An Introduction: Gender, Development and Water

 1 – Introduction 

Welcome to my blog on 'Gender, Water and Development in Africa'. I intend to outline my motivations to explore this topic and briefly contextualise the role of gender within water and development discourse. This is a crucial issue as water scarcity disproportionately affects women since they are overly impacted by the lack of access to safe and clean water and hygiene infrastructures. 

 

Binyavanga Wainaina's (2005) essay How to Write About Africa uses brutal satire to illustrate how Africa is frequently misinterpreted and portrayed in Western media and literature. Wainaina employs a sarcastic voice to reinforce existing preconceptions of Africa as a homogenous nation with a 'primitive' character. The author romanticises its hardship and poverty while purposely ignoring the joy in the lived experiences of everyday encounters, and mocks an entire continent of ethnically diverse people by portraying them as mostly destitute, helpless, incompetent individuals, dependent on foreign saviours and charity. Africa is made up of 54 independent states, 2000 spoken languages, and 1.3 billion people. This example reflects how deeply ingrained in Western society a homogenised image of Africa exists. 

 

Wainaina's satirical account emphasises that 'ordinary domestic scenes' should not be included in works about Africa since they represent a 'taboo subject'. More often than not, the 'ordinary domestic scenes' are frequently associated with the daily burden of water collection. Graham et al. (2016) researched 24 African nations and found that women bear 90% of the responsibility of water collection; therefore, household water management and provision is a women's task. Wainaina implies that women's everyday struggles and sacrifices for water are undervalued and neglected. This highlights the gendered prejudice, where women are underrepresented despite all their hard work and diligence. For this reason, I have decided to use this essay as an entry point for writing about gender within water and development in Africa. 

 

"Women in sub-Saharan Africa spend 40 billion hours per year collecting water". 

 

This striking figure demonstrates the critical need to improve access to a clean and safe water supply closer to the home. Reducing time collecting water would lessen women's responsibilities and free up time for other activities such as earning an income or attaining an education, improving empowerment and independence. Long water collection for domestic and hygiene use puts intense physical strain on the body, exposes them to sexual violence, and endangers them from the arduous walk to a water source. Women are in charge of water collection, yet water infrastructure and water governance is a male-dominated sphere. Overall, women and girls are disproportionately affected when it comes to issues of inadequate water supply, which is further exacerbated due to their specific hygiene and sanitation needs. 

 

Figure 1: Women in Nyanza Province, Kenya. 

 

Why Africa? 

 

Focusing on 'Africa' as a homogenous continent facing equal water scarcity is highly misleading. Africa possesses 9% of global freshwater reserves and 0.66 million cubic kilometres of groundwater. Africa clearly has an abundance of freshwater, rather it is unevenly distributed. The issue is not one of volume but one of access, distribution, and availability. In Liberia, for example, just 10% of the population has access to safely managed drinking water and hygiene infrastructures; however, the country ranks 15th globally in freshwater resources per capita. The challenge remains in poor management of the collection, storage, and catchment systems, limiting access, distribution, and availability, particularly for rural populations. 

 

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) focus on ensuring water access and sanitation for all. I hope to understand better whether the SDGs have sufficiently promoted equal access to water and sanitation, particularly for women and girls. 

 

SDG 6: Ensure access to water and sanitation to all. 

 

SDG 6.2 "By 2030, achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations". 

 

Throughout my blog entries, I expect to understand better the complexities that women in Africa face due to inadequate access to safe water and sanitation. I aim to explore case studies mainly within rural settlements and informal communities since these areas are most likely to face water and sanitation challenges, particularly in relation to accessibility, availability and distribution. I intend to cover topics such as women afflicted by gender-based violence resulting from insufficient sanitation facilities, period poverty and hygiene issues due to lack of sanitation infrastructures and water access, and the importance of women and girls in decision-making processes for water management infrastructures. I am conscious of my positionality as a European female raised in London and intend to refrain from generalisation and stereotypes influencing my discussions in these blog posts and homogenising all women.