Women, Water, and the Weight of Sustainability

Zimbabwean women fetch water for domestic use at an unprotected well which has been a major source of cholera in Harare, Zimbabwe, on December 7, 2008. The cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe has claimed 575 lives so far, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Harare is the worst-hit district with 179 deaths and 6,448 cases as of December 4. The water-borne disease has spread to surrounding countries with deaths recorded in Botswana and South Africa where the influx of Zimbabweans across the border seeking help has grown. AFP PHOTO / Desmond Kwande
Photo credit: DESMOND KWANDE/AFP via Getty Images)

The global water crisis is accelerating. According to a recent Global Commission on the Economics of Water report, by 2030 demand for fresh water will exceed supply by 40 per cent.

Climate change is compounding the problem: droughts and floods are becoming unpredictably severe, and communities are being stretched beyond resilience. Yet behind these numbers lie faces, most often feminine, bearing the cost.

In sub-Saharan Africa alone, women and girls spend an estimated 40 billion hours annually collecting water  . In Zimbabwe, strolling to boreholes isn’t just daily; it’s a chore. Some rural women walk as far as 25 kilometres for water  . That fuel‑burning walk under‑sun or over‑dust: a burden of PPE‑heavy buckets: compounds musculoskeletal pain, leaves little time for education or income, and opens doors to violence.

A 2024 UN report noted that women and girls suffer most during droughts and water crises  . The water crisis isn’t abstract—it’s deeply gendered.

In Hurungwe or Insukamini, women trek to find water, irrigate subsistence gardens, and fetch the water needed for cooking, cleaning, and care cycles. The knock‑on impacts are devastating. Girls drop out to fetch water, abandoning school and dreams. Mothers fall behind in work, feeling worn before morning meetings begin  . Meals are left uncooked, crops wither, hygiene fades.

Women fetching water from an usafe water source, ZIMBABWE

In one tragic case, a woman in Mberengwa was killed while fetching water from a croc‑infested dam  .

These are not anecdotes, they reveal an entire system built on invisible exploitation: policies that fail to recognise domestic labour, budgets that allocate boreholes far from homes, sanitation plans that don’t consider menstrual hygiene or safe infrastructure for women, and climate adaptation strategies that neglect women’s realities  .

Indeed, while water scarcity does more than just remove water, it erodes dignity, health, education, and potential.

Globally, the trend is no different. In parts of Malawi, floods destroyed homes, and it was women like Sofia, farmers with few alternatives, who walked farther for water, and risked assault. Across the Pacific Islands, sea‑level rise is making freshwater undrinkable, forcing women to walk farther even as saltwater encroaches on fields and families  .

These burdens are policy wounds. They emerge when “sustainable” strategies are guided by engineering masters, not gender‑aware frameworks. See Chile’s dam schemes, Australian irrigation policies, or Germany’s water subsidies: they all improved aggregate water usage but failed women in the margins. Men design and assign value; women bear the cost.

What must change?

First, water infrastructure must be gender‑aware. That means boreholes near villages, solar pumps operated by women’s co‑ops, and lighting at water points to enhance safety.

In Zimbabwe, councils are drilling solar boreholes in every ward, but that’s just a start. Women must manage and own these systems  .

Second, resources must match rhetoric. Women are waiting longer at water points. Girls are skipping school. Budgets for WASH remain pitiful (under 1% of GDP) while infrastructure crumbles. The government’s scholarships must match commitments to Universal Water and Sanitation by 2030, or face a social dividend.

Third, legal frameworks must evolve. Water rights need gender parity in mind. Land access and irrigation policy, like UNDP’s climate‑smart agriculture projects in Matebeleland, show the way: when women control land and water, communities prosper  .

Fourth, menstrual hygiene must be safe. Even schools with “girl‑friendly” latrines need water supply integration  . Without it, girls suffer infections and stay home.

Fifth, women must lead climate adaptation and water governance. Uganda’s Sostine Namanya has mobilised 7,000 rural women to defend forests and water sources  . Zimbabwe can do the same, fund women-led schemes, support advocacy, amplify climate‑justice perspectives.

Global readers: this is bigger than Zimbabwe. Drought in Bangladesh kills more women than men during cyclones  . In Ghana or Nairobi, water collection leads to back pain, missed work days, drop‑out rates, women pay in full. These aren’t isolated cases, they’re policy patterns replicated across continents. That is injustice personified.

Yet water is a universal right. The decisions we make in ministries, chambers, and bank accounts can remake societies if we think with gender, and listen.

We Zimbabweans know that necessity drives innovation. In rural Masholomoshe, solar irrigation pumps now provide water at home for schooling, washing, and growing vegetables, all via women’s group management  . That’s proof sustainable systems can coexist with women’s liberation.

If water ministries, donors, climate funds, and activists come together, we can design policies that ease women’s burden, not amplify it. That means choosing pipelines over politics, boreholes over bureaucracy, gender‑specific budgeting, and measurable targets.

Sustainability is gender justice. It emerges when we stop making women walk while calling it progress. When we rebuild systems to support bodies, futures, dignity, not lines on a report.

Today, as water becomes scarcer, let us remember: our policies will define who thrives. And if we demand sustainable development, that must include sustainable burden-sharing. Women, for now unsung, deserve water in their homes, safety at night, dignity in menarche, and time for study, not survival.

Only then can Zimbabwe and the world honour creation and all its caretakers.

Kumbirai Thierry Nhamo is a Social Justice Activist and writer 

Fedback: Email kumbiraithierryn@gmail.com or WhatsApp +263780022343