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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 modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
The MDGs and the human rights to water and sanitation 2010, para. 36
- Paragraph text
- Perhaps the most frequently voiced concern about the Millennium Development Goals is that, taken on their face, they may facilitate aggregate human development progress at the expense of the most marginalized populations, thereby potentially exacerbating underlying inequalities. In fact, it would be possible for a country to be in full compliance with the Goals regarding access to water and sanitation without having extended access to any person belonging to the lowest wealth quintile. Whereas the Millennium Declaration refers explicitly in paragraph 23 to "equitable access", this concern for equity is not reflected in the Millennium Development Goals and, regrettably, principles of equality and non-discrimination are at present poorly reflected in most Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. Non discrimination and equality are not only instrumentally important in the context of development; they are binding human rights principles reflected in international human rights treaties. Development strategies based on the Millennium Development Goals that pick only the "low-hanging fruit" risk perpetuating and even reinforcing existing inequalities, frustrating sustainable development objectives and violating international human rights standards.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2010
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
The MDGs and the human rights to water and sanitation 2010, para. 50
- Paragraph text
- Lack of access to water and sanitation is not simply a question of scarcity of technology, financial resources and infrastructure. It is a matter of setting priorities, a function of societal power relations and a problem of poverty and deeply entrenched inequalities. In order to increase sustainable access to water and sanitation, it is essential to address these underlying causes. Rights-based analyses in the water and sanitation sectors have revealed, for example, lack of secure land tenure as a key blockage, in particular in urban slums. Target 7.D aims to achieve, by 2020, a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers. The target date (five years later than the rest of the targets) and the scale of progress aimed for (around a tenth of the estimated 1 billion slum-dwellers) highlight the low ambition embodied in this target. The indicators used as a proxy to measure progress towards the target do not capture security of tenure, which would be crucial to improve living conditions and is one of the main components of the right to housing. If these underlying issues were addressed and the target on slums were set higher, it would contribute significantly to making progress towards universal access to water and sanitation.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2010
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Service regulation and human rights to water and sanitation 2017, para. 90f
- Paragraph text
- [In addition, the Special Rapporteur recommends that regulatory actors:] Ensure that tariff-setting reconciles financial sustainability with affordability, while prioritizing and protecting the needs of those living in poverty;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 56
- Paragraph text
- In different contexts, different mechanisms have been used with the aim of targeting financial support at those individuals and groups who rely on it to ensure the affordability of services. Subsidies could apply to low-income households, to areas populated predominantly by low-income communities, or to small-scale services likely to be used by those living in poverty or on a low-income.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 87g
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur offers the following recommendations. States should take the following measures:] Use public financing to support access for people living in poverty and those who are marginalized or discriminated against and eliminate inequalities in access to water and sanitation services;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 73
- Paragraph text
- At a broader level, communities have used participatory wealth rankings as a way of assessing poverty to determine how to target measures within their communities. Determining relative poverty in a community allows for targeting on that basis. Such participatory processes can provide detailed insights on local poverty and often include access to water as an indicator in the analysis.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Common violations of the human rights to water and sanitation 2014, para. 80
- Paragraph text
- The Special Rapporteur is encouraged to see advances in identifying, preventing and remedying violations of the human rights to water and sanitation. Nevertheless, the extent of continuing violations constitutes a major human rights crisis. It is imperative for States to implement review and adjudication procedures to identify violations, with the full participation of stakeholders, and to prioritize action to address violations. The Special Rapporteur has found that, while more attention needs to be paid to violations of the rights to water and sanitation in general, progress has not been equal across the full range of obligations or for all groups of rights holders. Access to justice for violations at a more structural or systemic level, particularly in relation to the obligation to progressively realize the rights to water and sanitation, to avoid retrogressive measures and to achieve substantive equality, has lagged behind in comparison with access to justice for violations linked to the obligations to respect and to protect. Violations related to inequalities experienced by certain groups, such as people living in poverty, informal settlements, or rural and remote communities, or homeless people, have remained largely unchallenged in courts, despite their severity.
- 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
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2014
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Sustainability and non-retrogression in the realisation of the rights to water and sanitation 2013, para. 40
- Paragraph text
- Since the start of the global financial crisis, the majority of European countries have cut their aid budgets; for example, Ireland announced a cut of nearly €100 million (a 10.6 per cent decrease) in its 2009 budget and Spain cut its aid budget globally by approximately 75 per cent. For the poorest countries, sustainable and predictable flows of funds are therefore unlikely to be forthcoming at least until the recession is over.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Sustainability and non-retrogression in the realisation of the rights to water and sanitation 2013, para. 64
- Paragraph text
- The Special Rapporteur is aware that resources available to States are limited, despite efforts to mobilize revenue. As noted in a previous report (A/66/255, para. 41 ff), this highlights the need for appropriate targeting of available resources. Human rights principles give clear guidance on this: States should initially direct resources and efforts towards meeting obligations with immediate effect, for example, targeting the realization of the core content of the human rights to water and sanitation without discrimination and protecting existing access. One of the challenges highlighted above demonstrates this need for targeting of resources: while potentially necessary for long-term sustainability of the sector, the introduction of metred service delivery at cost price can have discriminatory effects. Thus the pricing of services (as well as taxation) needs to be targeted and appropriately adjusted for the most disadvantaged and for people living in poverty. For example, scarcity pricing, penalties or higher pricing structures for non-essential use, well-designed increasing-block tariffs, subsidies for those in need, and institutional and distributive taxes, are all examples of approaches used to raise revenue and recover costs. These should be implemented in a fair manner that promotes sustainability and access for all to 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
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Wastewater management in the realization of the rights to water and sanitation 2013, para. 50
- Paragraph text
- Looking at households, some countries make it mandatory to connect to sewage lines, where they are available (see A/HRC/21/42/Add.2, para. 18). In countries with extensive sewerage networks, this may be a feasible measure, but it requires ensuring that connections are affordable even for people living in poverty, for instance, through the targeted use of subsidies. Often, challenges remain in that regard.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
The MDGs and the human rights to water and sanitation 2010, para. 52
- Paragraph text
- Social protection policies can be expected to feature prominently in an intersectoral, rights-based analysis of the water and sanitation sectors. There have been strengthened calls for "social protection floors" and numerous cases of successful implementation with impressive poverty reduction impacts. While social policy priorities are of course country-specific, the "social protection floor" concept includes water and sanitation within the scope of essential services, along with a set of social transfers to provide a minimum income and livelihood security to ensure continuing access to essential services for the poorest. In practice, however, these minimum packages of affordable social protection guarantees do not frequently appear to have prioritized water or sanitation, as distinct from basic health, nutrition, education and income security objectives. The fundamental importance of water and sanitation, in their own right and also for the realization of health, food, education and other Millennium Development Goals and their corresponding human rights, establishes a strong case for increasing priority attention to water and sanitation. Such an integrated and intersectoral analysis within a broader social protection framework offers a compelling and potentially important means of addressing affordability constraints.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2010
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
The MDGs and the human rights to water and sanitation 2010, para. 61
- Paragraph text
- The Millennium Development Goals have served a valuable function in galvanizing international support around a certain number of monitorable poverty reduction targets, including with respect to water and sanitation. The water and sanitation targets are vital human development ends, and they are also indispensable for the achievement of the other Millennium Development Goals.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2010
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
The MDGs and the human rights to water and sanitation 2010, para. 63j
- Paragraph text
- [In line with these conclusions, the independent expert recommends the following:] Near-universal access to water and sanitation cannot be cause for complacency and States must not overlook persistent pockets of poverty, but instead continue to focus on addressing systematic discrimination and exclusion;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2010
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Different levels and types of services and the human rights to water and sanitation 2015, para. 59
- Paragraph text
- Even low-cost on-site solutions may still be unaffordable for people living in poverty, particularly owing to the associated maintenance costs such as pit-emptying. For those populations living on very low incomes, household-level latrines may be inadequate or unaffordable unless significant technical and financial support is provided. While there has been considerable debate about sanitation marketing techniques to encourage people to invest in sanitation, the reality is that without subsidies, many of these on-site solutions are not affordable for households facing extreme poverty.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Integrating non-discrimination and equality into the post-2015 development agenda for water, sanitation and hygiene 2012, para. 48
- Paragraph text
- The conventional discourse describes poverty as multidimensional, yet its quantification has remained largely one-dimensional, focused on income, making it incapable of reflecting reality. Future targets should reflect the reality that poverty is often the result of multiple, intersecting forms of discrimination. Income inequality is not always the best proxy for measuring overall inequality. Other metrics of inequality may capture existing processes of discrimination and resulting inequalities better and more in line with human rights considerations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Financing for the Realization of the Rights to Water and Sanitation 2011, para. 26
- Paragraph text
- Government support is for several reasons therefore necessary to ensure financing. First, it is often the primary source of funding for capital-intensive infrastructure projects, such as building wastewater treatment facilities. Indeed, in cases in which expanding access involves working in unserved and impoverished areas, such as slums or other informal settlements, where initial costs are high and short-term returns on investment are low, States may be the only actors willing and able to deliver on a major scale.
- 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
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Development cooperation and the human rights to water and sanitation 2017, para. 79
- Paragraph text
- Outcomes in ex post human rights assessments should inform several characteristics of beneficiaries gaining access to services, allowing impacts to be assessed for populations living in conditions of poverty or vulnerability and identifying reductions in inequality. In particular, those data must go beyond limited assessments of access and availability of services (for example, the number of houses connected to a piped network) and should include ways of identifying discrimination and inequalities, collection time and other barriers to physical access, water quality, safety, acceptability and affordability.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Development cooperation and the human rights to water and sanitation 2017, para. 67
- Paragraph text
- In the projects assessed herein, most funders did not demonstrably ensure that a sustainable financing strategy would be established for long-term service provision. In only one project were community committees created that were tasked with setting tariffs for piped water services that were being extended to their neighbourhoods. Another project entailed immediate affordability concerns as it required households to pay for connection costs to a piped water network; the national regulation established a maximum discount of 60 per cent of that cost for users in situations of poverty. Overall, in the projects reviewed, little evidence exists indicating that funders support governments and service providers in developing specific schemes to ensure reconciliation between economic sustainability and access to services for users with insufficient economic means.
- 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
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Gender equality in the realization of the human rights to water and sanitation 2016, para. 68
- Paragraph text
- It is of crucial importance to monitor, in a rights- and gender-sensitive manner, progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and to make sure that national and local mechanisms track compliance with and progress made to realize the rights to water and sanitation, including in terms of gender equality. Gender equality is central to the Goals (see Goal 5) and is reflected in several targets, including target 6.2. Gender equality in access to water, sanitation and hygiene will have a positive impact on other goals and targets, including those on ending poverty (Goal 1), on promoting decent work and economic growth (Goal 8), on reducing inequality (Goal 10) and on making cities and human settlements inclusive and sustainable (Goal 11). Since gender inequalities are so profound in water and sanitation and, at the same time, manifest themselves in all human rights and throughout the entire development agenda, a comprehensive approach would allow for using similar indicators and information collected through the monitoring of different human rights and development targets.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 58
- Paragraph text
- Targeting schemes that are based on levels of household income or expenditure may be costly, requiring administratively labour-intensive surveys to assess who is eligible, except when this is available information for other administrative needs such as taxes. Targeting is especially difficult where there is a large informal economy. More generally, such targeting is often imprecise. Even sophisticated social security systems can exclude significant numbers of the poorest residents, particularly those living in rural areas, where it may be difficult to keep people informed of their entitlements.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 45
- Paragraph text
- The approach, or its implementation in particular cases, has encountered some criticism from the perspective of human rights, including concerns about the affordability of adequate sanitation for the most disadvantaged due to the lack of subsidies. Without external support, people living in extreme poverty may only be able to build very basic latrines and do not always have the means to afford maintenance and improvements. Some variants of Community-Led Total Sanitation are open to using external subsidies for the most disadvantaged in communities. Some suggest a sequencing approach to the use of public finance. While the initial investments in hardware are expected to be made by the community, public finance should be used in the long term to create the enabling environment for sustainable sanitation and ensuring public health, for instance for maintenance and pit emptying, or through public health interventions that promote sanitation and good hygiene practices. Some schemes have provided microfinance for the construction of latrines, which is then paid off over a two- or three-year time frame. This can be an effective way of spreading the cost, but affordability concerns will remain for the poorest households.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 60
- Paragraph text
- While being easier and cheaper to administer, they have the drawback of not always being able to differentiate between people living in poverty, who may be able to pay a small amount, and people living in extreme poverty, who cannot afford to pay more than a nominal sum or anything at all. In many instances, it may be useful to utilize a mixture of mechanisms. For example, a comparison of schemes of subsidies in Chile (based on household means) and in Colombia (based on categories of socio-economic status and socio-geographic context) suggests that means-tested subsidies are more effective at identifying poor households than geographically targeted schemes. For example, it may be beneficial to provide subsidies automatically in low-income areas, but to permit people outside such areas to apply for subsidies on the basis of their low income. Moreover, where an income supplement is provided, households that are not connected to a network, including those living in rural areas, could also be eligible.
- 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
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Development cooperation in the water and sanitation sector 2016, para. 47
- Paragraph text
- It is notable that some important multilateral funders, including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, view water as a socially vital economic good and aspire to similar goals of creating inclusive economic growth and equity and reducing poverty. As indicated previously, such goals may claim to produce outcomes that contribute to improved access to water and sanitation. However, it may result in part from a lack of concrete human rights consistency that programmes and projects are oriented to hastily pushing money out of the door (see A/70/274, para. 36). A framework with solid grounding in human rights, backed by the commitment of the staff and boards of those institutions, would provide safeguards against such risks, ensuring that loans for water and sanitation projects and programmes do not produce negative outcomes for some individuals or groups, but rather increase the realization of the rights of the most disadvantaged.
- 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
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Development cooperation in the water and sanitation sector 2016, para. 14
- Paragraph text
- Integrating human rights law and principles into development cooperation provides a clear legal framework for the human rights to water and sanitation that States have already recognized. In addition, the normative content of the human rights to water and sanitation and human rights principles offer guidance on who and what to prioritize in planning and programming international cooperation, as well as on how policies, programmes and interventions should take place. It is critical to use the language of the human rights to water and sanitation explicitly because, as stated by the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, the human rights language recognizes the dignity and agency of all individuals and is therefore intentionally empowering (see A/70/274, para. 65).
- 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
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Development cooperation in the water and sanitation sector 2016, para. 52
- Paragraph text
- While those international commitments were being negotiated and settled during the 1990s and 2000s, various funders were simultaneously establishing their own policies. Regarding the policies of several multilateral agencies, a popular focus since then has been the so-called "pro-poor" or social safety nets approaches, which aim to target the poorest groups. Those orientations have been the subject of both intense theoretical debates that focus on the various social effects of targeted or universal interventions and empirical research assessing the outcomes of various programmes. An observed trend is that "pro-poor" approaches have not been effective in certain sectors, owing to their inability to meet the needs of the poor; this has been particularly the case in the water and sanitation sector.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 15
- Paragraph text
- For water, costs range from construction, operation and maintenance, in the case of networked provision, to costs of construction and maintenance of on-site solutions such as wells or boreholes. Connection charges are often a significant barrier for those living in extreme poverty. Household contributions for water services in rural areas and in informal settlements can differ quite substantially from household contributions for piped water provision. Beyond the option of buying water from public or private suppliers, individuals may need to cover the costs of the construction, operation and maintenance of communal or individual household provision (such as a rainwater cistern), the cost of purchasing containers to store water, and the treatment of water. Even where water is safe at the source, by the time it has been transported and stored for future use, there is a high risk that it will become contaminated, which leads to extra costs for household water treatment.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 14
- Paragraph text
- In order to assess and ensure affordability, States need to look into the overall cost of delivering service that can have implications to the user's payments. These include not only those regularly occurring costs such as operation and maintenance, but also the entire "life-cycle" costs of services, which include construction and rehabilitation (where necessary). This life-cycle cost is particularly relevant for sanitation, considering the management of wastes. Once the costs for service delivery have been estimated, a different discussion is how to recover them. This can include a variety of sources, from tariffs to external public financing and, more important to the aim of this report, how to share the revenues from different users. On this last point, affordability needs to be a key consideration in order to avoid excessively compromising the expenses of people living in poverty.
- 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
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Integrating non-discrimination and equality into the post-2015 development agenda for water, sanitation and hygiene 2012, para. 61
- Paragraph text
- As the Joint Monitoring Programme has demonstrated in recent years, wealth inequality correlates in many countries to inequalities in access to adequate water and sanitation. The rate of progress is very uneven among wealth quintiles in many countries, with the poorest two quintiles frequently experiencing lack of improvement while other quintiles experience significant improvements. In other countries, progress has been impressive among the lower quintiles, and lessons could be drawn from these experiences. Some Governments are reacting to this analysis by reassessing their policies and programming to target resources on those living in poverty. One of the countries visited by the Special Rapporteur earmarked a percentage of the budget for sanitation in rural areas, since these are traditionally poorer than urban ones. In another country, the Government created a revolving fund for access to intradomiciliary water connections in smaller villages, where inhabitants were poor and could not afford to buy the hardware in one instalment.
- 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
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Integrating non-discrimination and equality into the post-2015 development agenda for water, sanitation and hygiene 2012, para. 14
- Paragraph text
- In September 2000, world leaders adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration, making an unprecedented commitment to eradicate global poverty (see General Assembly resolution 55/2). This high-level political commitment and the subsequent focus on a set of measurable, time-bound Goals created a common framework for assessing progress among countries by 2015. The Millennium Development Goals placed key issues on the agenda that might have otherwise been neglected. As a result, most Governments, development banks and donors have attempted to deliver on what was agreed upon to measure: a limited number of priority areas for development. These areas have become the top priorities for national and international policymaking, budget allocations, and the targeting of development assistance. The seemingly aloof international framework has had a direct and concrete impact on people's lives, their health and well-being.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph