Water access and sanitation shape birth outcomes and earning potential

Water access and sanitation shape birth outcomes and earning potential. Mongabay, November 8, 2018. 

• Spending more time per day fetching water increased Indian women’s risk of delivering a low birth weight baby, a study has said.
• Open defecation and using a shared latrine within a woman’s building or compound were also associated with higher odds of low birth weight and pre-term births, respectively, compared to having a private household toilet.
• The researchers believe that improving water, sanitation and health access and/or reducing gender-based harassment could reduce these adverse birth outcomes.
• Another study pointed out that enhanced access to a reliable and proximate water supply reduced the time spent by women in collecting water and the proportion of hard labour performed by women. In addition, the thus freed may be spent on other income generating activities.

Read the complete article.

Engaging men and boys in sanitation and hygiene programmes

Engaging men and boys in sanitation and hygiene programmes. IDS, August 2018.

Discussions of gender in sanitation and hygiene often focus on the roles, positions or impacts on women and girls. Such a focus is critical to improving the gendered outcomes in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), as women and girls bear the greatest burden of WASH work yet are often excluded from planning, delivery and monitoring community WASH activities as a result of having less power, resources, time and status than their male peers.

However, current efforts to improve sanitation and change social norms may not always actively engage men and boys in the most effective way. There is more to learn about how the roles men and boys actually play out in improving use of safe sanitation and improved hygiene practices and – if necessary – how the engagement strategies can be modified to make efforts more successful.

This issue of Frontiers of CLTS shares and builds on the learning from a desk study that explores examples of men’s and boys’ behaviours and gender roles in sanitation and hygiene. Of particular interest is the extent to which the engagement of men and boys in S&H processes is leading to sustainable and transformative change in households and communities and reducing gendered inequality.

The review focuses on men and boys: how to engage them (or not), how to mobilise them as allies in the transformation of S&H outcomes and the problems they contribute to and experience.

Gender & WASH – Water Currents, December 21, 2017

Gender & WASH – Water Currents, December 21, 2017

Women and girls are disproportionately affected by lack of access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services. Their needs differ from men in terms of sanitation, they spend more of their time collecting water, yet they have less say about household and community decisions made on WASH services. 

Similarly, women throughout the developing world face different barriers than men in terms of their involvement in WASH-related professions, such as utility management.

This issue on gender and WASH focuses on a new batch of reports, journal articles, and podcasts and provides links to relevant websites and news articles that consider gender issues in the WASH sector and gender-related aspects of agricultural water management.

We are always looking for ideas and suggestions to make Water Currents more useful and relevant, so we would appreciate your responses to this brief survey.

Water and Gender

The Rising Tide: A New Look at Water and Gender. The World Bank, August 2017. Water-related societal roles often reflect, and even reinforce, gender inequality. This report discusses the consequences of some water initiatives—intended and unintended—for gender equality. It makes the important point that gender inequality does not always show up where we might expect.

Gender-Responsive Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: Key Elements for Effective WASH Programming. UNICEF, March 2017. Effective gender-responsive programming in the WASH sector can contribute to gender equality while yielding important WASH results. This document outlines essential elements that WASH practitioners should take into account to enhance a gender-responsive approach to their work.

Gender Equality and Disability Inclusion within Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. WaterAid, March 2017. This discussion paper is based on WaterAid’s experiences in applying integrated gender and disability support to rights-based WASH programs in Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea.

Read the complete issue.

Recent studies on sanitation acess & violence,and others

Below are links to the abstracts or full text of recently published articles:

Access to sanitation and violence against women: evidence from Demographic Health Survey (DHS) data in Kenya. Int J Environ Health Res. 2016 June.
Abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26593879

This study analyzed 2008 Kenya Demographic Health Survey’s data and found women who primarily practice open defecation (OD), particularly in disorganized communities, had higher odds of experiencing recent non-partner violence

Untangling the Impacts of Climate Change on Waterborne Diseases: a Systematic Review of Relationships between Diarrheal Diseases and Temperature, Rainfall, Flooding, and Drought. Environ Sci Technol. 2016 Apr 25.
Abstract: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.5b06186

Key areas of agreement include a positive association between ambient temperature and diarrheal diseases, with the exception of viral diarrhea and an increase in diarrheal disease following heavy rainfall and flooding events. Insufficient evidence was available to evaluate the effects of drought on diarrhea. There is evidence to support the biological plausibility of these associations, but publication bias is an ongoing concern.

The Impact of a School-Based Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Program on Absenteeism, Diarrhea, and Respiratory Infection: A Matched–Control Trial in Mali. Amer Jnl Trop Med Hyg, Current issue
Abstract – http://www.ajtmh.org/content/early/2016/04/21/ajtmh.15-0757.abstract

We found that a school-based WASH intervention can have a positive effect on reducing rates of illness, as well as absence due to diarrhea. However, we did not find evidence that these health impacts led to a reduction in overall absence. Higher absence rates are less likely attributable to the intervention than the result of an imbalance in unobserved confounders between study groups.

Focus on Violence and Gender in the WASH and Household Energy Sectors

WASHplus Weekly | Issue 151 | June 27, 2014 | Focus on Violence and Gender in the WASH and Household Energy Sectors

There have been several new initiatives to deal with the problem of violence and gender. In the WASH sector, several key organizations have worked together to publish a recent toolkit that discusses how to make WASH safer and more effective. In the household energy sector, the SAFE strategy, or the Global Strategy for Safe Access to Fuel and Energy was recently launched by the UN High High Commissioner for Refugees. The SAFE strategy principally addresses technology and program management and provides guidance on a holistic approach to the safety challenge in humanitarian settings. USAID has also published a new toolkit to support the implementation of the U.S. Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence Globally.

WASH RESOURCES/STUDIES

TOOLKITS

Violence, Gender and WASH: A Practitioner’s Toolkit, 2014. (Link)
The toolkit has been developed by Sarah House, Suzanne Ferron, Marni Sommer and Sue Cavill on behalf of WaterAid with contributions from a wide range of actors. It was funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) of the British Government through the Sanitation and Hygiene Applied Research For Equity (SHARE) Consortium. By recognizing both the risks of violence associated with WASH and the potential benefits of WASH, this toolkit aims to shine a light on this problem and encourage practitioners to recognize their capacity to make WASH safer and more effective.

Toolkit for Monitoring and Evaluating Gender-Based Violence Interventions along the Relief to Development Continuum, 2014. USAID. (Link)
USAID developed this toolkit to support the implementation of the U.S. Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence Globally. It provides guidance to USAID staff, implementing partners and the larger community of international relief and development practitioners on how to monitor and evaluate gender-based violence interventions along the Relief to Development Continuum (RDC). The RDC is divided broadly into three phases: (1) the pre-crisis phase, (2) the crisis phase, and (3) the post-crisis phase. The toolkit identifies opportunities for doing monitoring and evaluation along the RDC and gives advice on how to address constraints and challenges relating to each phase.

South Africa – Women still face raw deal

A damning report has highlighted horrific shortfalls in the provision of water and sanitation and the failure to end violence against women and children in some of South Africa’s poorest provinces.

The report by the Presidential Working Group on Women (PWGW) comes as women and gender rights groups yesterday called for stronger political leadership in the fight to stop violence against women.

President Thabo Mbeki, who addressed the PWGW in Pretoria on Tuesday, has also come down hard – giving the group a four-week deadline to expand their organisation to see what is needed to be done to alleviate the plight of women and children.

More – IOL/South Africa

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