Women, water and the ugly global crisis we’re not talking about

Basic lack of toilets lies at the core of the sanitation crisis. However, culture often compounds its effects in ways that are exponentially more problematic for women and girls. For example, due to privacy and cultural concerns, women and girls who don’t have toilets are often unable to go to the bathroom during the day. To cope with this they restrict their food and water intake, which leads to serious health problems. Moreover, when they are only able to go to the bathroom before sunrise or after sunset, they are also subject to dangerous situations such as assault and injury at night.

Everyone is affected, of course. But women and girls bear the overwhelming majority — in some regions upwards of 90 percent — of the global water and sanitation burden, according to a 2010 report by the World Health Organization. They are the ones pulled and kept out of school, rendered unable to take on productive work, and trapped by the gender and financial dynamics of this crisis.

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There’s a cultural problem on the other side of the equation as well. Toilet talk usually isn’t welcome at cocktail parties. Public discussions about the effects of menstruation or diarrhea are taboo in most places. Ironically sanitation often masquerades as a “water-related” issue. However, as the Gates Foundation and others have found, the return on investment in sanitation can be incredibly high. In order to leverage this, we cannot abide by the traditionally sanitized approach to charitable giving and development aid. We must open the discourse to include terms like pour-flush, eco-san and septic tanks.

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When it comes to the global water crisis, we often hear the statistics. Close to one billion people lack access to safe water. More than 2.6 billion people – more than one in every three people alive – don’t have an adequate toilet, according to a 2008 report by the World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation. More than 3.5 million people died in 2002 from water, sanitation and hygiene-related causes, according to a report by the World Health Organization. Water wars, impending water conflicts, water stress (not enough water in many places, too much water in others) is daily news.

In addition, water collection imposes significant time and productivity costs at the individual, household, family, community and national levels. More than 200 million hours are spent each day collecting water around the world according to data collected by Water.org. And an estimated 443 million school days are lost each year due to collecting water and being sick from water-borne disease.

It’s time talk of statistics turned into talk of solutions. This scenario can change, and there are already innovative solutions in development. Organizations like NextDrop are in the early stages of creating a mobile phone application that would provide individuals with critical data on water availability and quality. Microfinance provides another, demand-driven pathway to a solution. As the Director of WaterCredit.org, I have seen first-hand how partnerships with microfinance institutions (MFIs) can link the water, sanitation and microfinance sectors in order to catalyze sustainable and affordable solutions for clients’ water and sanitation needs.

Small amounts of finance, mobile applications, and prioritization of toilets in schools. These surprisingly simple innovations can lead to a tsunami of social change. Water and sanitation can revolutionize the future of women, girls, and, in so doing, improve the world for us all. Let’s not waste another minute, or another drop.