Blog Introduction

For my first post in my blog ‘Women and Water: the Gender Discrepancy in Africa’, I am going to outline the motivations behind my decision to discuss this topic and give an introduction into the gendered-issue of water in Africa. I will also indicate the main threats to equality that arise from women’s relationship with water.

My desire to write about how water in Africa widens the gender discrepancy that continues its existence, and is described as an ‘uphill battle against patriarchy’ (Nzomo, 1994: 17), came from spending time in Kenya this summer. I was working on my dissertation project in Lake Naivasha and spent time speaking to women about the shift in their social and economic status since becoming employed and financially empowered. One of the things we discussed was how different their lives became after transitioning from a rural area to a town for employment. This included their contrasting roles and opportunities. It was emphasised that women and young girls were expected to undertake household chores such as cooking, cleaning and collecting water from the nearest freshwater supply. This is not restricted to Kenya – in fact ‘over two thirds in sub-Saharan Africa’ have to physically leave their homes to gain access to water (Graham et al., 2016: 2). Of the 24 countries studied in Graham’s research, it was found that women were the main collectors of water with figures as high as 90% of households in countries such as Cote d’Ivoire (Graham et al., 2016: 1). Having women as the primary collectors of water causes severe economic and social impacts. They are prevented from attending school or going into any form of employment as they are restricted by their expectations to collect water. In fact, within the ‘UNESCO eAtlas of Gender Inequality in Education’ it is stated that in sub-Saharan Africa, girls are only in full time education for a maximum of six years, which could represent the time poverty caused by water collection and other household chores (UNESCO online). The phrase ‘time poverty’ will feature multiple times throughout this blog, and hence for the purposes of this project it will be defined as ‘the unavailability of time for productive work’ (Jan and Pervez 2015: 64). However, time poverty is not the only challenge that women and young girls face regarding water collection. On their way to collect water for the household they can be subjected to sexual violence and harassment (Graham et al., 2016), particularly if they are travelling long distances which is often the case due to water inaccessibility. The stress that water collection places on women and girls is heightened by their increased need for water to aid sanitation especially in cases of menstruation, pregnancy and child-birth (UN WATER). These threats will be explored further over the next few months.

 Women collecting water in Gayo Village, Ethiopia. Source 

Furthermore, my experience in Lake Naivasha has inspired me to explore the different variations in accessibility to water which can exaggerate the inequality and time poverty of women. Lake Naivasha extends over 3400km² in the heart of Kenya (Ogada, 2017) and supplies resources for industries such as horticulture, hydro-electric power and tourism. It further supports the substantial wildlife population which includes many charismatic species such as giraffes, zebras and hippos. Due to the high dependency on its existence for many communities, it has been declared as a Ramsar site (Ogada, 2017) for its protection. Alongside large industrial use, the lake supports the everyday life of families and communities such as for fishing, cleaning their clothes and bathing themselves. However, many countries in Africa are not fortunate enough to own large freshwater lakes and hence I am interested in looking at the ways that water inaccessibility can cause detrimental effects to gender equality within the continent.

 Fishermen at Lake Naivasha - own image.

In order to contextualise the basis of my blog, in my next post I am going to shed light on the physical situation of water in Africa and show why there are high levels of water scarcity in many countries. Building on this, I plan to explore a variety of case studies where water has caused gendered social issues in the past, and cases where there has been active involvement in trying to mitigate this threat to the wellbeing of women. I will specifically touch on the issues of time poverty, sexual harassment and sanitation in a number of different sub-Saharan countries.