Assessing the importance of gender transformative WASH: evidence from a gender-mainstreamed WASH programme in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services are crucial for gender equality but their gender-transformative potential has received less attention in terms of intervention design and evaluation. We compared empowerment levels among participants in a gender-transformative WASH programme in Satkhira, Bangladesh which integrated components such as household decision-making and social norms, to non-participants using the Empowerment in WASH Index. Women participants had higher empowerment than all other groups, including men in both areas. The results show the potential of gender transformative WASH approaches to not only achieve targeted improvements in WASH but also make meaningful and measurable contributions to gender equality.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  International Journal of Water Resources Development

• Publication date

  2025-06-09

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1080/07900627.2025.2505867
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Gendered Disparities in Water and Sanitation through an Intersectional Lens: Emphasising Women’s Perspectives

  2024cited by this paper
• Water insecurity is associated with gender-based violence: A mixed-methods study in Indonesia.

  2023cited by this paper
• Women’s Resistance: An Alternative Perspective to Women’s Participation in Community-Driven Development

  2023cited by this paper
• Do Sanitation Marketing Activities Increase Households' Likelihoods of Reaching Improved Sanitation or Involving Women in Decision Making?

  2023cited by this paper
• An analysis of gender inclusion in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) projects: Intention vs reality

  2023cited by this paper
• The Agency, Resources, and Institutional Structures for Sanitation-related Empowerment (ARISE) Scales: Development and validation of measures of women’s empowerment in urban sanitation for low- and middle-income countries

  2023cited by this paper
• Operationalising masculinities in theories and practices of gender-transformative health interventions: a scoping review

  2023cited by this paper
• Measuring transformative WASH: A new paradigm for evaluating water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions

  2023cited by this paper
• Climate Change-induced Salinity Intrusion and Livelihood Nexus: A Study in Southwest Satkhira District of Bangladesh

  2023cited by this paper
• Diagnosing norms and norm change in rural Bangladesh: an exploration of gendered social norms and women’s empowerment

  2023cited by this paper
• Gender equality approaches in water, sanitation, and hygiene programs: Towards gender-transformative practice

  2023cited by this paper
• Systematic mapping of gender equality and social inclusion in WASH interventions: knowledge clusters and gaps

  2023influential reference
• Human rights, COVID-19, and barriers to safe water and sanitation among people experiencing homelessness in Mexico City

  2023cited by this paper
• Social beliefs and women’s role in sanitation decision making in Bihar, India: An exploratory mixed method study

  2022cited by this paper
• Sustainable Water and Sanitation in Sierra Leone: Impact evaluation of the ‘Improved WASH Services in WAU and WAR Districts’ project

  2022cited by this paper
• Misreading the Bengal delta: climate change, development, and livelihoods in coastal Bangladesh

  2022cited by this paper
• Gender-transformative approaches in international development: A brief history and five uniting principles

  2022influential reference
• Obliqueness as a feminist mode of analysing waterscapes: Learning to think with overflows

  2022cited by this paper
• Engaging Men and Boys for Gender-Transformative WASH: Part 2, Frontiers of Sanitation

  2022cited by this paper
• Household access to basic drinking water, sanitation and hygiene facilities: secondary analysis of data from the demographic and health survey V, 2017–2018

  2022cited by this paper
• Examining water and gender narratives and realities

  2022cited by this paper
• Gender dynamics of community-led total sanitation interventions in Mpwapwa District, Tanzania

  2022cited by this paper
• The water, sanitation and hygiene gender equality measure (WASH-GEM): Conceptual foundations and domains of change

  2022influential reference
• Beyond inclusion: practical lessons on striving for gender and disability transformational changes in WASH systems in Cambodia and Timor-Leste

  2022cited by this paper
• Empowerment in water, sanitation and hygiene index

  2021influential reference
• Interventions promoting uptake of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) technologies in low‐ and middle‐income countries: An evidence and gap map of effectiveness studies

  2021cited by this paper
• Who does what and why? Examining intra-household water and sanitation decision-making and autonomy in Asutifi North, Ghana

  2021cited by this paper
• Social outcomes of a community-based water, sanitation and hygiene intervention

  2021influential reference
• ‘People don’t like the ultra-poor like me’: an intersectional approach to gender and participation in urban water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) projects in Dhaka’s bostis

  2020cited by this paper
• Understanding empowerment in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH): a scoping review

  2020cited by this paper
• Introduction: Troubling gender expertise in environment and development

  2020cited by this paper
• The association of water carriage, water supply and sanitation usage with maternal and child health. A combined analysis of 49 Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys from 41 countries.

  2020cited by this paper
• Embodied Intersectionalities of Urban Citizenship: Water, Infrastructure, and Gender in the Global South

  2020cited by this paper
• Toward structural change: Gender transformative approaches

  2020cited by this paper
• Development of the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI)

  2019cited by this paper
• Health and social impacts of open defecation on women: a systematic review

  2019cited by this paper
• A social-ecological analysis of drinking water risks in coastal Bangladesh.

  2019cited by this paper
• Women’s and girls’ experiences of menstruation in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review and qualitative metasynthesis

  2019cited by this paper
• Rethinking water insecurity, inequality and infrastructure through an embodied urban political ecology

  2019cited by this paper
• Rural women’s empowerment and children’s food and nutrition security in Bangladesh

  2019influential reference
• Concept mapping: Engaging stakeholders to identify factors that contribute to empowerment in the water and sanitation sector in West Africa

  2019cited by this paper
• Rural Piped-Water Enterprises in Cambodia: A Pathway to Women’s Empowerment?

  2019cited by this paper
• Power through: A new concept in the empowerment discourse

  2019cited by this paper
• Mapping operation and maintenance: an everyday urbanism analysis of inequalities within piped water supply in Lilongwe, Malawi

  2018cited by this paper
• Men’s perspectives on women’s empowerment and intimate partner violence in rural Bangladesh

  2018cited by this paper
• Sampling in surveys with reduced populations: a simplified method for the water, sanitation, and hygiene sector

  2018cited by this paper
• Women's role in sanitation decision making in rural coastal Odisha, India

  2017cited by this paper
• Water justice : Key concepts, debates and research agendas

  2017cited by this paper
• The Routledge Handbook of Environmental Justice

  2017cited by this paper
• Advancing human capabilities for water security: A relational approach

  2017cited by this paper
• Mainstreaming gender in WASH: lessons learned from Oxfam’s experience of Ebola

  2017cited by this paper
• Reframing women’s empowerment in water security programmes in Western Nepal

  2017cited by this paper
• Introduction: gender and water, sanitation and hygiene

  2017influential reference
• Mainstreaming gender in the WASH sector: dilution or distillation?

  2017cited by this paper
• Transforming gender relations through water, sanitation, and hygiene programming and monitoring in Vietnam

  2017cited by this paper
• Psychosocial impacts of the lack of access to water and sanitation in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review.

  2017cited by this paper
• An Analysis of Water Collection Labor among Women and Children in 24 Sub-Saharan African Countries

  2016cited by this paper
• Voice and Agency: Where Are We Now?

  2016cited by this paper
• The triple burden: the impact of time poverty on women’s participation in coffee producer organizational governance in Mexico

  2016cited by this paper
• Understanding women's decision making power and its link to improved household sanitation: the case of Kenya

  2016cited by this paper
• Gender-transformative health promotion for women: a framework for action.

  2015cited by this paper
• Counting (Gendered) Water Use At Home: Feminist Approaches In Practice

  2015cited by this paper
• Putting the men into menstruation: the role of men and boys in community menstrual hygiene management

  2015cited by this paper
• Measuring gender-transformative change: A review of literature and promising practices

  2015cited by this paper
• The cost of a knowledge silo: a systematic re-review of water, sanitation and hygiene interventions

  2014cited by this paper
• Effect of a behaviour-change intervention on handwashing with soap in India (SuperAmma): a cluster-randomised trial.

  2014cited by this paper
• What does care have to do with human rights? Analysing the impact on women's rights and gender equality

  2014cited by this paper
• Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture: What Role for Food Security in Bangladesh?

  2014cited by this paper
• Water and Human Development

  2014cited by this paper
• “The organised encroachment of the powerful”—Everyday practices of public space and water supply in Dhaka, Bangladesh

  2012cited by this paper
• Long-Term Sustainability of Improved Sanitation in Rural Bangladesh

  2011cited by this paper
• Fluid lives: subjectivities, gender and water in rural Bangladesh

  2009cited by this paper
• Women, Water, and Development

  2007cited by this paper
• Agency and Empowerment: A Proposal for Internationally Comparable Indicators

  2007cited by this paper
• The Effects of Intrahousehold Property Ownership on Expenditure Patterns in Ghana

  2006cited by this paper
• The wider impacts of BRAC poverty alleviation programme in Bangladesh

  2004cited by this paper
• Measuring Women's Empowerment as a Variable in International Development

  2002cited by this paper
• Resources, Agency, Achievements: Reflections on the Measurement of Women's Empowerment

  1999cited by this paper
• Questioning Empowerment: Working with Women in Honduras

  1997cited by this paper
• BRAC and Women's Empowerment

  1997cited by this paper
• ''Bargaining'' and Gender Relations: Within and Beyond the Household

  1997cited by this paper
• Patterns of activity and use of time in rural Bangladesh: class, gender, and seasonal variations.

  1995cited by this paper
• Commodities and Capabilities

  1986cited by this paper

• No citing papers are available for this paper.