Gender and empowerment through WASH based on cases from Bangladesh

It is often assumed that participation and representation of women in Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) committees will lead to their empowerment .In order to get a better insight into “How” participation in the WASH committees can lead to empowerment of women, Simavi1 with support from the Gender and Water Alliance conducted a study to get a better insight on “If”, “How” and “Why” women’s empowerment has taken place as a result of participation in the WASH committees or other WASH interventions in our programme in Bangladesh. The results of this study and recommendation for WASH interventions are presented in this paper.