Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to tackle disparities of access to water, sanitation and hygiene facilities in developing countries among (a) women and girls and (b) marginalised people and groups.

Women and girls are particularly disadvantaged when adequate water, sanitation and hygiene facilities are not available, as women bear the primary burden for collecting water. The DFID approval process screens all programmes for compliance with the International Development (Gender Equality) Act at the point of approval to assess whether a programme is likely to reduce gender inequalities. DFID water and sanitation programmes are targeted to people without access to water and sanitation, which includes marginalised people and groups. Of the water and sanitation results that have been disaggregated by gender from 2015 to 2019, DFID programmes have reached 18.6 million women.