Without all of these essential services, families are likely to struggle to produce enough food to meet their daily needs for a healthy life. Water, energy and sanitation are all needed for growing food, cooking and storing it, and keeping it free from contamination.

We are research specialists in food systems and public policy. Using statistics from the 2022 South African General Household Survey, we looked at how water and sanitation influence food security in 2 369 female-headed households in South Africa’s poorest provinces, the Eastern Cape and Limpopo.

We also looked into how energy acts as a link or pathway through which water and sanitation affect food security.

We chose to research the plight of rural, women-led families because even though these women have some access to land and grow crops, they face many problems in growing enough food for their families to survive. These problems include inadequate government support, adverse climate conditions, unreliable water supply, and limited energy access.

Our research used a statistical approach that helped us see how the different factors are linked. It showed that when women lacked access to water, it strongly influenced their ability to grow, cook, or store food, which in turn increased their risk of being food insecure.

Our modelling showed that improved water, sanitation and reliable energy influence different aspects of household food security in varying ways. For instance, improved water access has a stronger effect on food production, whereas reliable energy more directly supports food preparation and safe storage.

Our research found that women-headed rural homes urgently need stable water supplies for home and farming, proper toilets, clean and reliable household energy, and skills training. They also need to be drawn into partnerships with different groups working on improving life and small-scale farming in rural areas.

South Africa is currently president of the Group of 20 (G20) most powerful nations in the world, which also has the African and European Unions as members. We argue that the G20 can play a leading role in supporting the setting up of rural water infrastructure and sanitation. It could lobby for better financing for clean energy in rural areas.

Technologies like low-cost purification systems and solar-hybrid energy packages would work well in rural areas. The G20 could also push for development programmes that link water, sanitation and energy interventions with agricultural productivity.

Water, energy, sanitation and food

Women are primarily responsible for water collection, food preparation and hygiene. This means they’re the most affected by water cut-offs, and having to walk long distances to collect unclean water from rivers, ponds, or unprotected wells. Unclean water causes illness and contaminate their food.

Using communal toilets or not having properly ventilated toilets at home affects women most too – they take care of family members who fall ill with waterborne sicknesses. It leaves them less time to grow or harvest food.

Poorly located sanitation facilities also pollute irrigation water, affecting women’s small-scale farming.

Energy is very important in food security. Not having clean energy to cook on or power fridges limits women from cooking, storing food and running food-related enterprises. High energy costs and competing land use for energy projects reduce agricultural productivity, further undermining women’s food security.

Our research found that households with improved water sources experienced better food security outcomes. But frequent water interruptions left women struggling. They often had just enough water to wash themselves, but not enough to cook meals or water their crops. This forced women to walk to distant taps to fetch water.

Our research also found that households with flush toilets or ventilated improved pit latrines had better food security outcomes than those without. When families share communal or poorly maintained toilets, it increases the risk of waterborne diseases. These reduce household members’ ability to work, grow, and prepare food safely.

Energy access also helped improve food security. Households with access to electricity were more likely to be food secure. Electricity enables safe food storage, cooking, and preservation, reducing spoilage and supporting consistent meal preparation.

How to fix these problems

Drawing on the evidence, our study proposes these interventions:

First, women-headed rural households must have a stable supply of water. This can happen by drilling and maintaining boreholes and expanding communal taps. In each home, there should be a purification system to make water safe.

Second, rural hygiene can be improved. Toilets close to homes, improved toilets in schools and clinics, and ending open defecation are the solutions.

Third, water and sanitation upgrades must be part of water management on farms or communal croplands, soil conservation, and crop diversification. This will make families more resilient by improving health, reducing waterborne diseases, supporting crops, and sustaining livelihoods.

Fourth, clean and reliable household energy must be expanded to rural areas. Homes headed by women need finance to have liquefied petroleum gas, biogas or solar-hybrid packages.

Fifth, women need training in safe water handling, hygienic food processing and storage, and climate-smart agricultural practices. They must also have a formal role in governing local water, sanitation and energy projects.

Finally, local government, utilities, non-governmental organisations and private providers must partner to deliver and maintain services.

How South Africa’s G20 presidency can help

The G20 has an Agriculture Working Group and Food Security Task Force. This is supposed to promote global cooperation on sustainable agriculture and food security. It emphasises women’s participation, innovation, climate resilience, and Africa-focused water, sanitation and energy solutions.

For this to happen, our research suggests these steps:

• Create a dedicated fund to support women-headed households with rural water, sanitation, and clean cooking or food storage solutions.

• Track progress using simple measures that show how reliable and accessible water, sanitation, energy and food are for households, including distance to facilities and quality of diets.

• Help utilities and small businesses to invest to improve water, energy and maintenance services.

• The G20 can insist that gender-sensitive capacity-building programmes must be funded. These should support women’s leadership in rural governance and knowledge exchange networks.

• Finally, protect food supplies from outages by using backup energy systems and sharing lessons from South Africa’s power interruptions.

Written by Adrino Mazenda, Senior Researcher, Associate Professor: Economic Management Sciences, University of Pretoria and Hunadi Mapula Nkwana, Associate Professor: Public Administration and Management, University of South Africa

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.