Time is the hidden cost of unsafe water. Every hour spent walking to a water point is an hour lost for school, paid work, farming or rest. RFLD’s policy brief, Women, Water and Article 15 of the Maputo Protocol, puts this time burden at the centre of its analysis, because it falls almost entirely on women and girls.
250 million hours a day
The UN World Water Development Report 2026 estimates that women and girls spend 250 million hours every day collecting water. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights used the same figure in its input to the 2026 UN Water Conference process. It noted that in 70% of households without water on the premises, women and girls are primarily responsible for collection, “spending 250 million hours per day on that task”.
An earlier UNICEF estimate, released in August 2016, put the figure at 200 million hours a day. The two estimates come from different sources, but both point to a very large burden, concentrated in the poorest communities.
What one trip costs
Global totals can feel abstract. The figures for single journeys are easier to picture. UNICEF found that in sub-Saharan Africa, one round trip to collect water takes 33 minutes on average in rural areas. In urban areas it takes 25 minutes. Many households make several trips a day.
The WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) reported in 2025 that many people in sub-Saharan Africa spend more than 30 minutes a day collecting water. A 2016 study of 24 sub-Saharan African countries found that about 17 million women and children spend more than 30 minutes a day on this task.
The JMP’s 2023 gender report looked at countries where household members spent at least 10 minutes a day collecting water. There were 12 such countries. In all of them, women and girls carried the larger share. Malawi had the highest average, at 55 minutes per household per day.
Time taken from school
Girls pay a particular price. The African Union Commission Chairperson wrote in March 2026 that “millions of Africans, disproportionately women and girls in rural communities, still walk long distances each day to collect water instead of attending school”.
This is a direct link between water and the right to education. A girl who spends her morning at the water point arrives late for class, or does not arrive at all. Over the years, the lost hours add up to lost learning, and lost learning narrows the choices she will have as an adult.
Time taken from income
Adult women lose time for farming and trading. The UN World Water Development Report 2026 also notes that a 1°C rise in temperature cuts the incomes of female-headed households by 34% more than those of male-headed households. Water and climate shocks hit women’s earnings first.
This unpaid work does not appear in national accounts. It is invisible in most water statistics too, which record whether a household has access and rarely how long each person spends fetching water.
The legal duty to reduce the burden
African human rights law already speaks to this problem. Article 15(a) of the Maputo Protocol obliges States Parties to “provide women with access to clean drinking water”. The African Commission’s Guidelines on the Right to Water in Africa, adopted in 2019, are more specific. Guideline 22.1 states: “States shall take action to reduce the disproportionate burden and amount of time women bear in water collection.”
The duty is clear. Yet the national water laws of Benin and Cameroon reviewed in the brief contain no provision on women or gender. You can explore how each country’s legal framework treats women’s rights in RFLD’s country law profiles.
What RFLD recommends
The brief asks States to include a gender chapter in national water laws and codes, starting with the revisions under way in Senegal and Cameroon. That chapter should include a duty to reduce women’s time burden and to guarantee safe access at any time of day.
States should also report on time spent collecting water in every periodic report to the African Commission. The African Union and the African Ministers’ Council on Water are asked to add this indicator to the monitoring framework of the Africa Water Vision 2063.
If governments counted the hours women spend fetching water, they would see one of the largest returns available from water investment. Every water point brought closer to home gives time back to women and girls for learning and for earning.
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.
