An important new report has highlighted how humanitarian agencies are failing women refugees, particularly Syrian women, by ignoring their faith, cultural and gender needs.

The report, entitled More than Half (a reference to the fact that 52.8% of refugees, internally displaced people and those seeking asylum are female), was launched yesterday by our partner Global One.

It is the result of in-depth interviews with nearly 1,000 Syrian women refugees in Lebanon, carried out by a consortium of partners led by Global One, said Dr Husna Ahmad, CEO of Global One.

The report found that women and girls are particularly affected by lack of access to water and sanitation. As the main care givers, women often compromised their own hygiene needs to ensure their children had enough water. Lack of lights or locks on the communal toilet doors in refugee camps put women and girls at risk of harassment or rape.

The report said humanitarian organisations caring for refugees routinely fail to take into account the specific needs of women and girls such as their menstrual cycle. For example, 70% of the women questioned had no access to underwear and 73% sometimes or never had access to menstrual products.

Equally important, humanitarian agencies also failed to appreciate refugees' faith needs. "Humanitarian efforts are failing to address women as women but also as Muslim women," said Terri Harris of Global One. "So much has been taken from them by this conflict, we must not rob them of their identity."

Speaking at the launch, Helen Stawski of Islamic Relief said: "Faith provides people with resilience, with hope. Faith is a psychological buffer and a social network. It helps people form relationships, it is integral to people's resilience and dignity."

Faith in Water is excited to be taking part in JustWater 2017, an initiative launched by cathedrals and churches on four continents to raise awareness and activism about water.

They include St George's Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa; St Paul's Cathedral in London, UK; St Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne, Australia; and Trinity Church Wall Street in New York, USA.

The JustWater programme aims to draw attention to the issues around water – whether these challenges are flooding, drought, rising tides or access to fresh water and sanitation. Major events are scheduled to coincide with the season of Lent and around UN World Water Day on 22 March to support social justice efforts on water.

Faith in Water is taking part in Water of Life? Creation, Culture and the River Thames on March 23 in St Paul’s Cathedral, London. This large public event is the flagship event for the JustWater programme in the UK and will host a wide range of performances, speakers and organisations.

The Very Revd David Ison, Dean of St Paul's Cathedral London, said 'How we deal with water shows how much we value one another. The church working around the world in partnership, to share resources and raise awareness of water-related issues, is a sign of how humanity can achieve together for the benefit of all what we cannot do on our own.'

The JustWater2017.org website is an open resource to help equip community and church leaders as advocates for water justice. Events and outcomes from the project will be highlighted on the website as well as on social media using the hashtag #justwater17.

The president made it a priority in his election campaign and now the First Lady has presided over the launch of a nationwide initiative calling on all the citizens to get involved. One of the country's leading singers, Sana Bob, has even composed a song about it.

​The country is Burkina Faso and the campaign focuses on sanitation. The aim is to mobilise the entire country to put an end to open defecation and give everyone access to decent sanitation facilities.

Around 9.3 million people still defecate in the open on a daily basis and 70% of hospital beds are taken by people suffering from illnesses caused by a lack of sanitation. Every day 4.8 million women risk their safety, dignity and health because they are forced to hide in the bush to relieve themselves.

The people's campaign for toilets, Fasotoilettes 2017, has been initiated by IRC Burkina Faso in collaboration with the General Directorate for Sanitation of the Ministry for Water and Sanitation, the NGOs WaterAid and Eau Vive International and the Foundation Kim. 

First lady Sika Kabore launched the campaign, saying, 'Relieving oneself is a basic need of all human beings… I am deeply disturbed when I think of all the women who have to wait until nightfall to do what is ultimately natural.'

​For more information on Burkino Faso's national campaign, visit Sanitation Updates. 

Faith in Water was delighted to take part in both the Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) conference, convened by UNICEF and Columbia University in New York this month, and the MHM in Ten meeting the following day. 

As well as having a poster submission accepted for the MHM conference we also attended the event in person; hundreds more people from around the world took part in the live virtual conference. 

You can find our poster, which outlined our engagement of faith schools and faith leaders in Uganda earlier this year, on the WASH in Schools' Mapping website here. 

We also attended the next day's MHM in Ten meeting to look at how to advance the MHM agenda in schools. Both days were engaging, challenging and uplifting. While there is much to be achieved in moving forward the MHM agenda, it was inspiring to hear of all the initiatives, studies and campaigns launched in this area. Faith in Water is playing its part by engaging faith groups to view menstrual health as critical for girls' health, education and wellbeing.

The report of the third MHM in Ten meeting, held in October 2016, has been released. Read the full report: MHM in Ten: Advancing the MHM Agenda in Schools. 

It's one of the biggest challenges facing anyone working in water and sanitation. No matter how many toilets or hand washing stations you build, they will be a monumental waste of money if people don't use them. 

India is trying to grapple with this problem. It has more open defecators than any other country in the world. Over the last few decades the government has implemented national programmes to change this, including the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), a national programme launched in 2014 with the aim of eliminating open defecation by 2019.

However, the demand for sanitation – i.e. a genuine demand for toilets and actual use of those toilets – has not been encouraging.

​In September, a number of experts met in Delhi to discuss the reasons for this and what can be done to bring about lasting behaviour change. For a longer report of the meeting, visit the article on Sanitation Updates. However, here are a few key lessons.

• It is just as important to understand what doesn’t work, as well as to understand what behaviour change interventions do work.
• Actual change in behaviour and practice in communities takes time. Interventions have to be designed to be delivered over a longer time with relevant and progressive messaging.
• Put communities first. Every community is different. Make sure you understand their context.
• The lack of land tenure security, cramped and smelly toilets can affect the adoption of hygienic behaviour.
• Low aspirations and negative self-perception, reinforced by sanitation campaigns focusing on shame and disgust, may discourage the poor to construct toilets.  
• Actions that reinforce communities’ pride in their way of life and cultural habits make them more open towards behaviour change messages.
• Another positive trigger is exposure to properly designed, well-functioning and clean toilet facilities in health care facilities, schools, bus/train stations etc. Toilets are more likely to be used if there is good light, space and ventilation, easy access to water and simple pit cleaning technology. 
• Children have a key role to play in behaviour change. Dettol's Swachhata Ki Paathshala campaign incorporates sanitation messaging into the school curriculum in different regional languages. 
• Faith-based leaders have been instrumental in influencing a large section of the community to adopt hygienic behaviour and toilets, according to the Global Interfaith WASH Alliance; 99% of Indians belong to a faith. The Alliance plans to start a ‘Swachhata Kranti’ (Clean Revolution).
• Targeting only women will not solve India’s sanitation problems. The focus should be all household members, including men.

We are delighted to announce that The Nicest Job in Britain has chosen Faith in Water for its annual philanthropy programme. This is a nationwide initiative designed to help 40 charities in the UK – and Faith in Water is incredibly honoured to have been chosen out of hundreds of applications.

The Nicest Job has built a showcase platform for Britain's charities, demonstrating the great people that work for them, the environments they operate in and the challenges they face.

We're really excited about the prospect of hosting the National Philanthropy Manager and the chance to get a fresh perspective on what we're doing as well as some great publicity about our work.

Thank you for choosing us, Nicest Job!

When it comes to dealing with their periods, the three biggest concerns for girls in Uganda are: 'Can't afford sanitary products'; 'Fear that boys will make fun of me'; and 'Lack of menstrual health education'. But the state of school toilets was also a major issue, with 62% of girls questioned saying they were too dirty, too crowded and lacked water for washing.
 
These are some of the results of Faith in Water's consultations on menstrual health with faith groups in Uganda. Although the Ugandan government and other NGOs have been working to push menstrual hygiene management higher up the agenda for schools, this is the first time that faith groups have been engaged on this issue.
 
Faith in Water is developing a toolkit for faith schools on how to help girls manage menstruation safely and with dignity – important given the mounting research that shows girls often miss school during their periods, with potentially devastating impact on their education and future life chances.
 
We held nine workshops in April 2016 to find out what girls' and schools' challenges were, and to discuss the importance of good menstrual health teaching to girls' education. We were delighted with the response from faith leaders, faith women's groups, heads and teachers of faith schools, who all agreed this was a serious issue that needed to be taken seriously by faith groups (who are involved in over half of schools in Uganda).
 
As Rev Canon Diana Nkesiga said it was time to let go of outdated ideas about stigma and shame: 'Church schools should be exemplary places of teaching dignity and hygiene.' 
 
Balinda Sirag, of the Uganda Muslim Youth Assembly, said: 'Before I got involved, I used to think this issue is not important. Now I know it is very, very important. We must break the silence on menstruation and keep girls in school.'
 
We were also delighted by the response of Angela Nakafeero, Gender Techical Adviser with the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Sports, who said of Faith in Water's planned toolkit for faith schools: 'We are looking forward to this toolkit for religious schools. It is very exciting for us. We feel that this contribution will complement some of our interventions.'
 
To read the full report, including findings of girls' experiences of menstruation and challenges facing schools, download it here.

Indians spend more on religious services than on sanitation, regardless of spatial and income divide, according to a recent report by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO).

The recently released report gives a break-up of spending on 14 consumer services between July 2014 and June 2015. These ranged from barber and beauty shops to domestic services, as well as TV and radio services, laundry and dry cleaning. 

The study found that religious services accounted for almost 9% of the total monthly per capita spending (on consumer services) in rural areas, compared to 0.22% spent on sewage disposal and sanitation. The figures for urban India were 5.7% on religious services and 0.45% on sanitation. 

Expenses on sewage and sanitation include any amount paid to toilet cleaners, sewerage cleaners and waste water treatment plants. Religious services, on the other hand, include priest charges, religious donations and subscriptions and other religious expenditure.

Poorer Indians and rural Indians spent proportionally more on religious services. The poorest 20% of people in rural areas spent 7% of their consumer expenditure on religious activities, compared to the almost 10% for the richest 20%. 

And while more than one in three households in both rural and urban India reported consuming religious services, only one in 50 rural households and one in 10 urban households reported sewage disposal and sanitation services.

For more information, see this article on the NSSO report in LiveMint E-Paper. 

We've been celebrating March 22 as World Water Day since in 1993. And in that time, the world has notched up some notable successes.

For example, nearly 2.6 billion people have gained access to clean water. But with so many people (663 million) still without access to clean water, there is no room for complacency.  National Geographic has produced a useful graphic showing who has access and where. 

In a thought provoking article, World Resources Institute gave reasons for alarm and hope about the global water future. Among the alarms were the food crises in Africa over the last year, where several counties suffered their worst drought-related food shortages in more than a decade. They have left one million children in southern and eastern Africa suffering from severe malnutrition, and 2.5 million people across southern Africa in crisis stages of food insecurity.

Among the reasons to be hopeful was the international adoption of two remarkable agreements: the new UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement, which offer opportunities for better water management that will benefit millions. Click here for the full article. 

The World Economic Forum, whose membership includes heads of state, CEOs, and civic leaders, has ranked water crises as the top global risk to industry and society over the next decade in its 11th edition of the Global Risks Report, published this week.

Last year, water crises earned the top spot as the most damaging short-term risk. Along with water’s rise in the Paris climate talks, the rankings indicate that water is now an urgent political matter, says the website Circle of Blue which focuses on water issues. It has published a thought-provoking article looking at how water has risen up the priority list, partly because environmental stress, worsened a by warming planet and a growing population, is leading to greater tension over scarce land, food and water. You can read it here.