A call to action: organizational, professional, and personal change for gender transformative WASH programming

Cavill, Sue; Francis, Naomi; Grant, Melita; Huggett, Chelsea; Leahy, Caitlin; Leong, Lee Vien; Mercer, Elaine; Myers, Jamie; Singeling, Mascha; Rankin, Tom

doi:10.3362/1756-3488.20-00004

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…A few recent publications call for greater change within the sector regarding gender equality and transgender inclusion. 25 , 26 , 49 , 50 …”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A few recent publications call for greater change within the sector regarding gender equality and transgender inclusion. 25,26,49,50 Sanitation academia also struggles with a lack of DEI. This is largely due to academic imperialism, a problem that pervades academia, where HICs are considered the knowledge creators and LMICs are considered the knowledge receivers or the "information-poor."…”

Section: Literature Review Inequalities In International Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There has been discourse on the importance of female representation, but BIPOC representation and 'decolonization' 2 Environmental Health Insights have not received similar attention. 26,27 The intersections between race and gender cannot be ignored when seeking to address gender inequality in the workplace, particularly in a sector implementing programs in LMICs and impacting BIPOC. [28][29][30] Therefore, the sanitation sector is currently in the formative stages of pursuing representative DEI in its workforce and leadership.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Leadership for SDG 6.2: Is Diversity Missing?

Worsham¹,

Sylvester

Hales

et al. 2021

Environ�Health�Insights

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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the global sanitation sector have not been the subject of extensive investigation or scrutiny. However, without diverse leadership, the sector will continue to experience failure, inefficient use of dwindling resources, and overall low sanitation coverage rates, with 2 billion people lacking sanitation access. This research presents the first quantitative study of sanitation leadership demographics. The results revealed that older, white males from High-Income Countries comprised over a third of all leadership positions. This research found that two-thirds of all sanitation leaders were white, with white leaders 8.7 times more likely to hold multiple positions across different organizations than Black, Indigenous, or other People of Color. Eighty-eight out of one hundred organizations were headquartered in a High-Income Country, and western institutions dominated education data. Black, Indigenous, and other Women of Color were the least represented group, highlighting the importance of an intersectional perspective when discussing gender and racial equality. These issues must be urgently addressed if the Sustainable Development Goal 6.2 targets are to be met effectively. Institutional reform, inclusive hiring policies, and transforming individual attitudes are starting points for change. More organizational data should be made available, and further research needs to be conducted on these topics if a change is to be seen in time for 2030.

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“…A few recent publications call for greater change within the sector regarding gender equality and transgender inclusion. 25 , 26 , 49 , 50 …”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Review Inequalities In International Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Leadership for SDG 6.2: Is Diversity Missing?

Worsham¹,

Sylvester

Hales

et al. 2021

Environ�Health�Insights

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“…This gendered division of water collection labor is most pronounced in patriarchal, rural, and agricultural communities, including in India. This basic understanding is linked to the growth of "gender-sensitive" or "gender mainstreaming" water policy and intervention that targets alleviating burdens for women specifically (e.g., Carrard et al, 2013;Cavill et al, 2022;Grant et al, 2020;MacArthur et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Men's household water fetching in India: Gender inequity is associated with greater responsibility and related risks

Brewis,

Choudhary,

Wutich

2023

American J Hum Biol

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IntroductionHousehold water fetching elevates physical and emotional harms, and these are generally assumed to accrue to women due to gendered labor assignments. But even in cases like India where fetching remains a highly feminized task, there are households where the primary responsibility is assumed by men.MethodsWe test the proposition that men's responsibility for water fetching is predicted by greater gender equity, reflected in measures of wives' empowerment. We used an extremely large, nationally representative Demographic and Health Survey dataset from India (2019–2020), narrowed to only households in which spouses co‐reside with off‐plot water sources (N = 10 616), and applying a multinomial regression approach.ResultsIn >20% of households, men are the primary fetchers. They are more likely to have primary responsibility when water is more distant, privately purchased, or transported by vehicle. Contrary to predictions, men assume greater responsibility for household water fetching as their wives' empowerment measures decrease and when they want to control their movement.ConclusionMarried men in India sometimes assume responsibility for water fetching, but this is not explained by greater household gender equity. The findings also suggest that when men are responsible for fetching they have heightened risk of some forms of physical trauma but less relative psychological harm. Detailing why men fetch water matters for identifying and mitigating the physical and emotion harms of bearing responsibility for water labor, with implications for how gender should be conceptualized in water interventions intending to improve health and well‐being.

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“…As the primary change agents within development interventions, staff members are often the starting place for gender-transformative interventions through gender training (Moser, 2005). This training is particularly important in highly technical sectors, such as sanitation, as many staff are men and come from male-dominated trades such as engineering (Cavill et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eliciting stories of gender-transformative change: Investigating the effectiveness of question prompt formulations in qualitative gender assessments

et al. 2022

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Evaluations of gender equality initiatives in development programmes traditionally assess cognitive dimensions such as knowledge, attitudes, and awareness; and often rely solely on women’s perspectives. Leveraging story-based evaluation methods, this article explores the assessment of complex gender-transformations and focuses on effective question prompts to elicit significant and meaningful narratives of change from both women and men. In collaboration with a development programme in Cambodia, a staff assessment process led to a set of criteria for considering the quality of respondent stories and testing the efficacy of four different question prompts (n = 176): verb-, value-, sphere-, and theme-based. Highlighting aspects of embodiment, the study suggests that verb-based prompts were the most effective at eliciting stories that reflect diverse experiences of both women and men in processes of gender-transformation. Findings from our analysis can support evaluators in balancing simplicity and specificity of questions in assessing the unique experiences of individuals undergoing complex change.

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A call to action: organizational, professional, and personal change for gender transformative WASH programming

Cited by 7 publications

References 11 publications

Leadership for SDG 6.2: Is Diversity Missing?

Leadership for SDG 6.2: Is Diversity Missing?

Men's household water fetching in India: Gender inequity is associated with greater responsibility and related risks

Eliciting stories of gender-transformative change: Investigating the effectiveness of question prompt formulations in qualitative gender assessments

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