A/HRC/RES/24/18
Recalling also General Assembly resolution 65/154 of 20 December 2010,
establishing 2013 as the International Year of Water Cooperation and that strengthening
international cooperation is crucially important in order to achieve the progressive
realization of the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation for all,
Welcoming the proclamation of 19 November as World Toilet Day in the context of
Sanitation for All, pursuant to General Assembly resolution 67/291 of 24 July 2013,
Recalling General Assembly resolution 65/1 of 22 September 2010, on the followup to the outcome of the Millennium Summit, in which Heads of State and Government
committed to, inter alia, accelerate progress in order to achieve Millennium Development
Goal 7, including by redoubling efforts to close the sanitation gap through scaled-up
ground-level action, and Assembly resolution 65/153 of 20 December 2010, on follow-up
to the International Year of Sanitation,
Bearing in mind the commitments made by the international community to achieve
fully the Millennium Development Goals, and stressing in that context the resolve of Heads
of State and Government, as expressed in the United Nations Millennium Declaration, to
halve, by 2015, the proportion of people unable to reach or afford safe drinking water, and
to halve the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation, as agreed in the Plan of
Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (“Johannesburg Plan of
Implementation”) and the outcome document of the high-level plenary meeting of the
General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals entitled “Keeping the promise:
united to achieve the Millennium Development Goals”,
Taking note of relevant commitments and initiatives promoting the human right to
safe drinking water and sanitation, including the Abuja Declaration, adopted at the first
Africa-South America Summit, in 2006; the Sharm el-Sheikh Final Document, adopted at
the Fifteenth Summit Conference of Heads of State and Government of the Movement of
Non-Aligned Countries, in 2009; the Colombo Declaration, adopted at the fourth South
Asian Conference on Sanitation, in 2011; the Chiang Mai Declaration, adopted at the
second Asia-Pacific Water Summit, in 2013; and the Panama Declaration, adopted at the
third Latin American and Caribbean Conference on Sanitation, in 2013,
Recalling in particular paragraph 14 of Human Rights Council resolution 21/2, in
which the Council encouraged the Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking
water and sanitation to continue to make contributions to the discussions on the United
Nations development agenda beyond 2015,
Deeply concerned that approximately 768 million people still lack access to
improved water sources and that more than 2.5 billion people do not have access to
improved sanitation as defined by the World Health Organization and the United Nations
Children’s Fund in their 2013 Joint Monitoring Programme update, and concerned that
these figures do not fully capture the dimensions of water safety, the affordability of
services, and the safe management of excreta and wastewater, as well as of equality and
non-discrimination, and therefore underestimate the numbers of those without access to
safe drinking water and sanitation, and alarmed that, every year, approximately 1.5 million
children under five years of age die and 443 million school days are lost as a result of
water- and sanitation-related diseases,
Reaffirming the importance of national programmes and policies in ensuring the
progressive realization of the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation,
Affirming the importance of regional and international technical cooperation, where
appropriate, as means to promote the progressive realization of the human right to safe
drinking water and sanitation, without any prejudice to questions of international water law,
including international watercourse law,
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