On World Water Day, gender equality and empowerment require attention
Authors: Sheela S Sinharoy, Bethany A Caruso
Journal: The Lancet Planetary Health (2019)

On March 22, 2019, the world will celebrate World Water Day, which this year has the theme of leaving no one behind. We argue that an intersectional feminist approach is needed to recognise and mitigate the disproportionate effects of climate change and water scarcity on women, especially marginalised and vulnerable women. Leaving no one behind requires explicitly mainstreaming gender equality within water resources management and climate change adaptation programmes and collection of gender data on their effects to enable evidence-based responses. Water scarcity is a serious and growing problem. 71% of the world's population, or 4·3 billion people, experience moderate to severe water scarcity for at least some part of each year.1Mekonnen MM Hoekstra AY Four billion people facing severe water scarcity.Sci Adv. 2016; 2: e1500323Crossref PubMed Scopus (2188) Google Scholar This percentage is expected to grow due to climate change, and the World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 20192World Economic ForumThe global risks report 2019. World Economic Forum, Geneva2019Google Scholar lists water crises among the top ten risks in terms of both likelihood and effects. Women, especially the poorest women in low-income and middle-income countries, already bear disproportionate responsibility for water-related tasks, including water carrying, cooking, and washing.3Graham JP Hirai M Kim SS An analysis of water collection labor among women and children in 24 sub-saharan african countries.PLoS One. 2016; 11: e0155981Crossref PubMed Scopus (103) Google Scholar The longer water fetching takes, the less likely the carrier is to be male.4Sorenson SB Morssink C Campos PA Safe access to safe water in low income countries: water fetching in current times.Soc Sci Med. 2011; 72: 1522-1526Crossref PubMed Scopus (191) Google Scholar Accompanying these tasks are physical, economic, and psychosocial stresses, which will be exacerbated in situations of increasing water scarcity resulting from climate change.5Bisung E Elliott SJ Psychosocial impacts of the lack of access to water and sanitation in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review.J Water Health. 2017; 15: 17-30Crossref PubMed Scopus (62) Google Scholar, 6Sorensen C Murray V Lemery J Balbus J Climate change and women's health: impacts and policy directions.PLoS Med. 2018; 15: e1002603Crossref PubMed Scopus (49) Google Scholar The water sector has historically been gender-blind, meaning that it has not always considered gender differences. In 2007, Ray7Ray I Women, water, and development.Annu Rev Environ Resour. 2007; 32: 421-449Crossref Scopus (111) Google Scholar aimed to combine evidence on water and women but found research to be scarce, prompting a call for sex-disaggregated data to enable consideration of women and girls in water-related policies and programmes. Studies have increasingly identified gendered needs and health effects related to water and climate change, but these studies have yet to result in widespread action.5Bisung E Elliott SJ Psychosocial impacts of the lack of access to water and sanitation in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review.J Water Health. 2017; 15: 17-30Crossref PubMed Scopus (62) Google Scholar, 6Sorensen C Murray V Lemery J Balbus J Climate change and women's health: impacts and policy directions.PLoS Med. 2018; 15: e1002603Crossref PubMed Scopus (49) Google Scholar Programmes and initiatives focused on the integration of water resources management and climate change adaptation now have an opportunity to mainstream gender, such that their interventions will not only address water scarcity but will promote gender equality and empowerment. What would promotion of gender equality and empowerment in relation to water look like? At a minimum, it would necessitate a recognition of gender differences, as opposed to gender blindness. This requires collection of improved gender data. At the global level, an opportunity exists to enable sex-disaggregated data collection through the WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, which is revising core questions for monitoring household water, sanitation, and hygiene.8WHO, UNICEFCore questions. Joint Monitoring Programme.https://washdata.org/monitoring/methods/core-questionsDate: 2018Date accessed: February 7, 2019Google Scholar This effort should include questions to assess differences in responsibilities for water-related tasks—including but not limited to drinking water—based on gender as well as on age, socioeconomic status, and other characteristics, such as caste, as part of an intersectional approach. Researchers similarly can contribute to improved gender data in studies of water resource management and climate change adaptation. This work should be grounded in recognition of the intrinsic importance of women and girls. In other words, quantifying the gendered effects of climate change in relation to water is important because women and girls are intrinsically important. Too often, past research has instead been grounded in a view of women as instruments for the wellbeing of children and other family members.9Pickering AJ Davis J Freshwater availability and water fetching distance affect child health in sub-Saharan Africa.Environ Sci Tech. 2012; 46: 2391-2397Crossref PubMed Scopus (154) Google Scholar Research into the effects of climate change and water scarcity on the health and wellbeing of women, not only on their children, is desperately needed. Programmes that integrate water resource management and climate change adaptation can adopt a mainstreaming approach, in which gender differences are considered in all aspects of the programme. Gender mainstreaming needs to be done from the design phase, so gender differences and gender equality goals can be incorporated from the beginning. Women must be actively involved in this process. As Yadav and Lal10Yadav SS Lal R Vulnerability of women to climate change in arid and semi-arid regions: the case of India and South Asia.J Arid Environ. 2018; 149: 4-17Crossref Scopus (52) Google Scholar note, women and girls are not passive victims of climate change, but rather proactive and experienced agents with expertise in adaptation and mitigation in the face of climate change. They must also be included in the creation of indicators to monitor and evaluate the effects of such programmes. To this end, a pressing need exists for validated tools to measure gender equality and empowerment in programmes focused on water and climate change. As the world works to address the water-related effects of climate change, leaving no one behind is indeed important. A special focus is therefore needed on the most marginalised and vulnerable populations, starting with women and girls. These efforts can then be a vehicle for not only improving human health and protecting the environment but for transforming lives. Gender equality can be a focus now, and programmes can and should adopt a gender mainstreaming approach immediately. We declare no competing interests.