Opinion: Grounding positive norms for clean water

We know that clean water and climate-resilient water, sanitation, and hygiene systems are critical to health and well-being. There is now also increasing awareness in the WASH sector about how social norms shape the behaviors that enable this.

A social norm is what people believe to be “normal” in their community. Like groundwater, these norms are invisible, but their impact is visible everywhere. People think they must conform to norms, since they believe other people are doing so or they will be judged if they don’t. Social norms can be positive, but some are negative, perpetuating a range of harmful practices — especially those affecting women, girls, and marginalized groups.

WASH programs can — sometimes unintentionally — reinforce those negative social and gender norms by focusing on behaviors and roles that support the status quo to achieve WASH outcomes. The benefits are more likely to be short-lived if the underlying norms that perpetuate inequalities and stigma are not systematically addressed.

And in terms of climate change, while everyone will experience impacts on their WASH services, it is those most vulnerable, those left behind, who will experience the harshest consequences and have the least ability to respond.

As a sector, we are learning that to ensure positive and sustainable behavior change in water management and WASH practices, we need to focus on the underlying social norms that drive people’s behaviors. Without this, WASH services are less effective, less resilient, and less sustainable.

Here are five ways that practitioners can ground positive norms for clean water and resilient WASH systems:

1. Make the invisible visible by addressing the norm behind the behavior. We need to be intentional about what we seek to understand and identify the norm driving the behaviors. One example of perpetuating harmful norms is appealing to men as protectors of women’s privacy and dignity to persuade them to improve household WASH facilities, thus reinforcing their role in the family as primary decision-maker.

Within Australia’s Water for Women, there are useful examples of engaging men and boys in more meaningful ways to destigmatize and defeminize WASH behaviors, such as International WaterCentre promoting men’s involvement in safe child feces management practices in rural Solomon Islands communities.

2. Strengthen WASH systems by making diverse voices — not biases — systemic. Solutions for sustainable and climate-resilient WASH depend on diversity and equality in decision-making. Restrictive gender and social norms can reinforce institutions, policies, and processes that systematically discriminate against women and marginalized groups, limiting their opportunities for equitable decision-making, leadership, and voice.

In Bhutan, SNV Netherlands Development Organisation’s Leadership for Change initiative has engaged with women leaders in organizations of people with disabilities to develop their leadership skills, networks, and collective action for influence on WASH decision-making. In Odisha, India, transgender people have been made Jaga fellows — for the Odisha Liveable Habitat Mission, or Jaga Mission — to lead the planning and implementation of WASH improvements in slums.

3. Change attitudes by sharing the care and household labor load. Shifting attitudes around traditional gender roles in the household is central to improving gender equality and creating more resilient communities that are committed to more inclusive decision-making. The gender division in WASH-related and care work at home remains a norm that has been difficult to change around the world.

Yayasan Plan International Indonesia has engaged with fathers and boys to be positive WASH role models in sharing domestic work. In Papua New Guinea, World Vision has helped facilitate the increased engagement of men — whose wives take on leadership roles in WASH committees — in domestic and caring roles.

4. Address violence and stigma to ensure equitable and safe participation. Taking steps to address violence through “do no harm” principles is critical to strengthening the participation of women and marginalized people.

Many countries have a high prevalence of violence, including violence against women by men. Moreover, efforts to transform harmful norms can result in additional unintended consequences. Gender-based violence is being tackled through increasing community awareness, as is passive resistance to gender equality by men and those in power. WaterAid in East Timor and PNG have built GBV referral pathways and staff training into their projects.

5. Invest in reflective learning. WASH, as a sector, can itself be gendered, racially biased, or ableist. Tackling the beliefs or practices that can lead professionals to devalue, exclude, or discriminate against people is key to personal, professional, and organizational commitment to changing gender and social norms. Transformative professionals and organizations are central to transformative programming.

The work of the International Rescue Committee in Pakistan and SNV in Laos shows that groups involved in WASH are increasingly reflecting on their own values, attitudes, beliefs, and experiences — particularly in relation to sexual and gender minority issues in WASH — and considering what this means for WASH sector culture, operations, and programs, as well as the communities in which they work.

Grounding norms in the positive

Grounding the positive rather than reinforcing the negative social norms — recognizing that positive for some may be negative for others — in WASH systems is central to achieving more transformative and long-term outcomes.

Strong leadership — from women, people with disabilities, and members of marginalized groups, with support from men and those in power — can ensure that sustainable services are prioritized for investment and WASH interventions reach the most marginalized. The detrimental impacts of climate change on communities and WASH systems make addressing underlying norms an urgent priority and the surest way to improve behaviors that support equity and inclusion for all.

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