In a critical and long-overdue move, the new Zimbabwe National Gender Policy 2025 has placed water access at the heart of gender-responsive climate action. Policy Pillar 3.8, which seeks to “strengthen gender-responsive climate action and resilience,” explicitly calls for upscaling funding toward the rehabilitation and expansion of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure particularly in areas marked by stark gender disparities. For the women and girls (especially in rural areas) who bear the burden of unpaid care work; navigate displacement without dignity; and make daily sacrifices to secure water – this recognition signals more than infrastructure as it gestures towards justice. The policy explicitly says:
Upscale funding towards rehabilitation and expansion of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure, prioritizing areas with high gender disparities in access to clean water and sanitation facilities.
For decades, the politics of water have unfolded quietly on women’s shoulders. In Zimbabwe, it is overwhelmingly women and girls who traverse long distances to fetch water, manage sanitation for households and schools, and absorb the health risks when systems fail. Yet policies have a too often framed water access as a logistical issue and not as a gendered, constitutional, systemic or human rights concern. The 2025 National Gender Policy therefore breaks that silence.
By foregrounding WASH infrastructure within its climate resilience agenda, the state begins to align with Section 77 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, which enshrines the right to safe and sufficient water as a legal entitlement, not a charitable provision. This alignment also echoes regional and global commitments, including Article 15 of the African Union’s Maputo Protocol on food security and water; and the United Nations Agenda 2030 SDG 6, which asserts that equitable water access is foundational to gender equality and sustainable development.
But recognition alone is not redress.
The Policy’s pledge to “prioritize areas with high gender disparities” opens a doorway for advocacy and empowerment but behind it must stand systems of accountability. Funding must be transparent, community-driven, and attentive to the lived realities of those most marginalized particularly rural women, women in displaced communities, informal settlements, and drought-prone districts. Moreover, the phrase “rehabilitation and expansion” must move beyond boreholes, dams and community piped water to include sustainable maintenance, menstrual hygiene facilities, gender-sensitive latrines, and safe zones for water access during climate-related emergencies.
Critically, indigenous and local knowledge systems must be elevated. Women are not only water users but they are custodians of ecological wisdom, ritual practices, and collective resilience. Integrating these knowledge systems into climate and water policy is not a token gesture but it is a strategic necessity.
The new Zimbabwe National Gender Policy 2025 therefore stands as a critical scaffolding for a more just water future. But its promises must be met with practice. Civil society, advocacy platforms, and frontline communities we must therefore mobilize and ensure that water access is no longer invisibilized, feminized, and politicized without voice. It is time for water to be governed not just as a resource, but as a human right embedded in lived gendered realities.