Feminist scholars have highlighted the importance of women’s land rights, and irrigation studies have explored the gendered relationships between land and water rights. However, less research has been conducted which assesses the relationship between water and land rights for domestic and productive purposes. Therefore, by collating community profiles, focus group discussions, interviews and survey data, this study explores women’s rights to land and water within rural communities in Kilifi County, Kenya. It provides interesting insight into the dynamics and negotiations of water access, including the social networks that affect how water transactions take place.
Inequalities
Reinforcing Feedbacks for Sustainable Implementation of Rural Drinking-Water Treatment Technology
Water safety management is a key factor that rural service delivery models must incorporate if they are to achieve universal access to safe drinking water. Practices such as source protection and water treatment help reduce the risk of fecal contamination. Therefore, this study recognises the importance of water treatment, assessing the implementation of passive chlorination and ultraviolet (UV) disinfection technologies in rural parts of South America, Africa, and Asia. The results identify a series of leverage points which highlight the need for fit-for-purpose intervention design reinforced by collaboration between facilitating actors through hybrid service delivery models.
Improving management of intermittent piped water systems in Ethiopian small towns
Based on long-term research engagement in Wukro, Tigray, this brief presents three recommendations for inclusive water services in intermittent piped water systems in small towns in Ethiopia.
The SafePani model: Delivering safe drinking water in schools and healthcare centres in Bangladesh
This Story of Change presents the SafePani model in Bangladesh which aims to reform existing institutional design and move towards a professional water service delivery model, with timely and independently verified performance metrics unlocking results-based funding, with a focus on schools and healthcare centres.
REACH Exit Strategy
REACH’s Exit Strategy scopes out actions to promote the legacy of the programme, highlighting opportunities to sustain, scale-up, and scale-out our work.
Socio-spatial and seasonal dynamics of small, private water service providers in Khulna district, Bangladesh
Small water service providers operating in informal markets across the Global South address critical gaps in public investments in the rural water sector. This study analyses the growth and operations of private desalination plants and distributing vendors in Khulna, Bangladesh, within the broader landscape of uncoordinated investments by government, donors and households. Household water choices and payment behaviour vary spatially and seasonally, with observable wealth differences in self-supply investments in rainwater tanks and tubewells. Monitoring and regulating informal private providers can improve sectoral coordination, increase efficiency of service delivery and unlock commercial finances against the backdrop of declining aid-based financing.
Equitable urban water security: beyond connections on premises
This study investigates to what extent urban water security is equitable in a small town in Northern Ethiopia with almost uniform access to piped water services. Development of a household water insecurity index considering issues of quality, quantity, and reliability, demonstrated high spatial variability in water security between households connected to the piped water system.
Modular, adaptive, and decentralised water infrastructure: promises and perils for water justice
This review summarises emerging realities for water insecurity in an era of disruption, and new developments that the authors call modular, adaptive, and decentralised (MAD) water infrastructure. These decentralised models require a justice-oriented framework to unlock the promise of sustainable access to safe, reliable, affordable water supply for a more mobile, just, and resilient world.
Addressing socio-economic inequalities in Lodwar and broader Turkana
This report details outcomes from a workshop in Turkana, Kenya, on ‘Socio-economic aspects of flash floods, water and climate’, held in February 2022. The workshop discussed how water and flood risks relate to socio-economic inequalities, as well as critical gender and intersectionality considerations.
Negotiating spaces of marginality and independence: On women entrepreneurs within Ethiopian urbanization and water precarity
This research article analyses how women strive for and negotiate their independence through spatiality, and how services, specifically water, affect their ability to develop their business spaces. Using evidence from five studies conducted in the small town of Wukro, Ethiopia, the paper suggests water struggles should be analysed not only through the evaluation of water shortages and unequal geographical sectorization but also through the perspective of ‘water precarity’ (Sultana, 2020).
