Access to gender responsive water, sanitation and hygiene for climate resilience and adaptation

9 min läsning
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Image: WaterAid/Sibtain Haider

Idag träffar WaterAid och flera andra organisationer Utrikesdepartementet för att diskutera rapporten Gender and Climate Justice som WaterAid tillsammans med 16 andra organisationer har tagit fram genom Concord. På mötet uppmanar vi regeringen att tydliggöra att Sverige, i den feministiska utrikespolitiken, stödjer regeringar och ackrediterade partners i låginkomstländer i arbetet med att utveckla motståndskraftiga och jämställda satsningar på vatten, sanitet och hygien (WASH).

Rapporten visar bristande jäm­ställd­hetsper­spek­tiv i kli­mat­poli­tiken, där både svenska och internationella lagar och ramverk missar att göra kopplingen mellan genus och klimat. Men även i Sveriges feministiska utrikespolitik saknas tydliga kopplingar till hur viktig tillgång till rent vatten, sanitet och hygien är för kvinnor och flickors utbildning och motståndskraft mot klimatförändringar.

Nedan följer det kapitel i rapporten som WaterAid bidragit till, och som handlar om en av de största utmaningarna under 2000-talet, nämligen vattenbrist och hur klimatförändringarna förvärrar situationen för de miljarder människor som saknar tillgång till rent vatten och sanitet.

 

CHAPTER 6
 

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

The effects of climate change on resilience and water security

Water scarcity is one of the greatest challenges of the twenty-first century. For the 2.2 billion people around the world who do not have safely managed drinking water services, the 4.2 billion people who do not have safely managed sanitation services, and the 3 billion who lack basic handwashing facilities, climate change further exacerbates their vulnerability. This also hits women and girls even harder as, globally, women and girls living in poverty face disproportionately limited access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene.

To understand how climate change, gender equality and access to water, sanitation and hygiene services are linked, one main answer lies in the fact that billions of people live in areas where most do not have access to a toilet and are forced to defecate in the open. When heavy rain falls, these areas are immediately exposed to health risks from human faeces swept into floodwater and contaminating drinking water sources. The problem is exacerbated if there is limited knowledge and a lack of means to undertake safe hygiene practices, such as handwashing with soap. The first line of defence against diseases such as diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid and coronavirus, is thus severely impeded. Likewise, droughts can mean that precarious coping strategies based on unimproved surface water or shallow groundwater are no longer viable, which increases the number of people exposed to water insecurity. The vulnerability of communities to increased floods and droughts is compounded by the fact that climate change may also damage existing water supply and sanitation services. In the context of climate change, building resilient and gender-responsive services for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) is an increasingly urgent priority.

How is access to water, sanitation and hygiene connected to resilience and gender equality?

Despite the centrality of water, sanitation and hygiene to climate resilience and adaptation, the links are not widely recognised by government, donors, or various technical communities focusing on water, climate and infrastructure. The same goes for gender-responsive solutions for water and sanitation in homes, in health care facilities and schools. These interventions are often seen as belonging to the domain of development and thus separated from climate adaptation strategies. This has implications for the prioritisation of women's health, empowerment and security. Access to WASH is fundamental to development, but it is also a critical climate adaptation strategy for poor and vulnerable communities and marginalized groups within those communities, including women and girls.

In many low-income countries, the absence of safe and sufficient water supplies and decent sanitation facilities has disproportionate negative effects on the lives of women and girls for three main reasons. Firstly, women and girls usually bear the responsibility for collecting water, which is often very time-consuming and arduous. Secondly, women and girls are more vulnerable to abuse and attack, in particular gender-based violence, while fetching water or using a toilet or open defecation site. Thirdly, women and girls have specific hygiene needs for reproductive health during menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth and child rearing that includes access to clean water and hygienic materials. Without a private place to urinate and defecate, many women and girls adjust to only going at night, when the risk of assault, sexual harassment, violence or animal attacks is increased. This is the daily reality of life for many women and girls in low and middle-income countries. On the other hand, when women and girls have better access to climate-resilient resources and technologies, they devote more time to activities such as education, paid work, political and public participation, and leisure activities, which enhance the quality of life for them and their entire communities.

Access to WASH and the right to health, including sexual and reproductive health and rights, and education

In 2019, the World Health Organisation listed climate change and the lack of hygiene and sanitation in health care facilities among the top ten threats to global health. The impacts of climate change, in particular an increased frequency of flooding and prolonged droughts, worsen already unsafe situations in many hospitals in low and middle-income countries. One million deaths each year are associated with births in unsanitary conditions, while infections account for 26 percent of neonatal deaths and 11 percent of maternal mortality. It is clear that hygienic conditions in health care facilities have life-saving impacts. Equipping health care facilities with adequate, resilient WASH services is crucial to preventing infections, reducing antimicrobial resistance and the spread of viruses, and providing quality care, particularly for safe childbirth.

WASH plays a significant role in the quality of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) service delivery and the realisation of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). Where WASH facilities and services are weak or missing from SRHR systems and services, negative effects on a range of SRH issues can be seen, including contraception, pregnancy, childbirth, safe abortion, sexually transmitted diseases or menstrual hygiene. Due to climaterelated effects such as frequent droughts and floods, it will be increasingly challenging to provide SRH services, including WASH, safely in many areas. Adaptation resources to specifically safeguard access to SRHR need to be allocated to areas affected and at risk. Without climate-resilient sexual and reproductive health services, women's, girls' and newborns' lives and wellbeing are being put at risk.

Lack of access to water, sanitation and hygiene systems already keeps many girls around the world from going to school. For example, many girls spend hours each day collecting water, which can affect their attendance and performance at school. Girls may also miss school when they start to menstruate as a result of a lack of separate and safe sanitation facilities and menstrual health supplies. Globally, 31 percent of schools do not have clean water and 34 percent lack decent toilets. Progress toward gender equal and resilient societies can be made through expanding access to inclusive, gender-responsive water, sanitation and hygiene in schools.

In order to safeguard women's and girls' rights to education and health, including sexual and reproductive health, governments and other actors need to embed inclusive and equal access to safe water and sanitation in national climate adaptation plans and national determined contributions under the Paris Agreement. It is also important to ensure that women and girls have an equal role to play in the design, management and monitoring of policy and programming related to both climate and WASH. WASH services can also be a strategic platform to contribute to gender equality through including women in decisionmaking, challenging gender-stereotypical roles in households and the community, while improving inclusiveness and the quality of WASH outcomes.

WHAT HAS BEEN DONE?

International policies

A good example of a national policy that makes strong linkages between water security, access to WASH, gender and climate is Canada's feminist international assistance policy. Their policy clearly frames the connections between gender and WASH in terms of both climate crises and conflicts, positing that "Women and girls are particularly at risk when it comes to scarcity of resources in the wake of these challenges — in particular, the lack of clean drinking water — coupled with a gender-based imbalance in household responsibilities. (…) As water scarcity can be a source of tension and conflict, tackling water challenges is also important for our actions on peace and security."

At the international policy level, the World Health Assembly resolution from 2019 on water, sanitation and hygiene in health care facilities is of utmost importance for women's health, as it states that all health care facilities should have access to safe water and sanitation. It is also a landmark policy document in that it takes note of the fact that global driving forces, including climate change, can significantly affect the availability, access and quality of water and sanitation services, and that there is an urgent need for addressing the links between climate, energy, WASH and health.

The levels of global climate finance directed to the WASH sector are currently very low, which reflects the poor recognition of the role of WASH in climate resilience and for gender equality. Climate finance for gender responsive WASH must be increased, and existing and supplemental funding must be better targeted. Access to gender-responsive water, sanitation and hygiene is not sufficiently recognised as a critical adaptation tool for communities within the climate funds. Similar weakness can be seen in relation to Sweden's engagement in international adaptation policies and climate funding frameworks. Without emphasising these perspectives and their interlinkages there is little chance that Sweden's contributions to the Global Adaptation Fund and the Green Climate Fund, for example, will secure women's rights and reach the women and girls most affected by climate change.

Swedish policies

It is promising that the policy framework for Swedish development cooperation and humanitarian assistance as well as the last few yearly action plans for the Swedish feminist foreign policy have recognized the importance of access to water, sanitation and hygiene within maternity and reproductive health care.

Sweden supported the adoption of the 2019 World Health Assembly resolution on water, sanitation and hygiene in health care facilities. In the international donor community, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) is leading on menstrual hygiene management that includes access to water and sanitation in schools. However, in spite of these important steps, the Swedish government and Sida has not made enough progress in sufficiently aligning gender responsive WASH with SRHR or climate adaptation strategies. It is now time for implementation.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

  • As an important contributor to the Green Climate Fund, Sweden should advocate for the fund's Readiness Programme to sufficiently promote women's and girls' access to gender-responsive WASH, and support national governments on gender-responsive WASH in their national adaptation programmes.
  • Capacity strengthening should be ensured at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, and the Ministry of the Environment, as well as Sida, for better coordination on the linkages between climate change adaptation, access to water, sanitation and hygiene, and gender.
  • Sweden should take inspiration from Canada's feminist international assistance policy action and in its 2021 action plan for the feminist foreign policy address the nexus between climate change, WASH and gender with concrete measures for its advancement in climate resilience and adaptation efforts.
  • Sweden should support governments and accredited partners in low income countries to develop climate-resilient and gender-responsive WASH programmes.

 

ORGANISATIONS THAT HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THIS TEXT:
The Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU), WaterAid

Footnotes are available in the full report, pages 39-43.

Click here to read the full report >

 

Cover of the report Feminist policies for climate justice