This video is a recording of a webinar introducing the Women's Empowerment metric for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WE-WASH).
What is WE-WASH?
The Women’s Empowerment metric for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WE-WASH) tool is a set of 14 indicators that measure empowerment across different domains of agency and different areas of WASH. The 14 indicators may be selected based on project needs (i.e., WE-WASH is a dashboard, not an index). The indicators are spread across six themes, as follows:
- Instrumental agency in WASH
- Input into household-level WASH infrastructure decisions
- Receives help on WASH activities (when wanted)
- Does not spend undue time on WASH activities
- Intrinsic agency in WASH
- WASH experiences do not generate negative affect
- Feels lack of water does not limit normal activities
- Collective agency in WASH
- Community comes together on WASH issues
- Individual participates in and benefits from community WASH activities
- WASH empowerment environment (resources for empowerment)
- Feels safe while gathering water and conducting personal hygiene
- Does not avoid places out concern for a safe place to urinate or defecate
- Instrumental and intrinsic agency related menstrual hygiene
- Women do not need to be separated while menstruating
- Menstruation is a normal part of life for women
- Freedom of movement and to do as desired while menstruating
- Menstrual hygiene empowerment environment (resources for empowerment)
- Access to facilities for menstrual hygiene needs
- Access to menstrual products
All 14 WE-WASH indicators were developed in rural Malawi and Nepal, though WE-WASH can be used in a broad range of contexts. This work was undertaken as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH). Funding support for this study was provided through the Contribution Agreement between USAID and IBRD.
WE-WASH guides and instruments
The definitions of each WE-WASH indicator are available for download here.
The WE-WASH module is available for download here.