Every year on 22nd March, the world marks World Water Day, a United Nations observance focused on the importance of freshwater, and a call to action to tackle the global water crisis. For 2026, the theme is Water and Gender, accompanied by a message that resonates across every community: Where water flows, equality grows.
This year’s campaign calls for a transformative, rights-based approach that centres women and girls in water solutions, not just as users, but as leaders, engineers, decision-makers and changemakers. The campaign is led by UNICEF and UN Women and co-ordinated by a task force of more than 30 UN-Water members and partners. The 2026 UN World Water Development Report, titled Water for All People: Equal Rights and Opportunities, was launched to support the campaign with evidence, data and practical recommendations.
In our own sector, this theme resonates deeply. Water professionals at every level have a role to play, in how we design services, govern our organisations, and support women in water careers at home and around the world.
“Water can be a powerful force for gender equality, but only if everyone plays their part.” United Nations
The Global Picture: An Unequal Burden
The global water crisis affects everyone, but not equally. Where people lack safely managed water and sanitation, the impacts fall disproportionately on women and girls. This is not a peripheral issue: it is a fundamental barrier to health, education, economic opportunity, and safety.
27% women and girls globally, more than 1 in 4, lack access to safely managed drinking water.
250M hours per day are spent by women and girls in 53 countries collecting water, more than three times the time spent by men and boys.
2 in 3 households without water on-premises see women and girls primarily responsible for collection.
15% of countries still had no formal mechanisms for women’s participation in water decision-
21% of the global water sector workforce is female leaving services less representative of the communities they serve.
1,000 children under five die every day as a result of unsafe water, sanitation, and hygiene, many of these deaths are preventable.
These figures are not abstract. They represent millions of missed school days, lost livelihoods, preventable deaths, and voices excluded from the rooms where decisions are made about water systems and services.
Understanding WASH and Why Gender is at its Heart
What is WASH?
WASH stands for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene. It is the globally recognised framework used by the UN, governments, NGOs, and development agencies to describe and measure access to these three interconnected services, all of which are recognised as fundamental human rights.
Water:
Safe drinking water, accessible in sufficient quantity, from a protected source — at home, at school, in health facilities and public spaces.
Sanitation:
Facilities to safely manage human waste, including toilets, latrines and sewerage, with appropriate disposal systems to prevent environmental contamination.
Hygiene:
Practices including handwashing with soap and water, menstrual hygiene management, and personal cleanliness — supported by access to facilities and materials.
Why WASH and Gender are Inseparable
WASH services that fail women and girls are not just inadequate, they are actively harmful. Poor access to safe sanitation forces women and girls to relieve themselves in the open, exposing them to indignity, harassment and assault. Without water on-premises, they bear the physical burden of collection, time and energy stolen from education and economic participation.
It is widely recognized that many women who walk to collect water will suffer physical and sexual harassment and assault on this journey, with such alarming regularity that in some communities it is woven into cultural practice around marriage. Without adequate menstrual hygiene facilities in schools and workplaces, girls miss lessons and women face indignity.
The SDG framework recognises this explicitly. SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) includes a direct reference to the needs of women and girls in target 6.2, and progress on SDG 6 is widely understood as essential to achieving SDG 5: Gender Equality. The two goals are not parallel tracks, they are deeply interdependent.
WASH is also about voice and governance. Research consistently shows that when women are involved in designing, managing, and overseeing water and sanitation systems, those systems are more equitable, more sustainable, and more effective. Fewer than 50 countries have laws or policies specifically requiring women’s participation in water resources management a gap the 2026 campaign is pressing governments to close.
Six Women Shaping the Future of Water
To mark World Water Day 2026, as well as celebrating Skewbs amazing community of water SMEs, we celebrate six internationally influential women whose leadership is transforming water governance, policy, and service delivery around the world. Their work spans continents and disciplines and collectively, they demonstrate the power of women’s leadership in building a more equitable and water-secure future for all.
Dr Lykke Leonardsen
Head of Resilient and Sustainable City Solutions, City of Copenhagen, Denmark
A global leader in climate resilience and urban water management, Dr Leonardsen has spearheaded Copenhagen’s internationally recognised approach to cloudburst adaptation, turning flood risk into an opportunity for green public spaces and community wellbeing. Her work demonstrates that water infrastructure and social value are not trade-offs but complements. She is widely cited in climate adaptation discourse and has influenced city planning approaches across Europe and beyond.
Dr Fatoumata Jallow Tambajang
Former Vice President of The Gambia; Champion for Water and Sanitation in West Africa
A pioneer in advancing WASH policy at the highest levels of government, Dr Tambajang has been a consistent advocate for integrating water, sanitation, and hygiene into national development frameworks across West Africa. Her work bridges political leadership and grassroots implementation, and she has championed rural water access as a non-negotiable foundation for gender equality, child health, and economic development.
Jabulile Mashwama
Managing Director, Eswatini Water Services Corporation (EWSC)
Jabulile Mashwama leads the Eswatini Water Services Corporation, the national body responsible for water and sanitation services across the Kingdom of Eswatini. As one of the few female MDs of a national water utility in sub-Saharan Africa, she is a trailblazer for women in leadership within the African water sector. Her tenure has been marked by a commitment to improving service delivery, sector reform, and fostering regional collaboration, including engagement with bodies such as the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) and the International Water Association (IWA).
Dr Claudia Sadoff
Executive Director, CGIAR; Former Director General of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI)
One of the most prominent voices in international water resource management, Dr Sadoff has dedicated her career to the science and policy of sustainable water use in the context of food security and climate change. As Director General of IWMI, she led the institute’s global research agenda on water productivity, equity, and resilience. Her work has been foundational in shaping evidence-based approaches to water governance at the UN and in national policy frameworks across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Ms Catarina de Albuquerque
Former UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation; CEO, Sanitation and Water for All (SWA)
Catarina de Albuquerque played a pivotal role in the historic 2010 UN General Assembly resolution recognising access to safe water and sanitation as fundamental human rights. As Special Rapporteur, she travelled to over 25 countries documenting violations and giving voice to those left behind by failing systems. As CEO of SWA, she builds the political will and financing needed to achieve universal WASH access, with gender equity as a central pillar of all her advocacy.
Dr Agnes Kalibata
President, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT; UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the 2021 Food Systems Summit
While her primary focus spans food systems and biodiversity, Dr Kalibata’s work is intrinsically connected to water because agriculture accounts for approximately 70% of global freshwater withdrawal. As a former Rwanda Minister of Agriculture and an internationally respected voice in sustainable food and water systems, she articulates the water-food-gender nexus with authority and urgency. Her leadership demonstrates that water cannot be siloed: its governance is woven into every dimension of sustainable development.
What This Means For Our Sector
In the UK water industry, we operate in a very different context to many of the communities described above. But the principles at the heart of World Water Day 2026 are directly relevant to how we work, how we lead, and how we think about the global purpose of our profession.
Gender equity in water governance is not a distant development issue, it is a professional standard. Whether it is ensuring women are represented at senior levels in our own organisations, designing services that consider the needs of all customers, or engaging with international bodies like the IWA to share knowledge and learning, the commitments made this World Water Day ask something of all of us.
Our regulatory framework under Ofwat’s PR24 includes increasing focus on social outcomes, inclusion, and the lived experience of customers. The global evidence is clear: water services designed with diversity and inclusion at their heart perform better, serve communities more equitably, and build greater long-term resilience.
“When women and girls have equal voice in water decisions, services become more inclusive, sustainable and effective.” — UN-Water, 2026
Water, sanitation and hygiene | UNHCR
Women and girls bear brunt of water and sanitation crisis – new UNICEF-WHO report
By Gill Edwards, Senior Project Manager
