Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) are often viewed primarily as matters of health and human rights. Yet they are a key economic issue – one that shapes women’s productivity, labor market participation, and lifetime earnings. Across the lifecycle, inadequate WASH services impose particularly high costs on girls and women. In contrast, gender-responsive WASH investments deliver high social and economic returns for individuals, households, and national economies through productivity gains, reduced health care costs, and time savings (Figure 1 and WaterAid, 2024).[i]  In Africa, pronounced gaps in WASH infrastructure combined with gender norms, constrain women’s economic agency from childhood through adulthood.Read More