A message from the Water Princess

Where to begin? A question I repeatedly asked myself before starting this first blog post. How must I introduce the theme of water and gender in Africa, and shed light on the rather complex issues of water access, sanitation, hygiene, equality, education and community executive structures?

Before delving into the academic studies and published reports, I want to first use this introduction to highlight, in plain terms, the several dimensions of the topic, through analysing segments of a short children's book: The Water Princess, based on the childhood of a now model and activist, Georgie Badiel. This title may invite the imagination of perhaps a glistening mermaid in a sphere of fantasy, however, it works to cleverly allude a contrast with the difficulties in the life of a young female around water and sanitation in her village in Burkina Faso. 

What I found fascinating about this book were the powerful messages conveyed in the short sentences that explained the nature and reality of the daily struggles female adults and children face as the ones expected to fetch water far away and yet unclean- two major factors emphasised in the book. 

The young girl's journey starts at the crack of dawn with her mother, who serves as a component of the almost 90% of adult women deemed as primary water collectors for households without access to water in Burkina Faso, according to a quantitative study on 24 Sub-Saharan African countries in 2016. The early morning rise also strongly aligns with the approximately 88% of adult women who are required to travel longer than 30 minutes to collect water, all at the cost of paid work and education. This journey to collect water, which more than 13 million female adults in Sub-Saharan Africa embark on, is authentically portrayed in the book as it describes the miles providing long dancing paths and the careful return home with heavy barrels of murky, earth-stained liquid, that is, their water. 

In a more water access and gender affiliated context, The Water Princess forms the basis for beginning to understand how water can become a tool that propels gender inequalities as well as many risks to women and girls.  This is since the management of water assigns gender-based roles and responsibilities in households, which can subsequently impact education and health. The emphasised gender-based role of water collecting in UN reports have stated that if the distances travelled to collect water is halved, girls' school attendance, including the Water Princess herself, could increase by 12%. This has also been evident in essentially reducing the substantial gender gaps that have existed in schooling due to the improvement of water proximity, as well as a reduction of adult females' unpaid work. As education for girls can significantly progress, so can their health as they avoid risks of injuries from carrying heavy barrels and a trimmed need to hold either urine or faeces for prolonged water collecting journeys. What is rather more interesting is research studies concluding a direct positive relationship between walk time to water source and diarrhoea infections among children under the age of 5. A Stanford University study published an astonishing piece of data revealing a decrease by 15 minutes of walk time being accompanied by an average 41% reduction in diarrhoea prevalence. 

The water problem is also a feminine problem -  Saran Kaba Jones, Founder of FACE Africa. 

When we look at the long term strategies like the Millennium Development Goals for water, they have targeted massive improvements in the provision of water and sanitation, to help relieve people like the Water Princess from carrying earth-stained water back to the household. However, it still demonstrates a greater need to integrate gender perspectives in order to achieve the goal along with its secondary risks, upon which I aim to dedicate this blog to further explore the 'feminisation of water poverty in Africa', whereby solving the water problem can also empower women. This can be through investigating women involvement in community water projects, understanding problems of hygiene for girls and women, and the more interesting links to women and climate change and its future water projections in Africa. 

I hope you enjoy reading this blog!