Gender Equality and Disability Inclusion within water, sanitation and hygiene. Exploring integrated approaches to addressing inequality.

Addressing gender inequality and disability rights is critical to a rights-based approach to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programming. Rights-based WASH should reflect all human rights principles, including ‘equality and non-discrimination’, and ‘participation and inclusion’. Approaching WASH with an inclusive lens is essential for achieving universal access.

This paper centres around two main questions:

1. How can the WASH sector continue to improve practice on gender and disability?
2. How can an integrated approach to the two intersectional issues of gender and disability help us ‘do development’ better?

The reflections and ideas shared in this paper are preliminary. It is hoped that further reflections and findings will be reported over time.