There is growing acceptance that the progress delivered under the Millennium Development Goal target for drinking water and sanitation has been inequitable. As a result, the progressive reduction of inequalities is now an explicit focus of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets, adopted in 2015, for universal access to drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). This shift in focus has implications for the way in which the next generation of WASH policies and programmes will be conceived, designed, financed and monitored. This book provides an authoritative textbook for students, as well as a point of reference for policy-makers and practitioners interested in reducing inequalities in access to WASH services. Four key areas are addressed: background to the human right to water and development goals; dimensions of inequality; case studies in delivering water and sanitation equitably; and monitoring progress in reducing inequality.

This impact assessment identifies how the water and sanitation initiatives implemented under the Water Sanitation and Infrastructure Branch of UN-HABITAT, have strategically mainstreamed gender aspects in its various initiatives and to identify achievements and impact, challenges, lessons learned and provide recommendations. This gender thematic study is one out three impact studies supported by the WSTF. The other two are Kenya and Nepal Country Impact Assessments. Together these three constitute the first in a series, intended to assist the WSIB in its future plans for regular assessments of its WATSAN initiatives during the coming five years. The study has looked at global, regional and country activities. The country programmes reviewed are implemented in Ethiopia, Ghana,Kenya and Nigeria in Africa; India,LaoPDR, Nepal and Vietnam in Asia and Nicaragua in the Latin America and Caribbean region.

At birth and death, and each day in between, individual human need for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) is near constant. While WASH is intensely personal, it is also about power, inequality, development and social justice. Inadequate WASH provision both results from and causes continuing poverty, and serves to reinforce gender and other inequalities. Women and girls experience WASH needs differently from men, both as individuals, and as societies' carers. Gender and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene highlights the importance of WASH provision for women and girls in their own right, as carers for families and communities, and as key to women's empowerment.