• Opinion by Lyla Mehta (brighton, uk)
• Thursday, March 19, 2026
• Inter Press Service

BRIGHTON, UK, March 19 (IPS) - The 2026 campaign on World Water Day’s focuses on Water and Gender – ‘where water flows, equality grows’ . While substantial progress has been achieved across a range of gender indicators spanning education, health and public participation, the situation around WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) is still marked by deep inequalities with women and girls disproportionately affected – and this reflects the persistence of global patriarchy.

More than 2 billion people still lack access to safely managed drinking water. In households without piped water, women and girls are made to be responsible for about 70–80% of water collection trips worldwide, taking anything from 30 minutes to four hours daily. This time can instead usefully be spent on education, productive activities or even leisure and rest, but they don’t have the choice.

The situation is even more dire for sanitation with 3.4 billion people lacking access to safely managed sanitation. All this affects women’s and girl’s dignity, safety, security and the privacy and comfort needed for dignified menstrual health management. At the same time, there is poor progress on women’s economic participation.

These patterns have remained remarkably persistent despite improvements in water and sanitation infrastructure. The sheer time and labour required for poor women and girls around WASH activities, combined with gendered inequalities and power imbalances under the persistence of patriarchy not only directly affect girls’ enrolment in education but inevitably diminishes their capacity for productive economic activity, the net impact of which worldwide is a huge dent in human development progress.

Water as a weapon of war against women and girls

Not only that, but the apparent normalisation of wars and genocides wrought largely by men means almost daily violations of international humanitarian law including the weaponisation of water and sanitation infrastructure as a target of attack. Most recently, the United States’ bombing of a freshwater desalinsation plant in Iran and retaliation by Iran on another desalination plant in Bahrain set a dangerous new precedent.

When water and sanitation infrastructure become fair game in war, as we’ve seen in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine in the last few years, existing gender inequalities around water and sanitation mean women and girls suffer most, compounding risks including sexual violence.

Male violence and malevolence are back

What we’re seeing real-time and online is something even more worrying. That is the resurgence of more explicit patriarchy desiring control over women’s lives and subjugation into traditional roles away from public life. From the slashing of Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programmes to the rollback of reproductive rights across the world from the USA to Chile, the resurgence of ‘toxic masculinity’ is forcing gender rights, feminism and equality off the agenda and they are equated with pejorative notions of ‘wokeism.’

Some institutions are already reframing debates in response. For instance, the World Bank is increasingly framing gender as about economic activity and jobs, rather than about rights. This is reflected in their new Water Mission implementation strategy that refers to employment but only mentions gender six times and women four times even though the gross inequalities in labour power and economic effects are, as stated above, so vast.

The gender backlash and reductionism in rights framings helps reinforce stereotypes and accepted norms, including the gendered division of labour in water collection, rather than confronting this more forcefully – and, at a minimum, asking why this is the case rather than accepted as a given.

If views persist that women and girls are responsible for water-related subsistence tasks, it ignores specific needs around sanitation and menstrual hygiene and increases male domination in decision-making and water management. Which is precisely what patriarchy seeking to achieve – domination and subjugation.

The rollback on funding for WASH continues

A year ago, Keir Starmer cut the UK aid budget by about 40 per cent. These cuts have been devastating for water and sanitation progress in some of the world’s poorest and most war-torn countries with direct and lasting consequences for women and girls. The cuts particularly impact countries like Sudan, Ethiopia and Palestine, already reeling from largely male-driven wars, conflicts and genocide.

It is estimated that around 12 million people will be denied access to clean water and sanitation as a result. These cuts directly affect gender equality because reduced access to water and sanitation impacts schooling, being at work and increases the risk of gender-based violence.

The UK justifies the cuts as a way to move away from direct aid around WASH to strengthening capabilities and partnerships. But these partnerships between the UK and Global South countries such as Nigeria focusing on growth, jobs and reducing aid dependency can backfire as more and more people’s health deteriorate, including more women suffering from ill health and long-term illnesses.

Ultimately, a waning collective effort to support gender equality in WASH provision opens the door to long-term decline in gender rights and economic development. Additionally, the dismantling of USAID is already having devastating consequences for gender equality and women’s health. Just when greater focus is needed on WASH projects to ensure we are not backsliding on gender rights, aid is being cut.

In sum, persistent inequalities, the gender backlash, illegal and forever wars and aid cuts lacking a moral compass have diluted global collective action on gender inequality. The least policymakers could do would be to achieve and maintain leadership that realises human rights for all in WASH provision, a substantial rationale for which has to be a big- ticket focus on the social and economic empowerment of women and girls.

Any other direction would be disastrous, enabling patriarchy and misogyny to grow even deeper roots in global society.

Professor Lyla Mehta is a Professorial Fellow at IDS and a Visiting Professor at Noragric, the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. She trained as a sociologist (University of Vienna) and has a PhD in Development Studies (University of Sussex).

Dr. Alan Nicol is the Strategic Program Leader – Promoting Sustainable Growth, at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI)

IPS UN Bureau

© Inter Press Service (20260319175930) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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