Water for Women launches "transformative trio" of GESI resources at World Water Week

Gender Transformative Leadership Learning Brief Cover image featuring two women in colourful saris with a young girl in a wheelchair

Ambika Yadav sharing COVID-19 prevention measures and tips with community members in Sarlahi (SNV/Meeting Point)

Leading for Leaving No One Behind

Monday, 23 August 2021

Water for Women and partners today launched a suite of resources to help foster gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programming and ensure quality remote monitoring and evaluation of projects in the first of the Fund’s five World Water Week sessions - Leading for Leaving No One Behind: it's time to reset!

Comprising of three multi-faceted new resources that have been designed for use in the planning, delivery, tracking and evaluation of GESI in WASH research and community projects, each has wide cross-sectoral applicability and can be readily used by practitioners and organisations working in other development areas to promote GESI in their work.

The launch of the suite of GESI resources reiterates Water for Women's commitment to raising the bar for gender and socially inclusive research, analysis, design, and program delivery in WASH, and in doing so, to lead practice globally. Actively involving all people within communities - women, men, marginalised groups, people with disabilities - ensures more equitable and inclusive processes, which lead to more effective and sustainable outcomes.

Explore the new resources to learn more and draw on these to support your efforts in fostering GESI within your organisation and through your work.

Towards Transformation in WASH: Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Self-Assessment Tool

Co-created with the Sanitation Learning Hub, the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Self-Assessment Tool is a facilitation guide for WASH project managers, researchers and self-assessment facilitators to support individual and collective reflective practice among staff on the extent and quality of gender equality and social inclusion work in their WASH projects and organisation.

It is aimed at program managers, GESI advisers, researchers and members of staff who are interested in improving GESI practice. The guide details the specific roles and responsibilities of the contact point, facilitator, participants, and supporters of the self-assessment process. It includes a step-by-step process and practical appendices, including printable and editable participant worksheets and templates for summarising workshop outcomes, evaluating the self-assessment process for continual improvement, and developing a GESI Action Plan.

Beyond the Finish Line: Gender Transformative Leadership in WASH during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Gender Transformative Leadership Research Report Cover image

WASH sector leaders – whether in WASH clusters, ministries, local government, or civil society organisations – have played a crucial role in addressing the COVID-19 crisis and safeguarding their populations. Their role is particularly important in ensuring that the needs of marginalised and vulnerable groups are represented and heard.

This research report and learning brief shares the findings and reflections from a study of gender transformative leadership in WASH during the COVID-19 pandemic, conducted by Water for Women Fund partners, SNV Netherlands Development Organisation and Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney (ISF-UTS).

Taking a positive deviance approach, the study engaged with 19 leaders from Bhutan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), and Nepal who were identified as positively contributing to gender transformation in the WASH sector.

A series of short videos with six of these leaders - which premiered on Tuesday, 24 August at the session, Gender Transformative Leadership in WASH: Voices from Asia - accompanies the learning brief and research report, offering diverse viewpoints and leadership styles to inspire action towards gender transformative leadership. Watch the videos.

qualKit: Putting the quality into qualitative GESI transformation measurement

"We know that qualitative approaches and methods are critical to demonstrate changes arising from WASH interventions in equality, inclusion and transformation at individual, household, community and institutional levels. Qualitative data presents the story behind the numbers - the people behind the quantitative data." Jose Mott, Water for Women Fund Gender and Social Inclusion Specialist.

The qualKit, developed by Fund partner ISF-UTS, is a web-based toolkit of qualitative monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) resources designed specifically for monitoring gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) changes in WASH and other development programs.

Developed in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to manage project monitoring and evaluation remotely, qualKit has been designed by and for WASH and GESI practitioners and researchers to enable exploration of multi-dimensional GESI related changes, but is a high-quality resource that can be used widely across other sectors.

Using qualKit will enable project teams to bring the voices of change agents to life in mobility restricted times. qualKit draws on the experience of Water for Women partners in civil society organisations and the expertise of Water for Women research partners, including the doctoral work of ISF-UTS researcher Jessica Macarthur. It is designed to equip practitioners at all levels with the tools, techniques, and resources to undertake remote MEL and bring the voices of women and the marginalised to the centre of WASH programming.

The qualKit website homepage screen

The Stockholm International Water Institute's World Water Week is a fully-digital online event this year, which runs from 23 to 27 August. It's not too late to register to participate in the five Water for Women and Fund partner sessions, and any of the more than 300 other sessions on offer, free of charge. Join the global conversation on Building Resilience Faster and explore how sustainable WASH and water resource management can help address some of humanity’s biggest challenges, such as Covid-19 and the climate crisis. Together we can co-create solutions.