How SHF Puts Gender Equality and Social Inclusion into Practice

The Sanitation and Hygiene Fund (SHF) is transforming gender equality from a policy objective into systemic action by placing women at the center of decision-making, market development, and governance.

Nansubuga Justine Nambi is working to grow Cama Women Plumbers Network in Uganda and create more opportunities for women in the sanitation sector. Through SanUp, SHF’s sanitation enterprise accelerator, her organisation is strengthening its business systems, refining its services and improving how it delivers water and sanitation solutions.

“The technical assistance we received on financial planning, business structuring and investment readiness is helping us grow sustainably, scale our impact and create more meaningful opportunities for women plumbers in Uganda,” says Nambi, the organisation’s Founder and Team Leader.

Her experience illustrates the connection between enterprise development and women’s economic participation. Implemented in Kenya and Uganda, SanUp combines tailored technical assistance, catalytic funding and investment readiness support to help sanitation businesses develop. Across its first cohort of 15 enterprises, women held 322 of 698 existing jobs. Six enterprises were women-led, and 54 women held senior management positions.

These businesses show the roles women already play in sanitation markets and the opportunities that support for their growth can open. They also bring SHF’s approach to gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) into practical focus: improving access to essential services while strengthening the influence of women and marginalised groups over how those services are designed, financed and delivered.

Women are often central to household sanitation decisions, yet face barriers to enterprise leadership, technical roles and investment. Inadequate sanitation and menstrual health also carry unequal consequences for women and girls, affecting safety, dignity and economic participation. Poverty, disability and social exclusion can make those barriers harder to overcome.

Addressing these challenges requires attention to how markets work and who has the opportunity to participate in them. SHF’s GESI framework connects that ambition to its everyday operations, from the expertise it brings into projects to the objectives agreed with partners and the results it measures.

Within its teams and partnerships, SHF is strengthening GESI expertise through technical assistance and a growing roster of specialists. It promotes leadership by women and professionals from low- and middle-income countries, bringing their knowledge into programme design and delivery. Its market assessment tools incorporate GESI dimensions to help identify where policy, business conditions or access to finance constrain participation.

This understanding informs SHF’s work with governments and implementing partners. GESI objectives are integrated into grant agreements, while support for policy reform helps establish conditions for more inclusive services and enterprise growth. In Uganda, for example, menstrual health was integrated into the National Sanitation and Hygiene Policy in 2025.

Through the Capital M initiative, SHF applies the same focus to menstrual health enterprises. Its M Ventures programme helps businesses strengthen their business models and expand access to quality, affordable menstrual products. At baseline, 10 of the 14 enterprises in its East Africa cohort were majority women-owned. Tracking their progress will help SHF understand how enterprise support contributes to women’s economic participation.

Financing is another part of the approach. SHF encourages partners to apply the 2X Challenge criteria across blended finance facilities and partner-managed instruments, helping direct capital towards women-led and inclusive businesses. Technical assistance and catalytic support help enterprises prepare for investment and pursue opportunities to grow.

Making women’s experience and expertise more visible matters too. Through its communications and advocacy, SHF brings forward the perspectives of entrepreneurs such as Nambi, alongside those of technical experts and leaders from underrepresented groups. Their experience helps inform discussions about what businesses and communities need from sanitation and menstrual health markets.

Accountability connects these efforts. SHF’s GESI framework also calls for inclusion to be reflected in monitoring, evaluation and research. Tracking access, employment and leadership helps partners understand who is benefiting and where further attention is needed.

For SHF, the ambition is to make opportunities such as those described by Nambi more widely available. Connecting enterprise support with policy reform, finance and accountability can help women and marginalised groups gain a stronger role in the markets that serve their communities.

As SHF prepares for its next strategic phase, this approach will continue to guide its work. The ambition is for women and marginalised groups to have better access to essential technologies, services, and products and a stronger voice in the businesses, institutions and investment decisions that shape them.