Context: 

• A new report released by UNICEF and WHO, ” Progress on household drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) 2000-2022: Special focus on gender” presents updated national, regional and global estimates for WASH in households for the period 2000 to 2022.

Key Findings from the report:

• Lack of water supply: Globally, 1.8 billion people live in households without water supplies on the premises. 
• Disproportionate burden on women: Women and girls aged 15 and older are primarily responsible for water collection in 7 out of 10 households, compared with 3 in 10 households for their male peers. Girls under 15 (7 %) are also more likely than boys under 15 (4 %) to fetch water.
• Lack of Private Space: Among 51 countries with available data, women and adolescent girls in the poorest households and those with disabilities are the most likely to lack a private place to wash and change.
• Loss of lives: 1.4 million lives are lost each year due to inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene.
• Disproportionate Impact on Women:
  • Loss of education: Additional time spent on domestic chores can also limit girls’ chances of completing secondary school and gaining employment.
  • Poor quality of life: In most cases, women and girls make longer journeys to collect it, losing time in education, work, and leisure, and putting themselves at risk of physical injury and dangers on the way.
  • Compromised Privacy: More than half a billion people still share sanitation facilities with other households, compromising women’s and girls’ privacy, dignity, and safety. 
  • Vicious cycles of poverty: Unsafe water, toilets, and handwashing at home robs girls of their potential, compromises their well-being, and perpetuates cycles of poverty. 
  • Health risks: Inadequate WASH services increase health risks for women and girls and limit their ability to safely and privately manage their periods. 
  • Increased vulnerabilities: They face additional health risks because they are vulnerable to harassment, violence, and injury when they have to go outside the home to haul water or just to use the toilet.

Roadmap suggested by the report: 

• Accelerating Progress:  Achieving the Sustainable Development Goal target for universal access to safely managed drinking water, sanitation, and basic hygiene services by 2030 will require a six-fold increase in current rates of progress for safely managed drinking water, a five-fold increase for safely managed sanitation, and a three-fold increase for basic hygiene services.
• Gender specific interventions: Responding to girls’ needs in the design and implementation of WASH programmes is critical to reaching universal access to water and sanitation and achieving gender equality and empowerment.
• Targeting gender equality: Efforts are needed to ensure that progress on WASH contributes towards gender equality, including integrated gender considerations in WASH programmes and policies and disaggregated data collection and analysis.

Status of Health and Hygiene in India:

• Lack of clean water access: As of 2020 over 165 million Indians did not have access to constant clean water, close to 600 million live in water-stressed regions, and 63 per cent households do not have access to water within their homes. 
• Water scarce regions: Water scarce areas in India, dependent on government and municipal water tankers, receive a maximum of 25L of water per person per day, amounting to 125L for an average family of five. This is in stark contrast to median and high-income households that use anywhere from 200L-600 L per person per day.
• Water Contamination: While many regions in India face significant water scarcity issues, nearly 70% of all of the country’s fresh water in the ground or on the surface is contaminated. 
• Stunting and wasting: In spite of the initiatives being taken to eradicate the risks of unsanitary livelihood, India still has higher rates of stunting and wasting among children under five years of age, due to poor sanitation

Challenges associated with Health and Hygiene: 

• Data discrepancies: Although India was declared open-defecation-free (ODF) in 2019, several reports indicate the persistence of open-defecation in regions labelled ODF, defunct toilets, and discrepancies between the SBM administrative data and National Sample Survey data. 
• Timely wage payments: There have also been reports of non-payment of wages to swachhagrahis. If such policy implementation gaps are not bridged, regions with poor sanitation and lack of adequate toilets will continue to fail their women.
• Lack of knowledge: Ground reports show that knowledge of proper menstrual hygiene practices is still lacking.Even though ASHA workers continue to raise awareness, there are cases where 80 percent of women and girls in villages continue to practice unhygienic MHM.
• Paucity of hygiene management at the workplace:  The paucity of clean and separate toilets for women in the urban working landscape discourages and restricts women from joining the workforce, in addition to several factors that already hinder their labour force participation. 
• Lack of gender tracking system: Even while WASH policies are gender-sensitive or gender-transformative in their design and planning, they fail to measure the gendered impact of the policy. 

Current Measures by India to improve sanitation and hygiene:

• Flagship programmes: Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) and Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) aim to provide safe and adequate drinking water to every household in India. 
• Atal Bhujal Yojana: The gender strategy for the policy tracks the participation of women in the scheme. It requires 33 percent women members in Water Use Associations (WUA) at the Gram Panchayat level to allow holistic participation of women in water budgeting, water security planning, and monitoring implementation progress.
• SPM-NIWAS:  Set up under the Ministry of Jal Shakti as an autonomous institution and to develop as an apex institution for drinking water and sanitation of international repute, undertake academic activities, research work, training and capacity development of public health engineers and other stakeholders.
• Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM): The MHM guidelines, issued by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, provide a well-defined MHM framework that incorporates IEC initiatives, better WASH infrastructure, availability and safe disposal of menstrual absorbents, and participation of communities and schools, to make adolescent girls capable of continuing their education and ending the taboo around menstruation. 
• Swachh Bharat Swachh Vidyalaya (SBSV) programme: Provide gender-segregated toilet facilities for girls and boys in government elementary and secondary schools.
• Innovative solutions to address WASH challenges: JJM has created a market for products and services related to water supply, such as water quality testing kits, leak detection devices, and water treatment technologies. SBM has led to the development of innovative solutions in the sanitation sector, such as low-cost toilets, wastewater and faecal sludge management solutions, and behaviour change communication campaigns.
• Sustainable solutions by social enterprises: Underserved communities are beginning to show signs of acceptance and support from sustainable solutions on offer by social enterprises. 

Way Forward for India:

• Basic WASH facilities: The need of the hour in terms of hygiene and healthcare for women in India is to improve access to basic sanitation facilities and clean water, and to provide adequate hygiene facilities in the workplace. 
• Infrastructure: This includes investing in infrastructure such as toilets and water wells, as well as education campaigns to raise awareness about the importance of hygiene. 
• Hygiene management facilities at workplace: Providing menstrual hygiene management facilities in workplaces and schools is also crucial.
• Healthcare Providers: Increasing the number of trained healthcare providers, especially in rural and underprivileged areas, to ensure that women have access to the healthcare they need. 
• Accessibility and affordability of medicines: Improving the availability and affordability of essential medicines and supplies can also help to ensure that women receive the care they need.
• Women led transformation: Role of It is important to involve communities, especially women and girls, in the design and implementation of sanitation and hygiene programs. This can help to ensure that the facilities and services provided meet the specific needs of women and girls and are used and maintained.
• Training women: Training women and empowering them to train others has turned out to be an excellent way to ensure safe sanitation for all in a community
• Enabling Environment: To ensure that everyone has access to the new solutions and that they are affordable, governments and stakeholders must work towards creating an enabling environment for innovations to thrive.
• Awareness and sensitization drives: Regularity of sanitation-related awareness and sensitization drives in communities needs to be increased so that there is an attitudinal change even at the household level. 
• School Curriculum: Bringing the importance of Wash into the curriculum of schools is one way of ensuring that the importance of the issue remains top and center in the minds of teachers, students and administrators.

News Source: Financial Express