Giving Compass' Take:

• Kamila Anna Galeza and Deepti Samant Raja discuss simple improvements to water and sanitation programs to make them accessible to people with disabilities.

• How can accessible water and sanitation projects become the norm? What alterations increase accessibility the most? 

• Find out why water projects must provide water at all times to be impactful.

“What’s wrong with this picture?” Louisa Gosling of WaterAid asked the participants at her training on Disability-inclusive Water Operations at the World Bank Water Week in March 2017. She pointed to a photo of a woman standing on the wall of a well. It was round and high, the ground around it muddy, and there was no lifting mechanism in sight.

One billion people, largely in developing countries, live with some form of disability. A World Bank WASH Poverty Diagnostic report conducted recently in Tajikistan found that 55% of surveyed households had at least one household member facing some level of difficulty with core functional domains such as walking, seeing, hearing, cognition, self-care, and communication. Persons with disabilities experience physical, social, and institutional barriers to water and sanitation access.

Accessible water and sanitation infrastructure is crucial for going to school, holding down a job, and participating in the community for all persons across the spectrum of disability. Creating accessible infrastructure isn’t just the right thing to do – it makes economic sense as well. That’s because it benefits not only persons with disabilities but also family members who take care of them, freeing up their time and resources. It provides easier access for women carrying young children, pregnant women, older persons, and those with temporary injuries and disabilities, a group particularly visible in conflict-affected and fragile areas.

Often, simple adjustments can be the most transformational.  Adding a ramp, handrails, navigation aids, a wider entrance, or making a path wide enough for a wheelchair to pass – these things can make all the difference between independent living and waiting all day to use facilities others take for granted, or bearing additional expenses to hire assistants or helpers.

Read the full article about water and sanitation by Kamila Anna Galeza and Deepti Samant Raja at The World Bank.