Valuing Women's Work in Africa
Highlighting the Issue: Water Collection Figure 1: A woman from carrying water from a well in Northern Kenya, Furlong (2016). Women in Africa are critical figures in the collection of water, but their work is still heavily undervalued. We tend to see images and videos of women collecting water and travelling long distances with a baby attached to their back on TV and on social media, but do we actually think about the implications for women's development? Do we understand the problems that women experience on a daily basis? We often take water for granted, as most of us can just get water from a working tap or buy a bottle of water at our local convenience store, but I want us to understand the struggles that women in Africa have to battle in their everyday lives. Some Stats for You: Did you know that women and girls spend over 200 million hours collecting water? (UNICEF, 2016). 200 million hours amounts to 22,800 years (UNICEF, 2016) , and so imagine how much women could have ac