Women & Water: A Ripple Effect

Applying a gender lens to the multi-billion dollar water programming industry creates significant potential for implementers to make their investments go further and achieve even greater sustainable development impacts. However, while evidence of the gendered impacts of water programs (what we call “women and water” impacts) is abundant, the evidence of empowerment impacts, such as the ability to turn time savings into income generation (or the “ripple effect”), is largely anecdotal.

In 2017-2018, Ipsos and the Water & Development Alliance (WADA) conducted a study to map the hypothesized direct gendered impacts (“women and water”) and the pathways to indirect empowerment impacts (“the ripple effect”) of water programming, and to collect primary data to assess whether these hypotheses can be supported. The outcome of the study is a tool that can be used by development practitioners to understand how applying a gender lens to their water programming can lead to greater “empowerment” impacts for women.

Read more about the study here:

• Part 1: A Theory-Based Approach to Understanding the Gendered Impact of Water Programs
• Part 2: Evidence for the Ripple Effect
• Women & Water Ripple Effect Brochure
• Women & Water Ripple Effect Fact Sheet
• USAID blog via Globalwaters.org: The Ripple Effect

Hear Ipsos’ Kaitlin Love and Meghann Jones speak at the Water and Development Alliance (WADA) conference in Stockholm during World Water Week.

Their topic, “The Women & Water Ripple Effect”, features research results from a global study examining the role that research and evaluation play in advancing gender equality, particularly in the WASH sector.