Women’s vulnerability to climate-related risks to household water security in Centre-East, Burkina Faso

ABSTRACT

Variable climate conditions, resulting in periods of water scarcity and longer dry spells, or intense rainfall events, have serious implications for water and sanitation services. Climate change threatens to exacerbate these hazards, increasing risks to household water security, and associated impacts on health, wellbeing and livelihoods. These risks are not evenly distributed across individuals and communities, and there is a particular need to understand women’s vulnerabilities and responses to these risks due to disproportionate impacts of poor water and sanitation conditions. This study used mixed-methods data collection to assess how vulnerabilities to climate-related risks to household water security are produced and vary among women in the Centre-East region, Burkina Faso, as well as capacities to respond. Gendered water-related roles and norms were found to drive vulnerabilities for women in the case study site particularly related to increasingly inadequate water availability during the dry season. Other social differences such as Mossi and Peul ethnicity which influence ways of using water, also contributed to women’s differential vulnerability and capacities to respond. These findings show there is a need to consider how the development of ‘climate resilient’ water and sanitation services take social drivers of vulnerability into account.

KEYWORDS:

• Drinking water
• sanitation
• gender
• West Africa
• adaptation
• vulnerability

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Halidou Koanda and WaterAid Burkina Faso for their support during fieldwork activities and to respondents for contributing their time to this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded through a research grant provided by the REACH programme, which is itself funded by UK Aid from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) for the benefit of developing countries (Aries Code 201880). However, the views expressed and information contained in it are not necessarily those of or endorsed by DFID, which can accept no responsibility for such views or information or for any reliance placed on them. Funding was also provided by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida Styrelsen för Internationellt Utvecklingssamarbete) to the Stockholm Environment Institute.

Notes on contributors

Sarah Dickin

Sarah Dickin is a Research Fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute. Her research interests focus on the intersection between environment, development and human wellbeing. She is leading research to develop robust tools to measure social and gender outcomes of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) interventions in low-income contexts.

Lisa Segnestam

Lisa Segnestam is a Research Fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute. Lisa specializes in the linkages between disaster risk reduction, social in(equity), and development in both Swedish and international settings. Lisa uses a multi-dimensional perspective on poverty to assess what coping and adaptive capacities distinguish less vulnerable from more vulnerable groups.

Mariam Sou Dakouré

Mariam Sou Dakouré is a researcher at the Institut International d'Ingénierie de l'Eau et de L'Environnement with a focus on sanitation and resources recovery, and a Water and Sanitation specialist at the World Bank.