Water Archives - Page 3 of 24 - Women's Earth Alliance

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

India has the Most People Without Clean Water

Project: Working Together for H2OPE in India

Water Aid, the international charity, released a report this week titled, “Water: At What Cost? The State of the World’s Water in 2016” revealing that 75.8 million of India’s 1.25 billion people (5%) lack access to safe and affordable water.

Poor Indians without water access are forced to spend an average of about 72 cents to buy 50 liters (13 gallons) of water a day, the amount recommended by the World Health Organization, according to the report. That’s nearly 20 percent of their typical daily income, according to the report. By comparison, people in Britain spend about 10 cents a day for 50 liters.

Misappropriation of funds, resources, and the planning and execution of waterways and projects throughout india has also resulted in water shortages in areas where it was once plentiful.

Read the full article from U.S. News here, and read Water Aid’s report here.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Lack of access to water and toilets has untold effects

Project: Women Building a Water Movement in East Africa

Topics: Water, Sub-Saharan Africa

According to UNICEF, about 157 million people in the Eastern and Southern Africa region (ESAR) do not have access to a clean and safe water distribution system, and therefore rely on external water sources. This is compounded by an additional lack of reliable and improved sanitation.

Additionally, as WEA has seen in our own work in communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, the burden of fetching water, no matter how far away it might be, falls disproportionately on women and girls, thus limiting the time they can spend of self-sustaining tasks, school and, eventually, work. Furthermore, once a girl reaches puberty, and without private, separate and safe sanitation resources, they often miss school when menstruating, ultimately resulting in a significant portion of school days missed.

While women often have the primary responsibility for the management of household water supply, they are rarely consulted or involved in the planning and management of this vital resource. In sub-Saharan Africa, women produce up to 80 percent of basic foodstuffs, yet they have the least access to the means of production.

[However] A World Bank evaluation of 122 water projects found that the effectiveness of a project was six to seven times higher where women were involved than where they were not.

COP21: Time to Put a Cap on Global Gender Inequality

Topics: Energy, Land, Water, Health, Food

By: Katie Douglas, WEA Intern

“I will ensure this… the climate battle must be fought for, and with, women,” stated Laurent Fabius, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development. These words are Fabius’ bold commitment for the 21st session of the Conference of Parties (COP) which starts today in Paris, over which he will preside as President. For WEA and our global allies, his declaration is a real opportunity for world leaders to highlight and recommit themselves to addressing the intersectional relationship of women and the environment on an international level. The only question is whether Fabius and other decision-makers have the gumption to follow through on such promises made months ago? Or will COP21 be yet another international meeting that renders gender equality irrelevant to climate change, and creates an environmental protocol without the mechanisms to enforce it?

COP began as an international response to climate change with the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 and a commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale. COP21 represents a chance for representatives from over 190 countries to cooperatively create universal agreements, all in the aim of keeping our climate below 2°C or 3.6°F. The U.S., the European Union., Russia, China, and India will largely negotiate the next 50 year agenda, as they are all among the highest emitters of greenhouse gases. However, in the past these powerhouse countries have failed to prioritize the critical role of and impacts on women in the global environmental movement.

One of the many reasons women are so incredibly impacted by the effects of climate change is due to the vital role they play in securing the natural resources that their families depend upon for survival, such as clean water, food, and fuel. Around 70% of women work in agriculture in low-income food-deficit countries, though generally women own less than 10% of the land. These women are already forced to mitigate the effects of climate change that drive soil erosion, drought, and food scarcity, and through traditional methods and knowledge these women are able to adapt successfully. The2014 Copenhagen Consensus stated that agriculture research is the single most effective way to invest in fighting malnourishment. Combine this with the fact that agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to pollution, and the answer is straightforward: Invest in women as keepers of traditional knowledge and stewards of natural resources, provide them with the support and networks necessary to develop their community-based, sustainable solutions, and witness how the ripple of their efforts become a wave of transformation.

But one of the biggest challenges in constructing an effective international protocol is designing the mechanisms to enforce it. Past COPs have only created legally non-binding frameworks for treaty negotiations, such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. So long as countries can opt out of ratifying treaties that might actually impact their emission levels, there seems little prospect for any sort of enforcement on pollutant control. However, at COP21 there is hope for change as the conference’s main goal is to, for the first time, create a universal, legally binding agreement with which to effectively combat climate change. A global accord where individual countries are actually held accountable to their actions is an opportunity to create environmental protocols that invest in the women leaders who are already adapting to these changes.

For WEA and our allies around the world, we can only hope that this rare opportunity for change will not overlook women—who are critical agents in any long-term plans for our earth and future generations—and that those world leaders like Laurent Fabius will hold true to their words. Because it’s time for a protocol that doesn’t merely cap our emissions, but asks us to restructure our world to a more sustainable way of life. So let’s make a change and invest in women to invest in a sustainable future.

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Further Reading:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurent-fabius/taking-climate-action-for-and-with-women_b_6819596.html
http://ecowatch.com/2015/07/06/carl-pope-paris-climate-talks/

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Water Tanks Sustain, Empower Women

Project: Safe Water Solutions for Sub-Saharan African Women

Topics: Water, Sub-Saharan Africa

At a training with the Global Women’s Water Initiative in East Africa, in 2011, 175 Women received training on how to build new water tanks for their communities, and how to tackle water, hygiene and sanitation issues in their neighborhoods. Prior to the tanks, women sustained injuries from carrying extremely heavy water loads over long distances, and were vulnerable to assault on their journey. Now, thanks to the tanks, the amount of time spent fetching water has been reduced from an hour to less than 10 minutes. Nearly three-quarters of the trainees have since become masons trainers and social entrepreneurs, increasing their income and empowering themselves.

To me water is life. Once you have water in the house then other things are solved. The time used to get water is reduced. The reduced time is translated into other development activities. These development activities within the community entirely changes the country … So empowering a woman to me is changing economies. It’s giving power.
-Rose Atieno, social worker and trainee

You can read the full article here.

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

How Climate Change Impacts Women the Most

Topics: Water

Read more about the differentiated impacts of climate change, and how the UN hopes to address this with it’s Sustainable Development Goals in this great article from VICE News.

“Climate change directly impacts the ability of women to achieve their own human rights and increases gender inequalities,” Eleanor Blomstrom, program director for the Women’s Environment and Development Organization, told VICE News.

Despite the greater threat to women, their needs are often neglected in sustainability planning, said Nisha Onta, a gender and climate change expert with the women’s rights organization WOCAN. Under UN climate change guidelines, for example, developing countries are expected to submit plans for how they will adapt to a changing climate. But those plans are often made without incorporating plans for addressing gender inequality, like the fact that a lower-class woman in Bangladesh might not be allowed to use a new water pump, which is seen a important tool for managing changing precipitation patterns.

“The needs and reality of women are lacking and the work of women is kind of taken as a given,” Onta told VICE News. “[Developers say,] ‘We will go in and we will have water, we will make water accessible.’ How are you going to do that? Women are going to collect this water. Have they been consulted? Do they have time?”

Read more about the differentiated impacts of climate change, and how the UN hopes to address this with it’s Sustainable Development Goals in this great article from VICE News.

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