Africa: Women, Water And Sanitation - Going the Extra Mile

This year’s African Union Summit, 24th June to 1st July 2008, will be on ‘Meeting the Millennium Development Goals on Water and Sanitation’. What should African leaders take into account when thinking about how to meet these goals and those of The African Union Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa? Catherine Irura tackes this question.

The African Union Summit is here with us again and on 24th June to 1st July 2008, African leaders will be discussing ‘Meeting the Millennium Development Goals on Water and Sanitation’. As our leaders deliberate on this very important topic we must ask ourselves whether our leaders will take into consideration women’s concerns over water and sanitation and remind them that women amount to almost more than half of the population in Africa and that their voices must not be ignored. In this article we voice some of the concerns that women would like their leaders to take into consideration as they debate on this issue.

Read More - Fahamu

Africa - Gender Perspective On Water And Sanitation

What does gender have to do with issues of sanitation and water? Roselyenn Musa gives us a multi-faceted gender perspectives that consider the role of African governments, gender awareness and water privatization amongst others.

The upcoming mid-year African Union (AU) summit of heads of state and government has as its primary agenda as ‘Water and Sanitation.’ Development goals in the water and sanitation sector in Africa typically address issues of access to and the availability of adequate and safe supply and services, health and well being of all members of the society. At the Millennium Summit in 2000, Heads of State pledged to halve the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water by the year 2015 yet at the end of 2002 some 1.1 billion people or 18% of the world’s population lacked access to safe drinking water, while 2.6 billion or 40 % of the world’s population lacked access to improved sanitation services.

Gender issues are applicable when conditions are bone dry and also when they are dangerously wet. Women and children are the first to suffer from the disruption of water supply and the provision of sanitation services. They are disproportionately affected by natural and ‘man made’ disasters as a result of gender inequalities. They play a central part in the provision, management and safeguarding of water and sanitation, but the pivotal role they play as providers and users of water and has seldom been reflected in institutional arrangements for the development and management of these resources.

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India: Sonia blesses United Nations-bound manual scavengers

Kay Benedict, Friday, May 30, 2008

The 28 women will walk the ramp at the UN with top models on July 1 

(…) Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of NGO Sulabh International, which played a major role in changing the fate of the scavengers, said, “Mrs Gandhi blessed them and wished them all the success. They were very happy to see Mrs Gandhi.” “Till 2003, they were carrying human excreta in Alwar, Rajasthan. They were liberated and since then have been given education and training in fashion technology, beauty treatment, stitching, making papads, noodles, etc,” Pathak said. (…)

(…) The event will take place in one of the general assembly halls where ministers and officials from more than 150 countries will be present. A book titled Princesses of Alwar and containing success stories of these women will also be released on the occasion. (…) The economic and social council of the UN, which is celebrating 2008 as International Year of Sanitation, invited Sulabh to bring the 28 scavengers and present a cultural programme at the UN. The two-hour programme includes a 15-minute lecture by a UN official and a 15-minute film on scavenging. (…)

Read all dnaindia.com

Menstrual hygiene and the need for women friendly toilets

Most sanitation programmes are silent about women and adolescent girls’ need to clean and change menstrual towels and menstrual management tends to be ignored in latrine design and construction and excluded from hygiene education packages. Even reproductive health and preventive health programmes in developing countries often do not address this sensitive issue. A recent article in Source Bulletin describes how WaterAid has tackled this issue in Bangladesh.

One of the first studies to highlight the lack of attention in the water sector given to menstrual hygiene was written by
Sowmyaa Bharadwaj and Archana Patkar from Junction Social consultants, Mumbai, India, in November 2004, called “Menstrual Management in Developing Countries: Taking Stock”. They gave a presentation on this topic at the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Schools Roundtable meeting, which took place in Oxford, UK, 24-26 January 2005.

In Africa, one of the activities of the QUEST programme (1998-2006) involved research in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda on the links between life skills, sexual maturation and school sanitation. One of aspects looked at was how poor menstrual management negatively affected girls school attendance. Unfortunately the research reports from this study are not available online.

The latest issue of Source Weekly elaborates on an earlier posting in this blog about the problems women in Kampala, Uganda, face due to the lack of proper places for disposal of used sanitary pads. The Source article also gives a link to a report published last year, called “Menstrual hygiene: a neglected condition for the achievement of several Millennium Development Goals”. The report was the outcome of a “Stakeholder Meeting on Menstrual Hygiene for Girls and Women in Developing Countries”, held on 28 November in The Hague, The Netherlands.

Uganda: The Agony of Being Female

Ms Carol Nampiina’s posting to her new workplace coincided with her monthly menstrual flow that fell in July, and it took her less than two days in her new office to try and confide in someone about her discomfort.

Nampiina was uncomfortable at office for unlike her previous residence where she easily disposed off her sanitary pads, her new office lacked a sanitary bin. During the times she had her flow, she had to wrap her used pad, keep it in her bag until late in the evening when she went back home to dispose it.

Indications are that the lack of proper places for disposal of used sanitary pads is one of the overlooked practices prevailing in modern offices in Uganda, which is aggravated by the fact that many offices do not have “women’s only” toilets.

Read more: David Mugabe, East African Business Week (Kampala) / allAfrica.com, 28 Jan 2008