Women and water supply development in Sierra Leone

Women in developing countries spend a great deal of time gathering water. The Integrated Agricultural Development Programme (IADP) in Sierra Leone has provided improved wells to several areas in an attempt to decrease the time that women spend gathering water. This study was conducted to determine if the improved wells served the purpose, or were condusive to greater time savings in other areas. Four target villages were chosen, in the worst of the dry season for this study; two with improved wells and two without. A time budget was prepared, charting time spent by village women on domestic tasks, such as child care, meal preparation, cleaning and water gathering. It was found that water gathering was the least time-consuming task, since it was also performed by young children of both sexes. There was no significant time savings between those villages of improved wells and those with traditional wells. The other domestic chores, usually performed only by women, were found to be much more time consuming than water gathering, and the study suggests that more emphasis should be placed on those.