From Commodity to Common Good: A Feminist Agenda to Tackle the World’s Water Crisis

Safe drinking water and sanitation are essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights. They are particularly important for women and girls, who are most often the primary users, providers and managers of water in their households. Where running water is unavailable at home, women and girls are the ones primarily responsible for traveling long distances to collect it. The lack of safe water and adequate sanitation facilities exposes women and girls to illness, violence and hampers their ability to learn and earn an income. With the objective of raising awareness around the gender and water nexus, UN Women has embarked on the production of an SDG Spotlight paper focused on evaluating SDG 6 from a gender perspective. The short paper reviews the state of gender equality as it relates to SDG 6 and showcases how a gender perspective, along with robust data disaggregation by sex, and other relevant characteristics can inform and strengthen the discourse around SDG 6 acceleration. Pressing data gaps and measurement challenges, along with policy recommendations are also captured and discussed in the paper.