WMG member Shaila Shahid, Senior Advisor of Climate Change, DRR, and Gender at the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), gave an intervention on most vulnerable groups living in informal settlements at the WSSCC/OHCHR/WaterAid roundtable on the 23rd of July, 2020.

“We urge governments, donors, and UN to ensure equitable access to WASH commodities and services must be protected and extended for all, without any form of discrimination by nationality, income or ethnicity. Governments need to ensure that gendered impacts of the measures implemented during the pandemic are taken into account and negative impacts are avoided; as well as use intersectionality analysis to map differentiated WASH impacts of vulnerable groups like women and adolescents girls, focus on menstrual hygiene and those are already affected by the intersecting power of globalisation, fundamentalism, militarism, and patriarchy. Any response to COVID-19 must be gender-responsive, and advance gender equality by ensuring the fulfillment of women’s human rights as recognized in CEDAW and other treaties and agreements.”

Please find her full intervention here. 

The video of the full roundtable discussion can be watched here.