Water scarcity, exacerbated by accelerating climate change, disproportionately affects women and girls across the Global South and other vulnerable regions. This paper examines the intersecting crises of water insecurity and gender inequality, analysing how patriarchal social structures, limited land and resource rights, and inadequate climate governance compound women's vulnerabilities. Drawing upon feminist political ecology, the capability approach, and intersectionality theory, the study investigates how women's daily water-collection burdens translate into lost educational, economic, and civic opportunities, entrenching cycles of poverty and disempowerment. The paper presents empirical evidence from sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, demonstrating that climate-induced water shocks — including erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts, and shrinking aquifers — fall most heavily on women who lack formal safety nets or decision-making power over water resources. The analysis further explores promising interventions: community-based water governance with mandatory female participation, gender-responsive national adaptation plans, and targeted cash-transfer programmes. The paper concludes that achieving water security and meaningful gender equality are inseparable goals; policies that ignore gender dynamics risk perpetuating — or deepening — the very inequities they aim to address. A rights-based, intersectional approach to water governance is therefore both an ethical imperative and a practical pathway toward climate resilience.
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