ABSTRACT
As the MDGs acknowledge, improved services are vital components to achieving holistic development. Women are deeply involved in provision and use of services relating to health, water, and cleanliness. Their crucial roles, concerns, and needs are often distinct from those of men, yet men tend to dominate decision-making in both the traditional and modern sectors. Women have particular health needs related to their reproductive role and specific requirements for personal hygiene (see chapters by Parfitt and Greed). They are traditionally responsible, not only for the day to day health and care of the young and the elderly, but for providing their households with water for a range of domestic purposes (see chapter by Sultana). From a development perspective this means accessing safe and sufficient water to maintain health and a suitable standard of living. Worldwide, women are normally responsible for the cleanliness of the home and often for that of the community, including communal washing and sanitation facilities (chapters by Greed and Thomas-Hope). While medical services have a specific curative function, women’s hygiene-related, routine tasks are vital in protecting people against disease. Looking beyond health benefits, Joshi (2013) illuminates the contribution cleanliness makes to welfare. For the poor to “feel clean” is to achieve self-respect (for dirtiness is associated with poverty). Realistically accessible services that provide privacy and security enable poor women to have dignity. For women, a clean home and clean neighborhood environment are particularly important, since it is here is that they may spend most of their time (Joshi 2013; chapter by Greed in this volume).
