Gender and Water: The Case Study of Africa

Source What is World Toilet Day? As it was world toilet day on the 19 th November, I decided to make it the focus of my blog this week. World toilet day celebrates toilets and raises awareness of the fact that there are 4.2 billion people living without sufficient access to sanitation. It is also about achieving Goal 6 of the SDG- water and sanitation for all by 2030  ( UN 2020 ).  One thing that shocked me as I was researching this topic, was that more people have access to a mobile phone than to a toilet  ( Thieme 2018 )!  Shocking! The need for sanitation is especially important this year due to the Covid19 pandemic. This makes the lack of sanitation even more concerning because it shows how small things such as washing your hands are so important in preventing the virus from spreading ( BBC 2020 ). The theme for 2020 is sustainable sanitation and climate change, emphasising the need to maintain health and security whilst encouraging the sustainable handling of human waste (

  In my previous post, I contextualised the water scarcity in Africa. Due to restricted water access in Sub-Saharan Africa, one (usually the female) must leave their home and travel to access water. It is estimated that approximately two thirds of the Sub-Saharan Africa population are required to collect water ( Graham et al 2016 ) .  Thus, in this post I want to highlight issues associated with water collection, and how it accentuates the gender discrepancy. I will use  Varickanickal et al (2020 ) case study of Nyanchwa, a village in Kenya, examining the water-risk perceptions of female water collectors to illustrate this. The reason for choosing Kenya is rather personal. my grandfather was born and raised in Kenya, and I remember talking to him a few years ago about his life there. A detail I remembered was how every morning, his servant (who was female) used to spend about an hour daily collecting water. This gave me an incentive to research further the water collection situation in

  The water crisis in Africa:  source Water scarcity affects over 2.6 billion people worldwide, and has severe environmental, economic and social consequences  (Wutich 2012) . As explained in my previous post, due to water scarcity, there is an unequal disadvantage towards women since they are required to travel far to fetch water which isn’t necessarily drinkable and  resulting in loss of energy, time, and having severe health impacts  ( Kameri-Mbote and Kariuki 2015 ) .  Hence many policy interventions aim to address this including the SDGs. I aim to continue exploring throughout my blog. But first, it is important to contextualise the water scarcity situation within Africa order to gain a deeper understanding of how it impacts the gender discrepancy in certain regions. In this post, I will define water scarcity, look at the reasons for its existence, and then explore groundwater and its use.      Water scarcity Simply defined, this is the lack of availability of water in relati