Research into Women’s experiences and their empowerment through a WASH intervention

CARE

Abebaw Kebede, Haregewein Admassu, Helen Pankhurst, Leslie Greene and Teshome Lemma

April 2010

Table of Contents

Acronyms, Abbreviations and glossary of Ethiopian Terms

Executive Summary

PART ONE

1. Background and Rationale

2. Objectives of the study

3. Approach and conceptual model

4. Scope and methodologies

5. Background to CARE and South Gondar Project

PART TWO – Findings by objective of the study

I. Changes in women’s lives

II. Women’s empowerment and gender equality

III. The heterogeneity of women’s experiences

IV. Informing future interventions

CONCLUSION

Acronyms, Abbreviations and glossary of Ethiopian Terms

WASHWater, Sanitation and Hygiene

FDGFocal Group Discussions

Kebelelowest level of government: community, parish, village

NGONon Government Organization

WoredaDistrict

ZoneGovernment structure above district and lower than region

Executive Summary

This study shares some practical research on women’s experiences of WASH initiatives undertaken in 2009 and explores the issue of women’s empowerment through field research undertaken within the Millennium Water Program by CARE Ethiopia in Farta and Estie Woredas of the South Gonder Zone, Amhara region.

The goal ofthe research is to generate knowledge that helps identify and promote WASH strategies that achieve greater sustainable impact on women’s needs and their empowerment, and to promote further discussion among development parishioners on increasing women’s participation and empowerment in the sector.

In terms of its conceptual model, the overall approach of looking at both basic needs and strategic interests was adopted, together with CARE’s empowerment model which was used to explore the objective on contribution to women’s empowerment.

WASH-related questions were addressed through a quantitative snapshot questionnaire filled in by 143 women representing women of different backgrounds, 8 focus group discussions and tenindividual interviews.

The findings in terms of changes on women’s lives includes:

  • 74% report at least some increase in water collected; 40% report double or more
  • 59% report a reduction in time taken to fetch water; 26% report reduction by half or more
  • 82% report improvements in sanitation practices; 55% report significant changes, i.e. from no latrine to having a latrine
  • 85% report some improvement in hygiene practices; 62% report significant changes
  • No single pattern in terms of time for socializing/networking:
  • Other benefits include an increased regularity of attendance of girls at school and the fear of violence and abduction to and from water collection having decreased though still being an area of concern
  • Some opportunities that would fit a WASH/gender perspective have not been harnessed, e.g. menstrual management issues not being targeted.

In addition, in terms of the question of empowerment, the findings were that 34% felt significantly more empowered as a result of the intervention whilst 0.7% felt less so, and 8% felt not very different.

In terms of changes to equality within the household 67% felt that there had been improvements but 2% felt that they were more unequal and 21% that the situation was not very different.

Women’s sense of control over household resources had improved for 68% and their feelings of increased respect/dignity increased for 67%. The discussions generally highlighted that although there might be some improvements, there wasn’t much significant change over control over household resources and not much evidence of time saved being used to improve income or assets.

The study found the following correlations in terms of with feeling significantly more empowered:

  • Those who reported adoption of handwashing station near the latrine were 6.62 times more likely to have said they felt significantly more empowered after the intervention compared to the others
  • Those who said they doubled the amount of water they collected following the intervention were 6.48 times more likely to have felt significantly more empowered.
  • Those who reduced their water fetching time by half or more were 3.19 times more likely to have felt ssignificantly more empowered.

Regarding the feelings about being more equal, the findings were:

  • Those who adopteda handwashing station near their latrine were 5.10 times more likely to have reported feeling much more equality in the household.
  • Those with greatly increased time for socializing were 4.52 times more likely to have experienced greater equality after the intervention.
  • Those with highly reduced time to water source were 3.62 times more likely to have greater equality.
  • Those who adopted a latrine were 3.35 times more likely to have felt much more equality in their households.

Possible correlations with control over household resources were also looked at, but the figures proved to be statistically not relevant, i.e. the dynamics of who controls household resources in this area did not seem to be affected by the WASH intervention.

Most of the key factors examined were significantly associated with a large increase in feelings about sense of dignity or respect after the intervention. Interestingly, the time for socializing/networking had the strongest relationship with increased sense of dignity/respect, possibly a reflection of those people who as a consequence of the WASH work have a greater voice in the public sphere, e.g. roles in committees that also provide networking/socializing opportunities.

In terms of the heterogeneity of women’s experiences the findings were:

  • Surprisingly perhaps, the study did not find any statistically significant differences according to the wealth status of the respondents
  • Those that find a role in the WASH intervention as committee members or in income generation opportunities reported the most significant changes to how they felt about themselves and how they were perceived within the society.
  • Disabled women are benefiting less than able-bodied women.
  • Women with children over five years old, which naturally include women in the highest age group in the study, are perhaps less able to or less eager to embrace changes in empowerment.
  • By contrast, married women with children under five are probably for cultural as well as practical reasons more able to build on the practical benefits of the intervention to generate more strategic changes.

The recommendations for future programming are:

  1. Ensuring female staff are recruited at all levels
  2. Female representation in community structures
  3. Be aware of the heterogeneity of women’s experiences. Ensure that a range of women’s interest groups are represented
  4. Target income generation related training and activities at women
  5. Actively look at opportunities to systematically reverse traditional divisions of labour: e.g. training women in areas that might be seen traditionally to be men’s work – e.g. half the mechanics trained being women– to influence community's attitude towards women’s capabilities and potential.
  6. Use the opportunity of new source of water provision and new latrines to make collection of water and latrine cleanliness a shared responsibility, not that of women and girls:
  7. Address menstrual management explicitly and systematically at school and home
  8. Discuss and address the issue of the personal security of women and girls collecting water
  9. Consider explicitly the specific needs of vulnerable groups, e.g. disabled women
  10. Find out who is not benefiting from the WASH intervention and discuss with them what their constraints are –small adjustments could be made to ensure increased levels of access and benefits among a wider cross-section of targeted communities.
  11. Link up the WASH intervention with other women’s empowerment initiatives at community, government and NGO level

PART ONE

This document lays out the findings of practical research on women’s experiences of WASH initiatives and explores the issue of women’s empowerment through field research undertaken within the Millennium Water Program[1] by CARE Ethiopia in Farta and Estie Woredas of the South Gonder Zone, Amhara region.[2]The field research took place in 2009.

1. Background and Rationale

Water is critical to the livelihood and wellbeing of people. It is necessary not only for drinking but also for food production and preparation, care of domestic animals, personal hygiene, care of the sick, cleaning, washing and waste disposal. In rural Ethiopia, most of these activities fall under women’s responsibility in the sexual division of labor within households[3]. Women and girl children often travel great distances from home and spend significant amounts of time collecting water for the multiple purposes outlined above. By and large, issues of sanitation and hygiene, which together with water complement WASH initiatives, are also the prerogative of women. It is they who tend to be responsible for ensuring and managing household sanitation and hygiene issues. As a generalization, the issue of privacy of sanitation provision is also one that women tend to value and require more than men. On all fronts, therefore, women are closely connected to and affected by use of, access to and control over WASH resources.

In any development intervention, there is often argued to be a strong positive link between a focus on women’s involvement/participation throughout the project cycle and the degree of project success. For example, issues of community financial accountability are sometimes thought to be resolved by greater involvement of women, and giving women a greater role is sometimes argued to have positive impacts on household welfare given, once again, gender division of expectations in which it is often considered women’s responsibility to ensure household members are fed and cared for.[4]

In terms of the international setting, since the 1977 United Nations Water Conference at Mar del Plata and during the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade, 1981-1990, the importance of involving women in the management of water and sanitation has been recognized at the global level. Principle No. 3 of the guiding principles adopted at the International Conference on Water and the Environment in Dublin (January 1992), explicitly recognizes the pivotal role of women as providers and users of water and guardians of the living environment. Building on all these commitments, in December 2003 at the end of the International Year of Freshwater, the General Assembly proclaimed, in its resolution 58/217, that the time span from 2005 to 2015 was the International Decade for Action, “Water for Life,” and called on all levels to focus on the implementation of water-related programmes and projects which strived “to ensure women’s participation and involvement in water-related development efforts”.

In Ethiopian water policy, the participation of women in water resources management is also a fundamental principle, as set out for example in the Ethiopian water resource management policy which guides the sustainable and efficient management of water resources in Ethiopia.[5]

Internationally and within Ethiopia, it is often claimed that beyond the issue of basic needs, women’s position within society can be transformed through the vehicle of WASH interventions. It is argued that WASH is a safe, traditionally acceptable area for women to be involved in, and that this involvement can start to push the boundaries, for example can start to give women a public voice and leadership role, initially on WASH, and thereafter on wider community issues. WASH is therefore sometimes seen as an avenue to address women’s strategic needs and their greater empowerment.

For all the reasons summarized above, the issue of why women should be involved in and significantly benefit from WASH initiatives is clear. However, given the wider context in which development initiatives can reflect existing power relations within communities in which women’s voices and interests are considered to be subservient to those of men, studies also reveal that development initiatives have often 'involved' women primarily as a way to achieve better functioning and financing of projects, rather than as a way to meet women's needs. Similarly, women have tended to be 'involved' primarily through physical labor or as passive audiences for health education, rather than being supported to take up technical and managerial roles or taken on powerful roles in decision-making, which are still often seen as the legitimate preserve of men (Hannan-Anderson, 1990). As the result of these and other related matters, WASH interventions may not always bring about positive impacts in the lives of women. They may increase their workload without necessarily bringing them any clear benefits. Some categories of women such as those in female-headed households might be excluded from benefits, and both existing gender inequalities and inequalities within genders (female-headed households vs. married mothers, young vs. older women, etc) might be reinforced.

With this study we hope to first provide some insights into the impact of our WASH interventions on the daily activities of women,and second, to examine its contribution to women’s empowerment, for example by nurturing opportunities for leadership, skills, and self confidence. We maintained a particular focus on how these impacts are experienced by different kinds of women – i.e. women at different stages of their life cycle or of different health and wealth status. The aim of the study is to inform and improve future programming.

2. Objectives of the study

The goal ofthis research is to generate knowledge that helps identify and promote WASH strategies that achieve greater sustainable impact on women’s needs and their empowerment, and to promote further discussion among development parishioners on increasing women’s participation and empowerment in the sector. Specifically, the study has the following four specific objectives;

  1. To explore the changes in women’s lives due to WASH interventions and understand how these changes are perceived and lived by women
  2. To examine to what extent WASH initiatives have contributed to women’s empowerment and to the promotion of gender equality
  3. To better understand the heterogeneity of women’s experiences regarding WASH interventions
  4. To inform the design of improved WASH interventions with respect to a strategy that addresses women’s needs and their empowerment

3. Approach and conceptual model

The literature on gender issues and women’s empowerment provides a number of different tools that could be used for this research. The research team followed the overall concept of looking at both basic needs and strategic interests, We also generally reflected on the CARE empowerment model to explore the objective on contribution to women’s empowerment. The model is summarized in the diagram and tables below.

4. Scope and methodologies

The study was carried out in Sahirna and Kanat Kebeles in Farta Woreda. Kebeles were selected where there was at least one completed WASH intervention. The empowerment model provided the underlying structure within which specific WASH-related questions were addressed through interviews and focus group discussions.

“Snapshot” interview

The Snapshot structured interview tool was used at the end of the intervention to ask respondents to characterize changes in their experiences from before the intervention to after by selecting from a four-point scale ranging from negative change to no difference to a slight improvement to significant improvement. The questionnaires were translated into the local language and were administered by trained enumerators. In order to achieve our objective of examining differences among women in different life cycles, the following nineteen broad categories were agreed upon and used to analyze responses in these interviews.

Life-cycle related position / Relative wealth within the community
Richest / Middle / Poorest
Female Headed
Married with children over 5
Married with children under 5
Unmarried adults
School attending girls
Pre-school girls
Disabled

Frequencies of responses to the Snapshot interview questions were categorized into those who reported experiencing significantly better WASH conditions and empowerment conditions versus those experiencing lesser change, no change, or even negative change. We used logistic regression to determine the association between having significantly improved WASH conditions and significantly improved indicators of empowerment using odds ratios and chi-square tests of probability. Results were considered statistically significant where p values were less than 0.05.

It is important to note that given the cross-sectional nature of this study, which was conducted only after the intervention took place, and the lack of non-intervention comparison communities, there are limitations to the conclusions that can be made. Changes reported by participants cannot be attributed to the intervention with certainty, as the study design did not allow us to control for external factors that may have also contributed towards changes. Another significant limitation of the research is the small number of people surveyed. 143 participants were interviewed in the Snapshot: 33 female headed households; 28 married with children over 5 years old; 27 married with children under 5 years old and 28 unmarried women and 27 school-aged girls. The study is not large enough to produce reliable results when stratified by life cycle. In addition, our non-random selection of kebeles and respondents for the study prevents the generalization of results beyond our study sample. Rather, these results only provide an indication of patterns observed in this study population and thus provide food for thought rather than accurate measurements of impact.It is also important to consider that with the way questions were phrased, respondents may have felt compelled to respond positively about their situation and feelings of empowerment to please the people who brought the intervention. There is therefore probably an inherently positive spin on the results. What is of particular interest is the comparative differences between results, i.e. the fact that some factors score higher than others.

Focus group discussions

Four focus group discussions,FGDs,were undertaken inboth kebeles, two with women, one with girls aged around 12-16, and one with men, each group having up to twelveparticipants. Discussions were conducted and minutedin the local language. Community facilitators, women’s group members and men’s group members were selected who could represent the wider members, with consideration for example of inclusion of female-headed households, households with disabled female children, etc.