Water for Development

Our Focus 

Water for Women supports climate-resilient water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services that benefit everyone in the community. The title of the fund is an explicit way of acknowledging that gender equality is key to making this happen. 

Water for Women Fund responds to evidence that gendered approaches to WASH can contribute to more effective, sustainable and climate-resilient WASH outcomes, as well as improvements in women’s and girls’ well-being. WASH delivery offers an entry point to facilitate changes in inequitable gender and social relations, norms and attitudes, to advance gender equality, disability and social inclusion (GEDSI).

Advancing GEDSI through implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 6 – Water and sanitation for all  – will see a world where women and girls do not bear the burden of walking long distances daily to collect water for their families, where fewer babies die as a result of mothers giving birth in unhygienic health care facilities, where girls no longer miss school because there are no appropriate menstrual hygiene management facilities, people living with disability, and people from marginalised groups and communities are no longer constrained by a lack of dignified access to WASH appropriate to their needs.

Water for Women reflects Australia's commitments to advancing GEDSI and the Sustainable Development Goals, as outlined in the new International Development Policy (August 2023), preceded by commitments made to the High Level Panel on Water (2018). 

Sustainable Development Goals 

Water for Women aims to contribute directly towards four key SDGs: 

Learn more about Australia’s International Development Policy.

Learn more about the Sustainable Development Goals.