While women’s lives around the world have improved dramatically, gaps remain in many areas, including water and sanitation. For example, a recent study in 44 developing countries found that women carry water more often than men by a ration of nearly 2 to 1. Time is but one cost. There are many.

Mumbai, Feb 11, 2012: Girl child education is one of the three causes that Stayfree DNA I Can Women’s Half Marathon is championing. Here’s why.

Though the overall literacy rate in Maharashtra as per the 2011 provisional census is 82.91%, the female literacy rate in rural Maharashtra is a dismal 67.3%. This means, 32% of rural females are illiterate. This is a cause for concern that has also been red-flagged in the India Human Development Report 2011, especially because female literacy has an effect on other factors, such as a child’s health.

Why do families build toilets? If the family tradition for many generations has been to defecate in the open – using local woods or accepted sites, then what is the incentive to make a break and opt for a toilet instead?

Concern for daughters and for elderly relatives are two factors often mentioned by families as motivating factors, especially as ‘safe’ places to defecate outside disappear.

The importance of involving both women and men in the management of water and sanitation has been recognized at the global level, starting from the 1977 United Nations Water Conference at Mardel Plata, the International Drinking Water and Sanitation Decade (1981-90) and the International Conference on Water and the Environment in Dublin (January 1992), which explicitly recognizes the central role of women in the provision, management and safeguarding of water.

Munni sits holding a plate laden with three large rotis topped with a generous helping of spicy dal (lentils). She is hungry, but will not eat it yet. Covering the food with another plate, she quietly puts it away, while her husband and two teenage sons quickly polish off what is on their plates.
"Yes, I am hungry. I have not eaten since morning, but if I eat now I will have to go to the toilet by the time the food is digested -- and there is always a long line at the washroom. We have just two toilets for women in this camp.

In South Africa, sanitation provision is the responsibility of local government.

Women and girls are most often the primary users, providers and managers of water in their households and are the guardians of household hygiene. If a water system falls into disrepair, women are the ones forced to travel long distances over many hours to meet their families’ water needs. A gendered approach can create a framework of cooperation between men and women, so that the insights and abilities of both men and women are available to shape programs and meet sector objectives.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) goal number 7 calls on governments to ensure environmental sustainability. The goal is to reduce the proportion of the people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and states as an indicator the proportion of the population using improved drinking water sources and using improved sanitation facilities. Read More

“A gender approach to sanitation, for empowerment of women, men and children” written by Joke Muylwijk published in 2006 by Gender and Water Alliance, Hygiene and Sanitation have many gender aspects; several of them will be obvious to most sanitation professionals. Even so, these aspects are not often given an important role in water and sanitation programmes, because the positive effect on efficiency, impact and sustainability are not always clear. Therefore, this paper highlights three important concepts such as gender, gender ideology and empowerment related to sanitation sector.