World Water Day: Spotlight on water and gender equality

As the world observes World Water Day, this year's focus on the intersection of water and gender equality comes at a critical moment. 

The United Nations World Water Development Report 2026 — titled Water for All People: Equal Rights and Opportunities — underscores that equitable water governance is not just about access to clean water, it is a direct pathway to advancing gender equality and sustainable development.

The global water crisis in numbers

Despite decades of effort, 2.1 billion people — one in four people on Earth — still lack access to safely managed drinking water. This includes 106 million who drink directly from untreated surface sources such as rivers and lakes. Progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) remains far too slow.

Women and girls continue to shoulder the heaviest burden. Globally, they spend an estimated 250 million hours every single day collecting water. In households without water on the premises, women are responsible for water collection in over 70 percent of cases.

Mainstreaming gender equality into ecosystem management

This is critical for achieving sustainable and inclusive development. The United Nations World Water Development Report 2026 highlights that in regions where industrial water use, such as around textile industries and mining sites—creates water scarcity, the burden often falls disproportionately on women. In many communities, women are traditionally responsible for collecting water, and scarcity forces them to travel longer distances, using up time and energy to meet household needs.

This "time poverty" not only increases women's physical strain but also limits their ability to engage in paid work, pursue education, or participate in other economic and community activities. As a result, cycles of inequality are reinforced, with the daily task of securing water overshadowing opportunities for personal advancement and broader development.

The report emphasizes that addressing gender disparities in water access and ecosystem management can play a key role in reducing wider societal inequalities. Integrating gender perspectives into policies, management practices, research, and education is therefore essential to ensure more equitable and effective ecosystem governance.

Voices from the frontline: Eldah Odongo, Kenya

Eldah Odongo, Chairperson of Women in Water and Sanitation Kenya (WIWAS), has spent years pushing for change in a sector that remains overwhelmingly male.

"The water sector is still mainly a male-dominated field," says Odongo. "There is quite a lot of effort being put in place at the national level, with policies that ensure inclusion is incorporated in all sectors of governance. But when you move into the counties, because water is a devolved function you still find very few women at the top level."

Even at the grassroots, community water committees that manage local resources are often dominated by men. "If you go back to the communities and look at the committees being put forward, those committees are majorly men," Odongo explains. 

"But the few women who have found themselves in senior positions and leadership roles, what we try to do is bring in other women so that we are not alone in those spaces.”

Odongo and WIWAS focus on practical solutions: capacity-building workshops in schools and slum areas to teach women and girls about water governance, distribution of water tanks, and training on rainwater harvesting during the rainy season.

The real barriers women face

The biggest obstacle, according to Odongo, is the "double burden" women carry.

"The number one thing making women not come forward is that the sector is male-dominated — it becomes like a club. We finish work at five, for example. Then you as a woman leave for your house because you have other chores waiting — another second job waiting for you back at home," she said. 

A Call to action for 2030 and beyond

This World Water Day, the message is unmistakable: water is not gender-neutral. To achieve SDG 5 and SDG 6 together, governments, water utilities, development partners, and the private sector must act decisively by enforcing gender quotas supported by robust systems, prioritizing investment in women’s leadership training and mentorship, expanding infrastructure to improve household access to water, and implementing institutional reforms to address gender imbalances in water management systems.