African States made a binding promise to women on water more than twenty years ago. Why has so little changed? RFLD’s policy brief, Women, Water and Article 15 of the Maputo Protocol, answers this question in a chapter on the implementation gap. It identifies five ways in which the promise of Article 15 gets lost between the treaty and the tap.
The promise
Article 15(a) of the Maputo Protocol, adopted in 2003, obliges States Parties to take appropriate measures to “provide women with access to clean drinking water”. The brief’s verdict is direct: the obligation is binding, and what is missing is implementation. The five gaps below explain where it breaks down.
Five gaps between law and practice
- No water reporting. State periodic reports to the African Commission rarely address water under Article 15.
- No gender in water laws. National water legislation lacks provisions on women.
- Hidden burdens. Household-level statistics conceal what each individual carries.
- Few women deciding. Women remain a minority in water decision-making bodies.
- Untracked money. Gender-targeted spending is not tracked in water sectors that are already underfunded.
1. Reporting
Article 26(1) of the Protocol requires States to report on the measures they have taken. When periodic reports say nothing about water, the African Commission has little to examine. The gap is compounded by the absence of a General Comment on Article 15. The Commission’s General Comment No. 2, adopted in 2014 on parts of Article 14, does not mention water or sanitation.
2. Law
The brief reviewed national water laws and policies in its case-study countries. Benin’s Law No. 2010-44 recognises a citizen’s right to water but contains no provision on women or gender. Cameroon’s Law No. 98/005 of 1998 has no gender provision either. Senegal’s Water Code dates from 1981. Ghana’s 2007 National Water Policy recognises women as decision-makers but sets no numerical quota. Revisions are under way in Senegal and Cameroon, which is why the brief names them as the place to start.
3. Data
Most water statistics are collected per household. They show whether a home has access, and they hide who walks to fetch the water. UN Women’s Gender Snapshot 2025 notes that SDG 6 has “no gender-specific indicators” in the official framework. No nationally representative survey in West Africa measures violence experienced during water collection.
4. Decision-making
In Burkina Faso, women hold 14.86% of seats in water management bodies, against a 30% national target. In Nigeria, they hold about 5% of state Commissioner of Water Resources posts. Where quotas exist on paper, as for some community water committees in Nigeria, women’s roles remain “peripheral or unpaid”. The UN World Water Development Report 2026 found that fewer than one in five water workers worldwide were women.
5. Money
The water sector is short of funds. The African Union cites an annual investment gap of US$30 billion, and the UN-Water GLAAS 2025 report found that fewer than 13% of countries have enough financial and human resources. Within that shortage, almost no one tracks what reaches women. The brief found no water-specific gender budget tracker covering West African countries. In Nigeria, the one federal gender budget line identified by UNICEF “lacked evidence that this budget line was funded”.
Being honest about limits
The brief is a desk study, based on treaties, official statistics, UN documents, research and national laws reviewed up to 4 October 2026. It names its own limitations. Some JMP country files were unavailable. Data on violence at water points is lacking. Several laws are under revision. Sex-disaggregated budget information does not exist. These limits are themselves evidence of the implementation gap.
Closing the gap
Each gap has a matching recommendation. States should report on Article 15 in every periodic report, using the checklist in the brief’s annex. They should add a gender chapter to water laws and set binding quotas of at least 40% women in water bodies. They should add a module on safety at water points to national household surveys, and introduce a WASH gender budget marker reported under Article 26(2).
Civil society can push on every one of these fronts, starting with shadow reports to the African Commission. RFLD’s manual on shadow reports explains how.
About the report
This article draws on RFLD’s report Women, Water and Article 15 of the Maputo Protocol, published on 4 October 2026. Read the summary, download the English edition or the French edition.
