had both these qualities in spades.
Over the course of the next 4 years it fell to Ken to identify, coordinate, argue with and cajole, myriad organisations and individuals to develop what became known as the India MK II hand pump. This was an extraordinarily complex, collaborative venture, involving pioneering NGOs in Maharashtra, birth place of the fabricated steel Jalna, Jalvad and Sholapur pumps, spearheaded by Raj Kumar Daw and Oscar Carlson (names participants in the RWSN Sustainable Groundwater Development Forum will be familiar with); WHO, who were independently trying to develop their own cast iron ‘Bangalore Pump’; The Government of India, whose programme was in dire straits and who were being prevailed upon by the country-wide hand pump industry to continue with the supply of their cast iron products (‘junk pumps,’ in McLeod Speak); and an engineering enterprise, Richardson and Cruddas, a Government of India undertaking tasked with making prototype and then production pumps. It took a McLeod to handle all of that.
Ken McLeod, Arun Mudgal (Richardson and Cruddas) and Rupert Talbot, MK II test area, Coimbatore, 1975. A ‘what to do ?’ moment after experimental cylinders had failed. (Photo: Rupert Talbot)
It is getting on for 50 years since it was eventually agreed by all parties that the Sholapur pump would form the basis of a new design and we were able to make and test the first dozen prototypes under the deep water table conditions of Coimbatore, Southern India. The fact that the India MK II then went successfully into mass production was largely due to Ken’s clarity of vision, direction, smart technical choices and perseverence.
I spoke with Ken for the last time two weeks before he died. We talked of those heady days of trying to get the MK II programme off the ground, of the internal arguments, external battles and technical problem solving in the field and in the factory.
His voice was strong and his mind as clear as a bell as he recalled people, places and events in great detail and he spoke warmly of those free spirits with their out of the box thinking who strove to make better hand pumps.
He was amazed to learn that there are now several million MK IIs in India alone and that it is exported to 40 or more countries. But hugely disappointed that the third party quality assurance procedures set up in his day and honed over the years to become the corner stone of the MK II programme under Ken Gray, had been allowed to slide back and that MK II look-a-like ‘junk pumps’ are being exported from India to Africa. That, we agreed, is a great tragedy.
There were many brilliant, dedicated people involved in the development of the India MK II. Ken never claimed any credit for it himself, but we all know who led the charge. It wouldn’t have happened without him. He was the right man in the right place at the right time. It needed his force of personality, tough and uncompromising ways, solid understanding of technical issues and absolute determination to get the job done in the face of industrial strength, bureaucratic wranglings. Aussie grit personified.
After Unicef, Ken McLeod worked with Shaul Arlossoroff and his UNDP-World Bank Hand Pumps Project, initially based in Nairobi then out of Australia, spending much of his time in China where I have no doubt he brought the same skills and energy to bear as he did in India.
Pragmatic and stoic to the very end he told me he hadn’t got long and was resigned to being on the ‘home stretch’ as he called it.
No funeral for Ken. No grave, no head stone, no epitaph. He wanted none of that. Instead, he has the lasting legacy of the India Mark II hand pump itself. Millions of them in fact.
The Rural Water Supply International Directory that is available to download from today aims to track the organizations and businesses fostering this change.
by Philip T. Deal, University of Oklahoma, USA
The Sustainable Development Goals are pushing the water and sanitation community to reach higher than ever before. After decades of fighting for the human right to water, universal coverage is the next, challenging summit to climb. “Access to an improved source” has been upgraded to “safely managed drinking water” – a standard that requires continuous service, good water quality, increasing coverage, and affordability. Considering that rural infrastructure often lags behind when compared with urban environments, accomplishing this standard can sometimes feel more like a cliff than a mountain. For these reasons, rural water supply requires new ideas – experimentation – innovation.
The 2019 RWSN directory of rural water supply services
The The 2019 RWSN directory of rural water supply services, tariffs, management models and lifecycle costs that is available to download (and in French) from today aims to track the organizations and businesses fostering this change. These entities are the catalysts to novel service delivery and management models. Some offer minor changes to technology or accountability mechanisms that increase functionality. Some create new financing opportunities that were not previously accessible. Some create a complex management system to maintain water systems over large geographical areas. Some could potentially fail. All are valuable.
The cases described in the Directory are meant to foster growth, learning, and inspiration. The successes, challenges, and failures depicted by one organization could spark a solution for another across the continent. Financing and life cycle cost discussions could become more transparent, uniform, and clear across borders. Networking opportunities and connections become easier – there may even be a neighboring WASH partner nearby that fits your needs!
This new Directory is intended to be an annual compilation. Current cases can be updated with new developments and research. Other innovations and businesses can be added. If a future reader thinks some other information should be included, there’s potential for expansion. We are open to your input.
Questions to Consider
When reviewing the cases within this directory,
I would encourage any reader to think on the following questions:
What are some common management traits that you observe? What is similar or different when compared to traditional water and sanitation models?
What are the most striking innovations that can be observed?
What role does each case hold in their water and sanitation ecosystem? What are their responsibilities, and for what are they dependent upon others?
Which
cases seem more conducive to scaling up?
What
life cycle costs do various organizations consider their responsibility? What costs
should realistically be expected to be covered by tariffs?
How
would an organization react if international or support funding were reduced or
lost? What would be the ramifications to the customers or beneficiaries?
What
monitoring schemes seem to be effective in maintaining quality water services?
What
information or data would you be interested in evaluating for these programs?
Bio – Philip T. Deal
At the end of 2015, I began my doctoral research on service delivery models at the University of Oklahoma. My first significant reference was, “Supporting Rural Water Supply”, by Lockwood and Smits (2011), which has often guided my thought process. Understanding how various management models can improve, disrupt, or maintain the status quo for water service has become a focus of my efforts. I want to know if each case is really sustainable, if there is measurable impact, and if equity is truly equal when applying these models.
Since I began, I have had the opportunity to investigate these types of questions in partnership with Water4 and Access Development in Ghana. You may notice this case was not yet included in the directory. This is because I have wanted to give excellent, data supported answers before I do. The team involved has been working diligently to measure and evaluate the level of service provided, the associated life cycle costs, and the effectiveness or their company. Keep an eye out in the next year for these results in multiple studies.
I would encourage all who would like to be a part
of the directory in the future to do similar investigations. Challenge your
assumptions and dig into the details. Determine what is working and what should
be changed. Put resources into evaluating your organization. Then, be honest
about it. It is not an easy or glorious task, but it keeps us accountable.
If you do not know where to start – RWSN is a great place to begin. Connect with experts, practitioners, and researchers that can provide excellent guidance. Sean Furey reached out for help on the Directory project in the fall of 2018 through a Dgroup discussion. Since agreeing to participate, I have had the opportunity to grow my knowledge base and network. We hope this directory will offer the same opportunity to innovative and budding organizations across the world.
India is turning its back on the handpump and is going full bore for piped water supplies.
India is turning its back on the world’s most popular handpump to which it lent its name (India Mark II) and is going full bore for piped water supplies.
The Times of India report : “With more than 80% rural households yet to get piped water supply, the government on Tuesday announced to roll out a new mission to ensure “Nal se Jal” ater from the tap) for each house in villages in the next five years as promised in BJP’s election manifesto.”
This promises to be the most ambitious rural water supply programme in the world and this important transition from point source to piped will be watched with interest by many other countries around the world.
March marks two significant internationally celebrated days for those of us working in the sector. On 8th March we celebrate International Women’s Day #IWD and on 21st March we cherish the World Water Day #WWD. So, it would be good to reflect once again on how exactly WASH is critical to the health and empowerment of women and girls throughout their life.
Let us imagine that you are a girl born to a economically challenged family in a village in the so called developing world where you and your family do not have access to safe water and sanitation.
If you are lucky enough to survive the first 5 years of your life and not die from diarrhoea or other water-borne diseases, the chances are very high that you are already walking a few hours per day to fetch water for your family and you are taking care of your younger siblings.
Then when the time comes for you to go to school, if your family does not have to prioritise your brothers’ education to yours, and if there is a school to attend, you may actually enrol at one. The chances are still very high that you have to walk a good half an hour to fetch water before going to school and answer the call of nature in the open since your school does not have any (functional) toilet. You probably get harassed and experience gender based violence during these visits.
Then sometimes when you are between 9 to 12 years old, one day you feel a lot of pain in your lower tummy and suddenly feel that you have wet yourselves. Embarrassed to death, when you finally can find a private corner, you notice the blood in your underwear and think you are going to die. Terrified you tell your older sister or friend and if you can overcome the shame, maybe you tell even your mother, only to learn that although you will not die, you will be going through this pain and embarrassment every month for what seems to be the rest of your life. You will be given a cloth or two, to manage your period. Of course, finding water to wash them and a private place to properly dry them would still be a challenge. You miss school either because you have a lot of pain, which you don’t know how to manage, or you or your family don’t want to risk getting embarrassed because of the blood on your clothes, or simply because there is no toilet or water at school where you can change your cloth or pads! Even in some countries, you might also end up staying in a shed during your period since you will be considered unclean!
Getting your period, is also considered start of your womanhood, and your family might start thinking that it is about time to marry you off, either to reduce the costs or to avoid that you start misbehaving or simply because that’s how it works. Of course you would not get any education about your reproductive system, nor for instance how to avoid unwanted pregnancies. If you are not married off, you will be told to avoid the boys!
By the time that you are 15 years old, the chances are very high that you are pregnant. If you are married and pregnant, you need the permission and money from your husband or his family to go for your check-ups. Mind you, you probably need to bring your own water in a bucket to the health centre, which you have to walk quite a distance to get to. And mind you, when you are pregnant, you need to use the washroom more often, but of course there is no toilet in public places or even health centres. By the way, your family might think that these visits don’t worth the trouble and you are better off with a traditional birth attendant, who usually does not have any hygienic place to do the check-ups nor have water to wash her hands with, even when you are delivering your baby!
And, if you are not married and pregnant, you can forget about going to the health center since the staff will not even talk to you. You probably end up with a traditional birth attendant who wouldn’t mind performing illegal abortion, and again have not washed her hands, when she puts them inside you or uses other terrifying unclean objects to perform an abortion. As you can guess, the chances that you actually survive this one, is very low.
Anyway, throughout your reproductive age, you probably would be pregnant pretty much every year. Of course you would not be able to get the rest or support you need during this time and have to still do most of the unpaid work around the house, without anyone recognising or appreciating it.
You may at some point in life also start doing some paid work to support your family. However, whenever someone at household gets sick or you have your period, you probably have to miss going to work and thereby your income. Talking about income, you are the one who would prioritise investing it in sanitation, whereas for your husband it comes as his 8th or 9th priority, but unfortunately it is often not you who decides what happens with your income, so still no toilet for your family.
When you lose your husband or your father, you probably will not inherit anything from them and all the assets would go to male member of your family. Often if you don’t have sons, or even when you do have them, this means that you need to rely on their mercy for food and shelter.
All these situations can get worse if you are living with any type of disability, or HIV/AIDS, or in places where there is too much or too little water, or if you are from a minority or displaced group.
Yet, generation after generation you have been the source of inspiration and driver of change within your family, community and throughout the world and your resilience and agency has brought the mankind where we are today.
And of course, while WASH programmes alone cannot tackle underlying causes of the barriers women and girls face through their life cycle, by fulfilling women and girls basic needs for access to water and sanitation, they can be the first step in the right direction. On the other hand, WASH programmes when designed and implemented in a gender responsive and transformative way can provide the opportunity to move beyond this and also address women and girls’ strategic needs, such as participation in decision-making processes within their family and communities and thereby contributing to their physical, political, socio-cultural and economic empowerment.
The article is inspired by a panel discussion with Sara Ahrari convened by WaterAid Canada, UNICEF and RESULTS Canada during International Development Week 2019 in Ottawa.
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