Gender Matters at the UN Water Conference 2023

Mar 16, 2023 | Marisa O. Ensor

The first global water summit in nearly 50 years – the UN 2023 Water Conference – will take place at UN Headquarters in New York, 22-24 March 2023. This high-profile meeting responds to the reality that prevalent water policies and frameworks were designed in an environmental and geopolitical context that no longer exists. Conference participants also acknowledge that the disproportionate responsibility that women and girls bear as primary users, providers, and managers of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) at the household level is yet to be matched by a commensurate representation in WASH-related decision-making. Compounded by the impacts of climate change, altered water demands due to population growth, conflict, and displacement threaten to further exacerbate entrenched water inequalities.  Following up on last month's post,  here I discuss the role of UN water conferences and related events in promoting sustainable, and gender-equitable water agendas.

 The Mar del Plata Water Conference 1977

The United Nations convened a Water Conference at Mar del Plata, Argentina, in March 1977.  This conference – the first of its kind – was attended by 116 governments; participants included officials at the highest decision-making level in the water sector, as well as representatives of numerous international and non-governmental organizations. The final report of the Mar del Plata Conference did not mention gender. It did, however, highlight the role of women in the WASH sector. Specifically, the report remarked that, “[i]n the field of community water supply and sanitation, special emphasis should be given to the situation and the role of women.”

The Mar del Plata conference was a major milestone in the development of a global framework for the water sector. It was followed by other relevant initiatives, which have marked the global water agenda over the last 50 years.  These include various proclamations such as (1) March 22^nd as World Water Day; (2) 2003 as the International Year of Freshwater; (3) 2013 as the International Year of Water Cooperation; (4) the period from 2005 to 2015 as the International Decade for Action "Water for Life"; and, (5) the period from 2018 to 2028 as the International Decade for Action, Water for Sustainable Development currently in effect. Also relevant is the UN World Water Development Report 2019 which addresses the urgent necessity to consider the demand of disadvantaged groups when managing water resources.  These initiatives have sought to accelerate efforts towards meeting water-related challenges.

Nevertheless, while much progress has been made since then, global efforts to avert a water crisis have fallen decidedly short. According to the 2022 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) report, the current rate of progress would have to increase at least fourfold to reach the goals of universal access to drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene by 2030. Climate change, increasing global insecurity, and uncontrolled urbanization and population growth are among the factors undermining efforts to meet basic human needs and reduce pressures on the world’s water resources. At the same time, our understanding of gender inequalities has significantly advanced – as have both the risks and the opportunities for better outcomes.

The UN Water Conference 2023

As previously noted, the UN General Assembly proclaimed the period 2018–2028 as the International Decade for Action, Water for Sustainable Development. The UN Water Conference 2023 comes at the midpoint of this Water Action Decade and represents a highly anticipated opportunity to review progress, accelerate long-needed action, and advance on water-related goals and targets.  The conference will be centered around five “dialogue themes” that focus on the linkages between SDG 6 (water) and (1) health; (2) sustainable development; (3) climate, resilience, and environment; (4) cooperation; and (5) the Water Action Decade. Related initiatives are meant to further improve cooperation, partnerships, and capacity development in response to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.  

The UN Water Conference 2023 is expected to adopt the Water Action Agenda as a main outcome representing the voluntary commitments of countries and other stakeholders to meet the global water-related goals and targets. The agenda – a compilation of actions and approaches to solving water issues from infrastructure and business to access and human rights – explicitly recognizes “civil society, including youth, women and indigenous people,” as key stakeholders for water action. 

The link to SDG 5 (gender equality and women’s empowerment) is part of the dialogue on “Water for Health.” The advance concept note for the dialogue does not indicate an in-depth engagement with gender transformative thinking as a whole. The governance theme, on the other hand, does highlight the importance of “ensuring policies, regulatory arrangements, strategies and implementation models are inclusive and gender sensitive, allowing the meaningful participation of women in decision-making and governance, and leading to their social, political and economic empowerment.”

Gender Matters

Making safe water, sanitation and hygiene available to all is a critical component of progress for women and girls across the 2030 Agenda. Global estimates by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene indicate that 771 million people (or 10 percent of the global population) lack access to a water source that requires no more than 30 minutes for collection, including travel to and queuing at the source. Conservatively assuming a single trip per day, at least 385.5 million hours are spent on water collection activities daily. Women and girls largely shoulder this burden, costing them time and effort, and exposing them to harm.

It is well documented that unpaid care work is a significant factor constraining women’s access to more empowering options, including income-generating opportunities. The expectation that they will continue to carry out the bulk of unpaid domestic tasks while engaged in paid labor creates a “double burden” of work for women. This then becomes a “triple burden” when active participation in climate, peacebuilding, development or other efforts is added to women’s plates. A recent piece by the Stockholm Environment Institute illustrates this point by referring to cooptative interventions in the WASH sector. In particular, they allude to campaigns to promote healthy habits at the household level – such as increased handwashing or other hygienic practices – by invoking “good mother” ideals. This increases women’s responsibilities and workload, while men are exempted from participating.  The common tendency to backslide into stereotypical views of women’s roles must be avoided. So is programming that targets only women as singly responsible for WASH.

It is also worth bearing in mind that water security not only requires sufficient availability of and access to safe water;  fair and equitable distribution across populations and within households is also needed. Most water security indicators assess one or two of the water security domains (i.e., availability, access, quality, reliability, and security) at a macro-level (i.e., the national scale or basin level). Such macro-level indicators are, however, likely to mask the disparities in water access, quality, or reliability experienced by different household members. Women and girls often face more constrained water security vis-à-vis their male counterparts – a pattern increasingly exacerbated by the impacts of climate change.

A Call to Action

The first UN conference on freshwater, held back in 1977, discussed many of the issues still impacting nations and communities today. The upcoming UN 2023 Water Conference aims to mobilize water action and create the political momentum needed to achieve SDG 6 and other water-related goals and targets. This watershed event is expected to mobilize all sectors, stakeholders, and countries to improve water governance, finance, assessment, and collaborative mechanisms to ensure a water-secure world for all – women and girls, men and boys.

As the negative impacts of climate change continue to disrupt progress towards global water goals, collaborative approaches between the gender, climate, and water communities are urgently needed. Decades of experience show that WASH interventions cannot be successful if women’s and girls’ needs are neglected. Rectifying recent regressions in equality and advancing towards both SDG 5 (gender equality) and SDG 6 (water and sanitation) will require innovative ways of managing the new climate reality at multiple scales and in multiple arenas. Member States and other stakeholders at the 2023 UN Water Conference will need to step up efforts to meaningfully incorporate gender transformative approaches into their work.

Dr. Marisa O. Ensor is an applied environmental and legal anthropologist currently based at Georgetown University’s Justice and Peace Studies Program. She is also the current Chair of the Environmental Peacebuilding Association’s Gender Interest Group (“EnPAx-GIG”).