The UK is shirking its responsibility to ensure one of the most basic rights

TIt is right and appropriate that Keir Starmer’s government has promised to put women and girls “at the heart of everything we do” in our international work; recognizes the increasing threats of violence and fundamental rights being undermined everywhere.

However, with the dramatic cuts already underway in our international development budget, competition will emerge for the limited remaining resources. We need to ensure that one of the cornerstones of achieving the goal of empowering women and girls is not negatively impacted: access to clean water and sanitation.

WASH services – Water, Sanitation and Hygiene – are incredibly important if we are to reduce them almost completely. 400,000 young child deaths every year from diseases such as cholera and diarrhea. One in four people worldwide still lack safe drinking water.

But that’s only part of the story. United Nations I drew a direct line Among the much broader issues that can lead to conflict are lack of safe water and sanitation and food and supply chain shortages.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on the WASH I chair, supported by the wisdom of the charity Water Aid, previously highlighted in a landmark report We have seen how previous cuts to the UK’s aid spending on WASH “put our national health security at risk” as they increased the risk of infectious diseases and antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” spreading around the world.

This is something that the great British public also “gets”. Significantly, 54 percent A majority of the British public put clean water and toilets among their top priorities for development aid spending. MPs and the government should take this into consideration.

Failure to provide clean water and sanitation makes it impossible to achieve the goal of giving women and girls more control over their lives; because they disproportionately bear the burden of collecting water. This means removing them from school and work and putting them at greater risk of gender-based violence.

And as Evelyn Mere, country manager of WaterAid in Nigeria, put it so powerfully: Explaining the impact of WASH cuts “Firstly, girls cannot stay in school because they do not have proper toilets and do not have a place where they can manage their menstruation with dignity and privacy. Once their period begins, they stay away from school. This negatively affects their educational performance in school and begins the journey of putting them at a disadvantage in life,” she told MPs recently.

For all these reasons, it is worrying that WASH services are being targeted in aid cuts that will miss £6.5 billion from our aid budget by 2028 (about 40 per cent of available money).

Ministers admitted The UK will “move away from the direct provision of WASH services”, arguing that developing countries can step in with our help to “strengthen” their capabilities. Closer partnerships are of course welcome, but only if they are not to cover up disruptions. Alarm bells are ringing.

This government must not repeat the mistakes of the previous Conservative administration, which reduced WASH spending by: 78 percent At the beginning of this decade, we are making a mockery of our commitment to the UN goal of universal WASH access for all by 2030.

Also consider how just 15 months ago the UK and Nigeria signed a pioneering strategic partnership. naming economic growth, employment and reducing aid dependency among its aims. All of this is undermined by the lack of funding for WASH services because people are forced to take sick days and spend money to treat illnesses caused by unsafe water and lack of sanitation. This is an anchor for the Nigerian economy.

WaterAid stands out There is evidence that Nigeria could benefit from a $26bn (£19bn) “cleaning economy” by 2030 if the UK invests in WASH services; In this economy small businesses sell toilets, people build toilets and young women are trained as plumbers – just as India provided 100 million toilets in less than a decade – if the UK invested in WASH services. This will help provide the economic support the partnership is seeking.

I was proud that Labour’s former interim leader, Harriet Harman, was appointed as the UK’s special representative for women and girls, to, in her words, “play a key role in defending the rights of all women and girls at a critical time”.

But this noble promise cannot be fulfilled if the UK fails to play its part in ensuring the most fundamental rights to water, sanitation and hygiene.

Rupa Huq is chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene and a Labor MP for Ealing Central and Acton.

This article was produced as part of The Independent. Rethinking Global Aid project