Building a business case for workplace menstrual hygiene management programs: a social cost-benefit analysis

Inadequate menstrual health and hygiene (MHH) pose a great challenge for working women, affecting their productivity, job satisfaction, attendance, and advancement, and also have implications for their employers. Yet there has been little research to quantify the impacts of poor MHH conditions or to consider the value add of workplace MHH programs. As part of USAID's Water Sanitation and Hygiene Partnerships for Learning and Sustainability project, we conducted a social cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of the Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) in the Workplace Action Research, a 10-month intervention in private sector enterprises in Nepal and Kenya. The intervention aimed to determine if providing adequate MHM in the workplace contributes to women's economic empowerment, including improved business and social outcomes. This CBA of a workplace MHM intervention - the first of its kind - found a positive return for investing in workplace MHM programs. The average benefit-cost ratio in the base-case across factories in a 10-month intervention was 1.4, which increased to 2.3 when projected over 24 months. These early results of a pilot CBA on MHM in the workplace should serve as a call for greater attention by governments and businesses to the needs of menstruating women.