Sanitation-specific definitions for sub-domains of empowerment, by domain
| Sub-domain | Sanitation-specific definition |
| Agency | |
| Decision-making | Women influence and make decisions about sanitation inside and outside the home. |
| Leadership | Women assume leadership positions, effectively participate and support women’s leadership in informal and formal sanitation initiatives and organisations. |
| Collective action | Women gain solidarity and take action collectively on sanitation-related issues. |
| Freedom of movement | Women have the autonomy to move freely to access sanitation facilities, collect water for sanitation-related needs and/or attend forums on sanitation issues, and women have freedom of movement despite sanitation circumstances. |
| Resources | |
| Bodily integrity | Women’s control over their bodies and ability to access and use their preferred sanitation location. |
| Health | Women’s complete physical, mental and social well-being as affected by sanitation options and conditions; not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.35 |
| Safety and security | Women’s freedom from acts or threats of violence (physical or sexual), coercion, harassment, or force when accessing and using sanitation locations or engaging in sanitation-related decision-making processes in the public sphere. |
| Privacy | Women’s ability to maintain desired levels of privacy when accessing and using sanitation locations. |
| Critical consciousness | Women’s ability to identify and question how inequalities in power operate in their lives in relation to sanitation access and decision-making processes, and to assert and affirm their self-efficacy inside and outside of the household as it relates to sanitation. |
| Financial and productive assets | Women’s control over economic resources and long-term stocks of value such as land, for the purposes of meeting individual and household sanitation needs. |
| Time | Women’s control over their time and labour spent on sanitation-related tasks and activities. |
| Social capital | Women’s relations and social networks that provide tangible and intangible value and support, including those that enable them to complete sanitation-related tasks and activities. |
| Knowledge and skills | Women’s knowledge and skills related to sanitation (eg, operation and maintenance of sanitation facilities) and their abilities to apply those knowledge and skills. |
| Institutional structures | |
| Norms | Collectively held expectations and beliefs of how women and men should behave and interact inside and outside the household, specifically with regard to sanitation-related (a) division of labour; (b) decision-making; (c) leadership; (d) collective action and (e) freedom of movement. |
| Relations | The interactions and relations—including conflicts, support, hostility and communication—with key actors that shape women’s sanitation-related experiences. |