Gender equality approaches in water, sanitation, and hygiene programs: Towards gender-transformative practice

Abstract

The recent (re-)emergence of gender-transformative approaches in the development sector has focused on transforming the gender norms, dynamics, and structures which perpetuate inequalities. Yet, the application of gender-transformative approaches within water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) programing remains nascent as compared with other sectors. Adopting a feminist sensemaking approach drawing on literature and practice, this inquiry sought to document and critically reflect on the conceptualization and innovation of gender-transformative thinking in the Australian Government's Water for Women Fund. Through three sensemaking workshops and associated analysis, participants developed a conceptual framework and set of illustrative case examples to support WASH practitioners to integrate strengthened gender-transformative practice. The multi-layered framework contains varied entry points to support multi-disciplinary WASH teams integrating gender equality, as skills and resources permit. Initiatives can be categorized as insensitive, sensitive, responsive or transformative, and prompted by five common motivators (welfare, efficiency, equity, empowerment, and transformative requality). The framework has at its foundation two diverging tendencies: toward instrumental gender potential and toward transformative gender potential. The article draws on historical and recent WASH literature to illustrate the conceptual framework in relation to: (i) community mobilization, (ii) governance, service provision, and oversight, and (iii) enterprise development. The illustrative examples provide practical guidance for WASH practitioners integrating gendered thinking into programs, projects, and policies. We offer a working definition for gender-transformative WASH and reflect on how the acknowledgment, consideration, and transformation of gender inequalities can lead to simultaneously strengthened WASH outcomes and improved gender equality.

An analysis of gender inclusion in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) projects: Intention vs. reality

“…There are methods that can be used to qualitatively analyse implementation; both "Outcome Mapping" (Earl et al, 2001) and the "Most Significant Change Technique" (Dart & Davies, 2003) offer pathways to measure meaningful social change. Gender-sensitive frameworks, such as the one used in this article of 27 | (MacArthur et al, 2023), could also be a useful tool in evaluating projects, provided that they have contextual validation to ensure that they align with local need.…”

“…The gender-sensitivity level of the evaluations were assessed through the Adapted Gender-Integration Framework (Table 1, MacArthur et al, 2023). The framework classifies interventions according to their level of sensitivity from gender insensitive (unaware of gender dynamics), to sensitive (basic awareness and mobilization of women), to responsive (purposeful strive for empowerment), to transformative (transformation of norms and structures).…”

“…This section presents the evaluation of using the Gender Sensitivity Framework (MacArthur et al, 2023). The overall results are shown in Figure 2.…”

“…Gender equality aims for equal treatment and equal access to services, whereas gender equity goes further, seeking to understand the barriers preventing equality to provide additional structures for those with unequal opportunities. Furthermore, the level at which a project interacts with gender equality and equity can be categorized according to its sensitivity level (insensitive, sensitive, responsive, or transformational), as seen in the Adapted Gender-Integration Framework (MacArthur et al, 2023). Gender equality is a key target to ensure basic inclusion, it is the term most commonly used in the context of international development and is a component of the framework used for analysis in this research, and is thus used as a base term in this article.…”

“…By systematically reviewing these two multilateral organizations, this article demonstrates how the public appearance of striving for gender equality and actual project execution, often differ. The evaluations were then categorized against the Adapted Gender-Integration Framework (MacArthur et al, 2023) to classify the gender outcomes. The article also uses survey data that collected the experiences of individuals working on gender and WASH to understand personal experiences of theoretical and practical gender inclusion.…”