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Development cooperation in the water and sanitation sector 2016, para. 57
- Paragraph text
- In order to effectively incorporate the human rights to water and sanitation in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, particularly with respect to development cooperation, an adequate architecture must be established to assist in the formulation, guidance, management and support of the development agenda. That architecture should ideally place the normative content of the human rights to water and sanitation at the centre of the specific processes related to Goal 6 overall and targets 6.1 and 6.2 specifically. The Panel should be acutely aware of the need to base its recommendations in human rights principles and the normative content of the human rights to water and sanitation, as outlined in the present report. In so doing, the Panel should be able to duly address concerns raised by civil society organizations regarding the possible propensity to predominantly favour a business-oriented approach to the sector. The establishment of an entity with greater openness and a wider plurality of stakeholders and viewpoints is essential to successfully introducing the human rights to water and sanitation into development cooperation and to achieving the water and sanitation-related goals of the 2030 Agenda.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Sustainability and non-retrogression in the realisation of the rights to water and sanitation 2013, para. 42
- Paragraph text
- While support and participation of donors and NGOs in water and sanitation service delivery is welcome, there are challenges to sustainability when they become service providers and questions of accountability and transparency arise. A key risk to sustainability is the fact that few NGOs provide services on a permanent or long-term basis. Most usually disengage from projects after a certain period, which may have negative impacts on the long-term viability of services if no proper sustainability strategy is put in place. Even with the best of intentions, these systems may be responding to immediate and concrete needs to the detriment of building a system that can remain functional over time. While providing immediate access is important, it is equally central to guarantee long-term operation and maintenance, and to plan with government and communities for phased exits and local ownership. The lack of long-term focus has been linked to a lack of political incentives, particularly for donors, to put resources towards maintaining existing infrastructure, over building new ones that give better visibility for their investment and support.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Integrating non-discrimination and equality into the post-2015 development agenda for water, sanitation and hygiene 2012, para. 39
- Paragraph text
- The Special Rapporteur is of the view that a forward-looking post-2015 development agenda must be ambitious. It must tackle disparities and emphasize non-discrimination and equality as core principles. This view is shared increasingly by States, United Nations entities, development actors and civil society organizations. This comes from practical evidence found on the ground. Appallingly, much of the progress made since 2000 has left the most marginalized in a similar situation. Indeed, many agree that the current set of Millennium Development Goals, which focus on average progress, has masked the inequalities that lie behind these averages, thus requiring a new method of measuring progress. According to the United Nations Development Group, inequalities have been identified as one of only nine major areas for consultation at the global level. This sentiment is widely shared by those working in the water and sanitation sectors, agreeing that "concerns of non-discrimination and equity related to fulfilling the right to access water and sanitation should be reflected in future indicators".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Human Rights Obligations Related to Non-State Service Provision in Water and Sanitation 2010, para. 63a
- Paragraph text
- [The human rights framework does not call for any particular form of service provision. It is well established that, from a human rights perspective, States can opt to involve non-State actors in sanitation and water services provision. But the State cannot exempt itself from its human rights obligations and hence remains the primary duty-bearer. Therefore, also when involving other actors in services provision, the role of the State is crucial. The obligations of States and the responsibilities of non-State actors are complementary. The latter can and should support the State in the realization of human rights. In line with these conclusions, the independent expert offers the following recommendations:] States must develop a national plan, including legislation and other appropriate measures, to progressively achieve the full realization of the rights to water and sanitation, including in currently unserved and underserved areas, independent of the modalities of the service provision chosen. These measures should be based on the explicit recognition of the rights to water and sanitation;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Development cooperation and the human rights to water and sanitation 2017, para. 93b
- Paragraph text
- [Finally, the Special Rapporteur recommends:] That the Human Rights Council consider in the universal periodic review the issue of development cooperation in the context of water and sanitation services.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Development cooperation and the human rights to water and sanitation 2017, para. 62
- Paragraph text
- Achieving behavioural change in beneficiaries and institutions and creating awareness on safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene services are fundamental to ensuring transformative development and sustainable water and sanitation projects. Yet efforts to achieve those objectives are seriously limited by time-based constraints that are common in development cooperation projects. The usual time frame for the full cycle of project implementation is from three to five years at most. A combination of several factors make such time frames too short to guarantee effective capacity-strengthening and lasting behavioural change. Ensuring the continuity of measures initially funded through development cooperation, especially those related to project management, may be a determinant in guaranteeing projects’ medium- to long-term sustainability. Several projects assessed revealed that funding was allocated to deploy local activists or community workers tasked with raising awareness on hygiene and encouraging local participation in user associations. However, those projects did not contain conditions or mechanisms that would ensure continuous support for those functions after the project terminated.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Service regulation and human rights to water and sanitation 2017, para. 90g
- Paragraph text
- [In addition, the Special Rapporteur recommends that regulatory actors:] Support and influence policy formulation and legislative changes in line with the human rights to water and sanitation;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Service regulation and human rights to water and sanitation 2017, para. 90d
- Paragraph text
- [In addition, the Special Rapporteur recommends that regulatory actors:] Ensure non-discriminatory service coverage by service providers, including to poorer neighbourhoods, informal settlements and rural areas;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Service regulation and human rights to water and sanitation 2017, para. 90c
- Paragraph text
- [In addition, the Special Rapporteur recommends that regulatory actors:] Set and monitor indicators that cover all the elements of the rights and disaggregate them by prohibited grounds of discrimination;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Service regulation and human rights to water and sanitation 2017, para. 22
- Paragraph text
- The instruments delegating service provision, including contracts, must reflect the national regulatory framework and human rights standards. This means that these instruments should include a clear definition of the human rights responsibilities of service providers, coverage targets to eliminate inequalities in access, sufficient provision for participation, access to information and mechanisms for accountability. While ensuring this, non-State service providers are also expected to respect human rights. To that end, they must exercise due diligence to become aware of and address any potential impact on the realization of the human rights to water and sanitation, including by analysing the proposed delegating instruments from a human rights perspective (see A/HRC/15/31, para. 38), and where appropriate by undertaking human rights impact assessments. The General Assembly has recently called upon non-State actors, including business enterprises, to comply with their responsibility to respect the human rights to water and sanitation, including by cooperating with State investigations into allegations of abuses of these rights, and by progressively engaging with States to detect and remedy such abuses (see General Assembly resolution 70/169, para. 6).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Service regulation and human rights to water and sanitation 2017, para. 11
- Paragraph text
- The obligation to fulfil has three components: the obligation to facilitate, the obligation to promote and the obligation to provide. The obligation to facilitate requires States to take positive regulatory measures to create an enabling environment for service providers to respect the human rights to water and sanitation as well as to contribute towards the full realization of these rights. Facilitating measures include not only according recognition of these rights within national policies and legal frameworks and adopting national strategies and plans of actions to realize them, but also setting service standards for service providers to comply with, in line with the normative content of the human rights to water and sanitation, monitoring service providers’ compliance with the established standards, and exercising regulatory functions, directly or through a separate body. For example, where, due to a lack of regulation, access to water and sanitation facilities is either not available or inadequate in public buildings, such as schools, prisons or hospitals, or where people living in informal settlements are left with no option but to resort to unregulated informal services, the State is in breach of its obligation to facilitate.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Gender equality in the realization of the human rights to water and sanitation 2016, para. 14
- Paragraph text
- In line with international human rights law, States should therefore use an "intersectionality lens" in all policy initiatives, to ensure that special attention is given to those persons most disadvantaged in the enjoyment of their rights.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Development cooperation in the water and sanitation sector 2016, para. 72
- Paragraph text
- Owing to a lack of expertise or the use of inappropriate technology, water and sanitation infrastructure provided through development cooperation may not be well-maintained or well-operated, making it necessary to provide further funding for education and training. Capacity-building is key to ensuring the sustainability of investments and a human rights-based approach should be adopted in this respect. Doing so would involve the main stakeholders directly and indirectly concerned in the adequate provision of services and strengthening their ability to perform tasks and produce outputs, collectively define and solve problems and make informed choices. Other forms of cooperation, such as public-public partnerships, which are absent from the policies of most international funders, can respond effectively to that need. In that context, it is noteworthy that a petition to the European Commission with 1.9 million signatures that was ultimately endorsed by the European Parliament called for the adoption of a human rights approach to development cooperation based on not-for-profit principles and solidarity among water operators and authorities, including capacity-building partnerships aimed at improving the quality of water services.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Development cooperation in the water and sanitation sector 2016, para. 69
- Paragraph text
- Funders must face those challenges head-on to create proper arrangements to ensure that funding actually reaches its destination, thereby effectively generating benefit for the poor and realizing the human rights to water and sanitation.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Development cooperation in the water and sanitation sector 2016, para. 20
- Paragraph text
- Nevertheless, the overall global increase in funding to the sector masks significant annual variations in disbursed funds and funding modalities. Regarding funding commitments, for the 2010-2012 period, 41 per cent of aid commitments were grants and 59 per cent were concessional loans. In addition, critical reviews of development cooperation flows indicate that the available data on those flows may be fragmented at best. That could be due in part to a lack of collaboration between funders to provide consolidated, reliable, accurate and disaggregated data. Regarding disaggregation, the majority of development projects registered in the relevant database of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), accounting for more than half of the amount of funds dedicated to the sector, do not clearly indicate, for example, whether rural or urban areas have been targeted. Considering the markedly lower levels of access to adequate water and sanitation services in rural areas compared with urban areas, that information gap indicates a need for improved reporting by Member States. Another noteworthy source of data inaccuracy is the non-inclusion of important interventions in informal settlements because those are considered to be part of so-called "slum/squatter upgrading".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 87m
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur offers the following recommendations. States should take the following measures:] Prohibit disconnections that result from an inability to pay;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 87l
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur offers the following recommendations. States should take the following measures:] Address corrupt practices that add to the cost of service provision;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 87k
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur offers the following recommendations. States should take the following measures:] Put into place strong regulatory frameworks and bodies for ensuring affordability of service provision that covers all types of services;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 87h
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur offers the following recommendations. States should take the following measures:] Give careful thought particularly to ensuring the affordability of sanitation provision, where costs are frequently underestimated;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 87f
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur offers the following recommendations. States should take the following measures:] Ensure participation in the process of decision-making on determining mechanisms for allocating public financing and setting tariffs;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 87b
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur offers the following recommendations. States should take the following measures:] Ensure transparency about existing and planned financing mechanisms and subsidies;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 85
- Paragraph text
- For households that receive water and sanitation through utilities, data is available through the International Benchmarking Network for Water and Sanitation Utilities, which includes data on water tariffs charged by a significant number of utilities. Beyond such existing initiatives, a review of potential indicators demonstrates the complexity of monitoring affordability. Determining and monitoring the costs of non-networked supply and including them into measures of affordability is particularly challenging, but essential from the perspective of human rights. Focusing solely on utility tariffs bears the risk of severely underestimating expenses and would paint an overly positive picture of affordability that only captures the better-off, while neglecting the very real challenges that the most disadvantaged people and communities face in accessing water and sanitation. This review shows that monitoring affordability in its complexity (including water, sanitation and hygiene access expenditure) is feasible, but would require a combination and analysis of data from different sources. The Special Rapporteur encourages States and international organizations to explore these options further to ensure more comprehensive monitoring of the affordability of access to services.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 74
- Paragraph text
- Participatory budgeting is increasingly common in municipalities across the world, enabling residents to agree on the budget priorities of local government. Such processes have often contributed to improving basic service provision, including water and sanitation.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 62
- Paragraph text
- Other types of mechanisms to ensure the affordability of services can be built into tariff schemes. Different tariff systems have different potentials but also limitations to ensure the affordability of services. These are generally only relevant to those connected to piped water and sewerage systems.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Common violations of the human rights to water and sanitation 2014, para. 76
- Paragraph text
- While courts in many jurisdictions are amenable to litigation challenging human rights violations, access to justice should not generally rely on litigation. States must ensure that water and sanitation services are provided within a context of clear rules. They must adopt measures to prevent human rights violations, for instance through carrying out human rights impact assessments. Where violations are being alleged, dispute and complaint mechanisms should be available with the aim of resolving issues quickly and efficiently. Where human rights violations are not adequately addressed, individuals must be able to proceed to court. Being able to turn to the courts - as a last resort - is an essential component of ensuring access to justice. Violations of the rights to water and sanitation have generally been dealt with more effectively in States where constitutional and legislative protections guarantee that those rights are directly or indirectly justiciable. In States where this is not yet the case, courts and governments should be guided by international developments and recognize the rights to water and sanitation as justiciable. Governments should promote the use of international law in interpreting domestic law.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Common violations of the human rights to water and sanitation 2014, para. 16
- Paragraph text
- In its general comment No. 15 (2003) on the right to water, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights builds on a comprehensive understanding of violations, applying the categories of human rights obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the right to water. While the Committee has not yet adopted a general comment on the right to sanitation, it has issued a formal statement recognizing that similar obligations apply, following an approach taken by the Special Rapporteur in her 2009 report to the Council. The present report applies this framework and develops a typology of common violations of the rights to water and sanitation. In addition to the obligations to respect, protect and fulfil, it puts a particular emphasis on equality and non-discrimination, as well as on participation, and also examines extraterritorial obligations. The latter obligations cut across the "respect, protect, fulfil" framework. This typology is not proposed as a rigid classification, being utilized as a framework for surveying the range of violations which must be addressed, with inevitable overlaps in the categories. What is most important is to ensure that no type of violation is ignored and that no victim is denied access to effective remedies.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Sustainability and non-retrogression in the realisation of the rights to water and sanitation 2013, para. 36
- Paragraph text
- Often States fail to adopt a tariff structure which is both affordable and promotes enough revenue to ensure financial sustainability. In most urban public water systems, charges often barely cover the recurrent costs of operation and maintenance, leaving little or no funds to recover the capital costs of modernization and expansion. A survey of such systems in 132 cities in high-, middle- and low-income countries found that 39 per cent did not recover even their operation and maintenance costs. The impact of decreased spending then threatens the sustainability of water systems as lack of reinvestment leads to deterioration of the system and leakages, and the low level of investment in the water sector hampers growth. In rural areas neglect of operation and maintenance budgets and cost recovery contribute to widespread non-functionality. Accessibility and quality are compromised because of limitations on services, lack of expansion and lack of maintenance. Affordability is also affected because funds that would have been available before the financial downturn have been decreased or reallocated, and therefore prices to the user increase to cover the shortfall.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Wastewater management in the realization of the rights to water and sanitation 2013, para. 53
- Paragraph text
- Water and wastewater management is often entrusted to large and powerful "hydrocracies" that are trained for, and have vested interests in, large infrastructure. Many administrations and funding agencies favour sewer networks and sewage treatment plants over more decentralized systems. Such preferences should be contrasted with the institutional framework for faecal sludge management: often there are no clear institutional responsibilities for wastewater management beyond sewerage networks. This gap is exacerbated in informal settlements that lack legal land tenure, which, where sanitation facilities exist at all, tend to be served largely by septic tanks and pit latrines. Municipalities often deliberately avoid providing formal services in those areas because they fear legitimizing informal settlements. Legislative frameworks must assign institutional responsibilities for wastewater and, more specifically, faecal sludge management. The challenges in informal settlements are among the most urgent. As a short-term solution, non-governmental organizations have acted as intermediaries between municipalities and users to allow people to gain access to services before a more long-term solution is found.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Wastewater management in the realization of the rights to water and sanitation 2013, para. 32
- Paragraph text
- During her country missions, the Special Rapporteur has constantly witnessed challenges in the operation and management of septic tanks and the disposal of septage, giving rise to severe challenges for the realization of human rights. On site sanitation solutions have been promoted as a way for people to quickly "gain access to sanitation" without giving due regard to what happens when pits fill up. Often, tanks are not properly maintained and pollutants leak into groundwater and environment, impairing the health of neighbouring residents or those depending on shallow aquifers. Once the tanks are full, they need to be emptied. This process of emptying, collection and transportation usually lacks regulation, control and accountability, resulting in contents being dumped by collection trucks relatively close by, into waterways or the larger environment, adjacent to locations where people live, farm, fish or work. Trucks serving a given municipality are often not sufficient to meet the demand. Moreover, poor households, in order to avoid periodically hiring unaffordable trucks, might divert the water overflowing from their tanks leading to continued exposure and health risks.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Integrating non-discrimination and equality into the post-2015 development agenda for water, sanitation and hygiene 2012, para. 22
- Paragraph text
- While many caution that future targets and indicators need to be measurable, and this is certainly true, there is also a tendency to hide behind this technical argument. Others have noted that measurability is an inappropriate standard for political decisions on deprioritizing certain issues, and that data should "be seen as a servant, rather than a master". The current lack of data should not be used as an argument against future monitoring. Rather, the Special Rapporteur calls for data to be collected on certain issues precisely to bring them to light. The current lack of data on certain issues is not accidental. Neglect often coincides with a low political profile. For example, in many countries, people living in informal settlements do not appear in the official statistics, even when they represent a high percentage of the population in major cities. In that regard, the Special Rapporteur calls for pushing the boundaries of what is currently perceived as measurable. A commitment to better and more accurate data collection as part of the global framework is essential to identifying and monitoring inequalities, a crucial step to making progress to end them.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph