23.03.23
UN New York - On the occasion of the World Water Day and the UN Water Conference, MMM highlights the impact of the lack of access to safe and clean water on women's unpaid care work. This is a key barrier to the realization of their rights, in particular the right to work and the right to participate in public life. We call for Gender disaggregated Time-Use data to be collected and used when planning and developing water infrastructure, so that it results in a reduction of the drudgery work of fetching water.
The following is the statement we delivered during the Stakeholder Consultation that was held in October 2022 as part of the preparatory process for the UN Water Conference taking place 22-24 March 2023.
According to UNICEF, women and girls collectively spend 200 million hours fetching water every single day – far more than men and boys.
Collecting water is tedious and it adds to the unpaid domestic and care work whose inequitable distribution is at the root of Gender inequalities. For women and girls, the opportunity costs of collecting water are high, with far reaching effects:
Gender disaggregated Time-Use data is critically important to develop public water infrastructure and services that will reduce the time and efforts that women and girls put into this strenuous and unpaid work.
Time-Use data already underlies target 5.4. of the UN 2030 development agenda, and Member States have committed to ‘Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services and infrastructure‘.
Unfortunately Time-Use Surveys are seen as complex and expensive, and according to the ILO, only 72 countries have conducted such surveys at least once, with only 27 of those having done so at least twice.
We therefore urge Member States to assess Gender disaggregated Time-Use when investing in water infrastructure and to explicitly aim efforts at reducing the time that women and girls spend in collecting water.
More generally, we are calling on Member States to prioritize target 5.4 and invest in Time-Use Surveys as these are very relevant to several SDGs: not only SDG 6 (water and sanitation) and SDG 5 (gender equality), but also SDG 1 (poverty), SDG 3 (health), SDG 4 (education), SDG 7 (energy), SDG 8 (decent work), SDG 9 (infrastructure), SDG 10 (inequality), and SDG 13 (Climate change).
04.03.25
The European Commission’s initiative on a new Gender Equality Roadmap post-2025, marks a significant step forward in addressing gender disparities across the European Union. Make Mothers Matter (MMM
27.01.25
UN New York, UN Commission on Social Development – Register now to our virtual side-event for a discussion on how a more equal sharing of unpaid care and domestic work
05.12.24
Make Mothers Matter co-presented the official launch of Be Family in Paris, a movement aimed at bridging the gap between personal and professional life for working parents. This first event,
23.10.25
Make Mothers Matter welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the European Commission’s first comprehensive Anti-Poverty Strategy and calls for bold, inclusive action to ensure it benefits those who need it m
17.10.25
Join us on Monday 3rd November for our online solution session to the Second World Summit for Social Development on Shifting the paradigm: centring care society and social protection for social development
15.10.25
UN Geneva, Human Rights Council – The MMM Geneva team seized opportunities to shed light on the multiple human rights violations mothers face, and to call for care-centred policies, and the recognition and em
15.10.25
UN Geneva – MMM's contribution to the initiative led by Olivier de Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Poverty, aimed at establishing a Roadmap for eradicating poverty beyond growth, calls for
29.09.25
A Look Back at Our State of Motherhood Survey Presentation at the EU Parliament
16.09.25
Make Mothers Matter was recently featured on Belgian public broadcaster RTBF’s Tendances Première radio show to present the findings from our latest report, The State of Motherhood in Europe 2024. The discus