A while ago, I wrote a couple of blog posts regarding the importance of microfinance for water and sanitation development in Africa. In this post, I will be exploring the complex relationship between microfinance and water and sanitation initiatives to cultural norms that women in Africa face.

Typically, the vast majority of women who use microfinance excel in their repayment records, despite the daily hardship women face that may inhibit punctual repayment. This is contrary to cultural narratives that deem women too unreliable to lend money to. However, despite these good repayment records, the cultural narratives remain dominant; microfinance institutions are offering a decreasing percentage of loans to women, and even those that receive loans find them to be smaller than those given to their male counterparts - despite being in the same credit program, the same community and the same lending group. It is indicative of a broader multifaceted social discrimination against women, who have limited opportunities to alleviate poverty. The question remains: should microfinance institutions do more to prevent gender-based discrimination?

Microfinance initiatives have even been widely criticised for reinforcing cultural gender norms. One example draws on the increased burden that microfinance activities place on women’s time, by involving them in time-consuming meetings and income-generating activities without taking action to reduce their traditional responsibilities. Sanitation microfinance initiatives have also been duly criticised, due to the reinforcement of sanitation facilities and maintenance as purely a ‘women’s job’. However, it is important to note that aiming to change a woman’s role in society is much more of a complex long-term solution than that of offering loans. Unfortunately, many of women’s practical needs are linked closely to traditional gender roles, responsibilities and social structures, and therefore initiatives that aim to promote long-term strategic change often conflict with women’s practical needs in the short-term, increasing tension.

Women collecting water in Sub-Saharan Africa. Source

The point seems to be, that most microfinance initiatives encroach on time many women in Africa need for their traditional roles. Women in Africa spend approximately 40 billion hours a year collecting water, and carry out most water-related tasks, including playing a key role in food production - in particular subsistence farming. There is evidence that, by investing in women-owned food and agricultural enterprises, the number of hungry people could reduce by up to 100-150 million due to a narrowing of the resource gap and a rise in agricultural yields. Despite this, women have little input in decision making regarding water and farming. The relationship between inadequate access to water and sanitation and gender is reflexive: not only does inadequate supply affect women and girls disproportionately, the long hours they spend fetching water reinforces cultural gender norms by taking time out of a woman’s day that could be used for more productive activities that could challenge these norms.

If water supplies are contaminated or scarce, women and girls must provide the care if members of their family begin to suffer from waterborne diseases, such as cholera. Not only does the ease of access to clean water close to home reduce women’s workloads and strain, but the time saved may be spent on productive activities that might strengthen resilience - such as subsistence farming to combat food scarcity. Women are therefore often keen to use rain-fed irrigation water for alternative uses to irrigating crops. In fact, of more importance may be having a water source of sufficient quantity close to home, rather than quality, as the London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine reports, due to advantages gained from sufficient hygiene-related hand-washing practices before eating.

An interesting initiative to combat time spent collecting water is the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project in Morocco, of the World Bank. It aims to reduce the burden of girls fetching water, in order to improve school attendance. The project showed significant results: in the 6 provinces where the project was based, attendance in girls’ schools increased by 20%, attributed to the fact that girls were spending less time fetching water. Similarly, in Tanzania, a survey found that girls who were located 15 minutes or less from a water source had a 12% higher attendance than those that were an hour or more away from a water source.

An interesting point to consider is through the installation of a water pump, traditional gender roles may be challenged in the area of the installation. The maintenance and operation activities related to water pumps provides training and impacts social relations. If women become involved in pump maintenance, does this challenge the existing gender division of labour and challenge gender norms? It is also interesting to think about how a women’s job related to cleaning latrines may reinforce may enact social status in a community, being a double edged sword for sanitation schemes aiming to empower women.

Ecological Sanitation and Gender

Ecosan, also known as ecological sanitation, is a sanitation system that aims to ‘close the loop’ for nutrients and organic matter between sanitation and agriculture. This is due to the recycling of excreta and urine, seen as a valuable renewable resource, and their subsequent application on cropland as a fertiliser (Esrey, 2000). It represents a shift towards a new paradigm of thinking about human excreta (Esrey, 1998), by aiming to reduce the health risks related to sanitation, contaminated water and waste; to prevent groundwater pollution; and to reuse nutrients or energy contained within wastes (Eschborn, 2004). Disease reduction achieved through both reducing infections transmitted via the fecal-oral route and by reducing malnutrition in children from the use of an organic fertiliser. Ecosan is based on a combination of old and new techniques: wastewater reuse, water saving, and recycling nutrients recovery and biomass production for energy (Masi, 2009).

Urine, in particular, has proved to be very beneficial to plants due to it containing several nutrients such as nitrogen phosphorus and potassium, which are limiting factors for the growth of a variety of plants. In Zimbabwe, the results for using urine on green leafy plants such as spinach or maize has proved it to be very beneficial. By using urine as a source for phosphorus it attempts to address the possible upcoming shortage of phosphorus which is currently mined. A review by Mihelcic et al. (2011) of global phosphate supply suggests that if collected, phosphate in urine could supply 22% of the total demand.

Ecosan sludge, however, is sewage sludge, and therefore represents a health risk due to its pathogen content, with little known about safe ecosan sludge disposal. Furthermore, its disposal is seems to fall outside of the regulatory framework; legislation instead covers sludge produced in centralised sewer systems or latrines. Jimenez et al. (2006) suggests it may be worth considering pathogen content for sludge revalorisation standard in agriculture. This will enable the establishment of a maximum sludge application rate, which rather being based only on parameters such as metals or nitrogen content, it will instead be based on pathogen content.

Ecosan 'closing the loop' poster. Source

Ecosan addresses many water and sanitation related health problems, as pit latrines become breeding areas for mosquitoes and the waste can pollute the groundwater supply (Wirbelauer et al., 2003). Ecosan is generally the most appropriate to solve these problems, utilising a natural biological process to produce an odourless and fly-less dehydrated compost-like material. It is also easy to build, aesthetically pleasant and can be combined with the washing area. In a study undertaken by Mugure and Mutua (2009) in the Nakuru municipality, Kenya, respondents to a sanitation questionnaire reported that ecosan toilets were viable for a number of reasons: a congested housing pattern, desire to own a toilet, geo-hydrological conditions, improved privacy and convenience. The majority of respondents were also willing to reuse sanitised urine and faecal matter, however, there were some challenges identified, including forgetfulness by some people to spray ash after defecating, water entering the toilet vault during cleaning and confusion in using the two holes.

Gender and ecosan

Mugure and Mutua report that out of their sample in Kenya, women have sanitation (46%) and water supply (61%) as their top priorities. This may be due to traditional gender roles implying that women are to fetch water, keep the toilet/bathroom clean and usable, and are responsible for the hygiene and health of children (Drangert, 2004), while men are responsible for the installation of the systems, harvesting the excreta from the toilets and the application onto fields (Hannan and Andersson, 2002). Women respondents stated that ecosan systems were more favourable to pit latrines as there is no worry of a child falling into a latrine. This support of ecosan systems by women is very important, as there is a need to pour ashes into a toilet after use to dry out faeces (and women are in charge of tending the cooking fires) - to increase PH level and to contribute to the elimination of pathogens. 98% of women reported that they use firewood for cooking in their households, therefore ash is readily available to be used in the urine diverting toilets for drying faeces.

Gendered Problems in Ecosan

Although ecosan systems are generally met positively from women, they do present a large problem for girls, particularly those who use the systems in school. This is due to the difficulty of gender-specific requirements for menstrual management that are not commonly incorporated in the systems, especially as women and girls are rarely consulted for their management. Hoko et al. (2010) reported that during menstruation, females with NON-UDDT systems (non-urine diverting dry toilet) were more comfortable using the toilet (60%), than those with UDDT systems - which includes ecosan (40%). The larger degree of discomfort from ecosan systems is worsened by the need to minimise water use as to stop water entry into the faecal vault.

The ‘gender problem’ in providing sanitation stems from several sources, but the principle explanation lies in the fact that the decision making regarding toilet provision is made predominantly by men. Greater importance should be given to a gendered perspective in management and governance issues linked with ecosan, including legislation, policies, programmes or interventions. This is commonly known as ‘gender-mainstreaming’ (mentioned in an earlier blog article). There are, however, some pitfalls regarding gender and sanitation; although women may be encouraged through gender mainstreaming to take on additional work and management roles, they may receive no more resources or influence, which is exacerbated in the case for ecosan as the systems require more maintenance than pit latrines, placing a considerable burden on women (Dankelman and Wendland, 2008). Ultimately, ecosan approaches can only be empowering if both men and women have the possibility to influence the direction of, participate actively in the implementation of, and benefit from, these approaches.

The Importance of John Snow for Water and Sanitation in Urban Sub-Saharan Africa

In 1854 during the great cholera epidemic in London, John Snow had begun investigating outbreaks of cholera in Soho, London. The dominant theory at the time was that cholera was spread through pollution or a noxious form of ‘bad air’ as part of the miasma theory, but Snow was very skeptical at the time. After speaking to residents in London, he identified the Broad Street water pump in Soho to be of issue, and convinced the local authority to disable the pump. Later, he then drew up a point map in the area, with each point signifying a cholera case. The map showed clear clustering in the area around where people used the Broad Street pump for much of their water supply.

John Snow cholera map. Source

  It was then discovered that the public well had only been dug 3 feet from an old cesspit that had begun to leak faecal bacteria. One of the primary causes was that a baby who had contracted cholera from another source had its nappies washed into the cesspit (Cameron and Jones, 1983). John Snow’s discovery was pivotal in the acceptance of the oral-fecal method of transmission of disease.

Application in Sub-Saharan Africa

The demonstrated link between water and health using the faecal-oral paradigm found that drinking water contaminated by excreta causes diarrhoeal disease and gastrointestinal illness, which is one of the main causes of death in developing countries. Key to combating this is the improved supply of water and sanitation facilities, by improving the treatment of water and domestic hygiene.

The consequences of not having access to safe water and sanitation are epidemics of diarrhoeal disease, including outbreaks of cholera, E. Coli and cryptosporidium. These occur at more than one location involving anomalous increase in incidence. Cholera typically lives in swamps, lakes and rivers, as well as unprotected wells and springs, which is why there are often many outbreaks in Sub-Saharan Africa. Mutation of disease can also be triggered by extreme events such as storms.

What can be an effective sanitation solution in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Over 80% of people in urban areas of Sub-Saharan Africa are served by on-site sanitation technologies (Strande et al., 2014). Sub-Saharan Africa requires low cost solution as such settings lack financial strength (Morella et al., 2008), and therefore the building of a complete sewerage system such as those in London, Paris and New York is not feasible. However, it is still vitally important for adequate sanitation facilities to be available, to avoid excreta contaminating water supply, and viability of on-site sanitation technologies depends on adequate management of accumulated faecal sludge (Semiyaga et al., 2015). In differing areas, there is a choice between a community pit latrine or a household septic tank, but this obviously varies in affordability and suitability in an area. According to the World Bank, a pit latrine will cost $39 per capita, while a septic tank will cost $115 per capita in Africa. Geology in particular plays a huge role in how effective sanitation is, as for example, Lusaka is built on limestone which is very porous. Although the porosity means that limestone is a great aquifer as water transmits very readily, there is very little attenuation and groundwater can easily be polluted (Baumle et al., 2012). As pit latrines in Lusaka are often built in these holes, sewage can get into the water supply virtually instantaneously.

As I’m slightly wary of making this post too long, I’m going to stop here and build from this post in my next one. My next post will be regarding EcoSan - or ecological sanitation - and of course featuring more of the gendered implications of unsafe water and poor sanitation. Stay tuned!

Microfinance - A Solution to the Water and Sanitation Crisis? (Part 2)

   Despite my last blog posts talking about the many merits of microfinance, it has been used in developing countries to varying degrees of success. In India, the microfinance funding crisis in 2010 caused a complete slow down of the market as banks became unsure of lending due to the uncertainty of the sector (Tremolet and Kumar, 2013).

   Additionally, criticisms of microfinance have lauded it a ‘Neoliberal Fairytale’, as without a large injection of government or aid funds, the microfinance institutions charge very high interest rates - without a subsidy, this can soar up to 50% and beyond (Bateman and Chang, 2009). Businesses using microfinance loans that latch onto a good business idea that is accessible to poorer people will eventually result in a ‘pile-up’ of people taking on this idea, leading to over-saturation of the market. Overcrowding results from limited options in terms of technology, skills, and financial resources. Ultimately, microfinance can do little to solve these problems.

   However, these criticisms are mostly due to using microfinance for money making, but the schemes I am interested in are for sanitation where microfinance has been proven successful. A report commissioned by WaterAid found that in Tanzania, building a latrine can cost around 112% of a poor household’s yearly income. Therefore, being able to finance building a latrine through microcredit is very important.

Sanitation in Africa is vital to ensure water sources are not contaminated. Source

   In Africa, there are a number of different ways microfinance loans for sanitation can be ran. Traditional methods, Trontines’, consists of a groups of people, generally with a similar age or economic standing, who pool their financial resources. The aim of this is to reinforce social solidarity through financing activities with a shared common interest (Kouassi-Komlan and Fonseca, 2004). In West Africa, village and cooperative savings account and credit are another way: decentralised financial instruments which fall under a regional law adopted by the Council of Ministers of West African Economical and Monetary Union (UEMOA). This has emerged in response to demands for financing from members of communities and cooperatives in the last few years, and has become very popular. NGO projects are another source through credit schemes that have been set up in order to fight poverty and create employment through private sector development. They may also lend money for sanitation schemes with a low interest rate (Kouassi-Komlan and Fonseca, 2004).

   One of the most common problems with microfinance are its needs for solid guarantees, the management capacity of the financing organisations and their lack of enforcement of the legal framework when these organisations cannot fulfil their obligations. Additionally, not everyone has access to microfinance; in Kenya, only around 700,000 of the 9-10 million poor have access. Which proposes the question: is microfinance really available to the world’s poorest? Although I think microfinance can be a great initiative to fund sanitation facilities, I believe that it cannot be the only answer. It is important to keep researching and finding new innovative ways of funding sanitation coverage for the poorest in Africa.

Microfinance - the solution for the water and sanitation crisis? (Part 1)

Microfinance, alternatively called microcredit, is a term to describe financial services to those with low-income, or those with no/limited access to ‘typical’ banking systems. In essence, groups or individuals are given small loans with a regular repayment fee, to enable them to lift themselves out of poverty. Typically, microfinance has been used for income generation; to enable people to purchase items such as sewing machines to start their own business or become more employable. This ‘revolution’ in finance has allowed over 150 million low-income people around the world to receive small loans without collateral, to buy insurance and build up assets (Armendariz and Morduck, 2010). Microfinance has been vital for women's’ empowerment in many low-income countries, as it enables them to become more independent by making their own income and building transferable skills (Cheston and Kuhn, 2002).

However, more recently, people have started to use microfinance to invest in health and education. This has created an opening for microfinance to be used for the provision of safe water and sanitation supplies - particularly in regards to sanitation. There is a lack of universal access to water and sanitation that results in well over 1 million preventable deaths each year, and in both sectors, there is a critical need for greater sustainability (Montgomery et al., 2009). Sanitation has been cited as ‘the most important medical advance in the past 150 years’ (British Medical Journal, 2007) which microfinance has the potential to provide.

Interest repayments from a microfinance loan in India. Source: blogs.lse.ac.uk

In India, microfinance has been used most widely to fund local water and sanitation projects. Last year, I aided a peer’s work on water and sanitation in Bangalore, India, and found a local NGO to be financing small community groups led by woman to install toilets and drainage systems in their village. In urban India, often poorer households must rely on alternatives to state provision of water and sanitation, paying prices that range from 2-20 times more per litre of water than households with water connections (McPhail, 1993). Davis et al. (2008) research in Hyderabad posed the question: why do poor households choose more expensive but lower quality water and sanitation services than richer households? The answer lay in the mismatch of water and sanitation service pricing, and the financial management in low-income households. For example, poorer households tend to earn money and manage funds on a day-to-day basis, and thus find it difficult to save money to pay a monthly or bi-monthly utility bill (Whittington et al, 1991).

When Davis et al. conducted their research, households were asked about their interest in obtaining a microfinance loan of between 3,000-10,000 Rs. in order to obtain a municipal water connection, a toilet with a sewer connection, or both. By monitoring the WaterCredit programme developed by the US NGO WaterPartners International - which requires a family to form a joining liability group -  they found that respondents to their research were able to easily repay their loans, and build beneficial sanitation facilities.

There are, however, some people who are more sceptical of microfinance. Unfortunately, I am going to make this blog post come to a rather abrupt ending. In my next post, I will be looking at the arguments against microfinance, and asking the crucial questions: can the success of microfinance for water and sanitation in India be reproduced in Africa? And do these water and sanitation projects promote women’s empowerment? See you next time!

Why are Women Left Out of Important Decision Making?

Across Africa, water plays a significant part in the role of women. Men and women have been shown to use water differently, in Zimbabwe, women are playing more roles in water use and are often the’ users, managers and guardians’ of domestic water and hygiene (Makoni et al., 2004). In regards to sanitation, women’s lack of access can often have deadly consequences, and make them vulnerable to the risk of rape and attack (Mara et al., 2010).

So, why are women so often left out of the water and sanitation decision-making? In Uganda, although much of their policy approaches appear to be gender-sensitive, women have not been fully engaged in the debate on water and sanitation (Ebila, 2006). There is a push to change this, however, as the Directorate of Water Development (DWD) in 2003 introduced ‘gender-mainstreaming’ into into its future plans. The DWD began to acknowledge two main reasons for this new approach:

1. Water usage in communities is affected by the gender division of labour, which to a large extent is the social construction of each community; and
2. The development objective of the water sector is to improve “living conditions for the population of Uganda through better access to improved sustainable water and sanitation related services with a special focus on the poorer members of society” (DWD, 2003; Ebila, 2006). In Uganda, and indeed in most of Africa, the majority of the poorest of society are women.

To implement the core beliefs of this approach, the DWD managed to enforce a 50% mandatory level of the percentage of women on water and sanitation committees at village level. As of yet, the DWD has few women staff members, but they are planning to encourage more women to join with a zero tolerance policy to sexual harassment. These approaches are beginning to get more women to reach for leadership roles, which is vital to break-down gender stereotypes. The question is, however, whether a similar scheme of gender-mainstreaming can be rolled out across the rest of Africa where there are gender imbalances in policy making.

Gender and the provision of safe water and sanitation

Hi everyone, welcome to my blog! I am going to be talking about the provision of water and sanitation in Africa from a feminist perspective, by particularly looking into the gendered nature of these vital resources. Previously, I help conduct fieldwork in Bangalore, India, on water and sanitation provision by using funding from micro-finance projects. The results of the project showed an interesting link between society, gender, economics, oppression and water and sanitation. In this blog, I will hopefully be able to draw connections between my work in India and the similar issues facing women in Africa.

According to the statistics, water and sanitation provision worldwide is pretty shocking. 2.5 billion people across the world do not have access to a safe toilet (UNICEF), while 1 billion people do not have access to any sanitation at all and openly defecate (WHO). For safe water provision, the numbers are similar - around 748 million do not have access to safe water supplies (UNICEF). This problem is particularly pronounced in Africa, whereby reports of a water and sanitation 'crisis' litter NGO and international development websites (e.g. WSP) and is credited with limiting economic growth and education opportunities. In much of Africa, especially around the Sub-Saharan region, water is limited due to a dry climate with little precipitation. MacDonald et al. (2012), however, highlight how despite the water-stressed Sub-Saharan regions in Africa have little available freshwater supplies, they actually contain vast sums of groundwater stored beneath the surface in weathered crystalline rock aquifers. This presents an interesting dilemma; not only is this water non-renewable - it accumulated from previous wetter climates so would effectively have to be 'mined', but also governments have to decide whether bottom-up approaches (i.e. local water supplies in the form of communal pumps) or top-down, vast irrigation methods to address food scarcity issues would be more appropriate, or whether a balancing act of the two can be achieved.

In terms of sanitation access, Sub-Saharan Africa is trailing well behind its international counterparts. When looking at sanitation, it has become easy to lump water provision and sanitation together in International Development discourse despite having very different access needs and issues. Installing latrines and sewage networks into areas can often be costly, and is more of a pressing issue in rural regions than urban (UN). In many poor rural regions, micro-finance loans are available for the building of basic sanitation infrastructure, but this can vary in success. Being able to afford the interest on the repayment of the loans is a key limitation for sanitation when government provision is lacking.

Improved sanitation facilities in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. Source: Kunene

So, how is water and sanitation provision a gendered issue? There are many reasons why this is so; for instance, women who openly defecate in wild areas open themselves up to the risk of rape and attack, as well as the experience of loss of dignity. And in regards to water access, it is usually women who collect water so having a pump nearby would save time that they can spend in other areas such as education or work. Women also need safe water provision to ensure that, when pregnant, children are born healthy. Of course, safe water supply and sanitation access are intertwined, withgood sanitation infrastructure minimizing groundwater pollution. There are many reasons why it is such a heavily gendered issue, and I will explore these points and more, taking a critical approach to the topic on the rest of my blog! Thank you for reading, any feedback would be appreciated!