Women and Water Privatisation

 'The right to water entitles everyone to have access to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic use' (UN, 2018)

 ‘When water is scarce, polluted, or unaffordable, women suffer most acutely’ (Sidhu et al, 2003). 

Water privatisation exacerbates the existing gender inequalities which dictate that women and girls are responsible for supplying water to their households. Thus, women have disproportionately experienced the negative effects of water privatization including large price increases, cut-offs, poor quality and health and sanitation risks (Sidhu et al, 2003).

Women and girls are disproportionately responsible for collecting water. In Sub-Saharan Africa, they spend 40 billion hours a year collecting water, equivalent to a year’s worth of labour by the entire French workforce (UN, 2014). This time-consuming task often leads to girls dropping out of school and is amplified by the increasing numbers of parents contracting HIV, meaning girls are responsible for not only household labour but also care. The privatisation of government services such as health often reduce their access due to higher user fees. Profit has now become the main goal. Investments in health are impeded by the government’s inability to generate revenues following the privatisation of their assets (Shandra et al, 2011). Therefore, privatisation of health services has a knock-on-effect on girls whose time is already markedly constrained by collecting water.

Tanzania, A Case Study

In the late 1990s, following pressure from the World Bank, Tanzania privatised their municipal water service provider, Dar Es Salaam Water and Sewage Authority (DAWASA). This was taken over by City Water. But by 2003, only 4% of households had a direct connection to this water supply and the government claimed that after only two years, water services had deteriorated. Furthermore, women’s rights groups in Tanzania have pointed out the gendered impact of a lack of access to water, particularly in relation to HIV. Tanzania has a policy of ‘home-based’ care for those suffering from HIV and women are increasingly burdened with the care of family members. Caring for a person with HIV is very water intensive and certain families found they spent double the time collecting water as a result. Additionally, this inconsistent water supply in Dar Es Salaam has affected women’s livelihoods. Women grow and sell fruit and vegetables to provide an income for their families. Without a direct connection to a safe water supply, the women have been using contaminated run-off water from factories for irrigation (Brown, 2010).

What can be done?

Little to no consultation with women occurred during the privatisation of Dar Es Salaam’s water supply, despite the fact that women are disproportionality affected. Consequently, the women from the Tanzanian Gender Networking Programme (TGNP) developed a video to demonstrate the health risks to the community resulting from the use of contaminated water for irrigation. Thus, there have been efforts to raise awareness of the gendered impact concerning access to water.

However, we also need to question the effectiveness privatisation of water in general. Kate Bayliss argues that the effectiveness of the privatisation depends upon the initial condition before the takeover. Therefore, if the institution was ineffective, it has remained ineffective and if was well-run, it has remained so (Bayliss, 2003). Thus, she would argue that privatisation in itself is not the reason for increased gender inequality.

But can privatisation deliver equity and social justice as well as the public sector? Michele Cantos argues that water privatisation does ‘not align with contemporary feminist water agendas’ as privatisation serves to intensify and multiply power imbalances and female oppression. It fails to address wider political, economic and historical issues that undermine women’s rights (Cantos, 2013).

Whilst there is no simple solution, the privatisation of water arguably puts profits before people and thus can never hope to achieve gender equality on its own. What is clear is that water sector reforms should include women in all levels of decision-making in order to consider gender-specific impacts. Gender inequalities must be addressed effectively through law and policy and female perspectives incorporated into the creation, operation, and monitoring processes. Only then can a women’s right to water be achieved.