Sanitation Services Designed with Inclusivity in Mind
Summary
Vola is a professional seamstress with a physical disability that participated in a USAID training to expand her sewing expertise to include making reusable menstrual products.
Photo credit: Dahery Razaka, RANO WASH
Photo credit: Dahery Razaka, RANO WASH
Equitable access to water, sanitation, and hygiene is essential to achieving broader development goals, and supporting the health and dignity of all people. People with disabilities, LGBTQI+ persons, Indigenous Peoples, youth, women, and girls all face unique challenges when it comes to accessing water and sanitation services.
Universally accessible water, sanitation, and hygiene services can mitigate injuries, reduce poor health outcomes, and alleviate poverty risks faced disproportionately by marginalized groups.
At USAID, inclusive development is defined as an equitable development approach built on the understanding that every individual and community, of all diverse identities and experiences, is instrumental in the transformation of their own societies. Their engagement throughout the development process leads to better outcomes.
“We must offer people, not a vision merely of international development,” USAID Administrator Samantha Power stated, “but a vision of inclusive development.”
Under the U.S. Global Water Strategy, USAID is working to increase access to water, sanitation, and hygiene through programs grounded in inclusive approaches and designed to respond to specific experiences, traditional knowledge, and barriers to equity and inclusive outcomes.
Read the full story on USAID Medium.