Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) are grouped together because of their codependent nature. Without toilets, water sources become contaminated; without clean water, basic hygiene practices are not possible. We can also say WASH cannot be separated not just for survival, but also as they are interconnected rights.

Can everyone in Indonesia claim and benefit from their right to safe water? Sadly, the answer is, “No, not yet.”

Statistics Indonesia (BPS) revealed that last year only 74 percent of the population had access to adequate drinking water. The lack of access to water is not a new story. When in elementary school in the 1990s, during every dry season I needed to fetch water when the well in my house dried up, which meant I had to wait up to an hour at a time for my bucket to fill up. As it is common for children and women to be responsible for household water collection, my story is the story of many children and women where I come from: rural eastern Indonesia.

Last year BPS reported that eastern Indonesia gained less access to proper drinking water compared to western Indonesia and villages had 17 percent less access to water than people in the cities.

The NGO where I work, Plan Indonesia, reported in “Child Rights Situation Analysis” in 2017, in line with BPS data, that whilst the conditions of water supply systems vary throughout Indonesia, the most underserved are poor households in rural provinces in eastern Indonesia, where there is unequal access to safe water sources. This inequality is lived as an everyday reality.

Inequality of access to clean water exists not only between urban and rural, east and west, but also for people with disabilities, women and children. Plan Indonesia’s research showed that women took primary responsibility for WASH in households, but more than half of households had never included women in decisions related to water and sanitation.

Moreover, nearly 80 percent of all households in the studied areas stated that women and girls with disabilities had not been included in the planning of developing WASH systems in their villages. These voices are those of the people left behind without safe water and it is compounded by how we identify ourselves and others.

Scholars explain this as “intersectionality”. Some factors that could lead a person to be more vulnerable to exclusion and/or discrimination include age, gender, economic status, disability, migration, religion, education, race, geography, sexuality and class.

Understanding these identity factors would help shed light on the layers of exclusion a person might be experiencing, which is crucial for increasing their access to public services and participation through policy and practice. To achieve truly universal access, Indonesia is in need of more inclusive WASH development.

To address the significant gaps in sanitation and hygiene, the government has set ambitious targets to achieve universal access to water and sanitation for all populations across rural and urban areas, including those most marginalized, by the end of 2019 through Presidential Instruction No. 185/2014 on acceleration of water supply and sanitation.

Whilst this is a strong commitment, universal access to clean water will not be realized until issues of gender equality and social inclusion are comprehensively tackled. Learning from the earlier global Millennium Development Goals, which focused on increasing access, the succeeding Sustainable Development Goals took a stance for more inclusive development to ensure no one is left behind. The government should take the same approach for strategy after 2019 for more inclusive WASH development.

WASH development can be described as three primary components: an enabling environment, demand and supply. For the first factor, while the government’s WASH policy is generally regarded as strong, gaps remain to fully address gender equality and social inclusion (GESI). Strong policy in GESI WASH regulation would allow funds and resources for field implementation that also need to be monitored for inclusiveness.

For increasing demand, triggering and promoting safe WASH could also ensure women and marginalized groups are able to increase their participation and voice in WASH matters. The United Nations-Water policy brief in 2006 stated that WASH interventions having meaningful participation by women within design and implementation were more sustainable and effective.

Lastly, the supply of WASH infrastructure needs to ensure accessible and affordable access by marginalized groups in urban and rural areas, including options of technology that are suitable for people with needs such as WASH access for people with disabilities and those in arid areas and coastal areas. Without trying to consider the above components to ensure stronger gender equality and social inclusion, full universal access to water will never be achieved in Indonesia.

To “leave no one behind” we must genuinely listen to people who have been marginalized or ignored and include them in decision making processes that affect them. Regulatory and legal frameworks that recognize the right to WASH for all people mean inclusion of voices from all people.

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The writer is Water for Women project manager at Yayasan Plan International Indonesia. She obtained her Master’s degree in civil and environmental engineering, focusing on water resource management/hydrology, from Utah State University United States. She is a member of the environmental division of the Alumni Association of American-Indonesian Scholarship Program (ALPHA-I).

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