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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 32
- Paragraph text
- The affordability of water and sanitation services and disconnections are inextricably linked, as in many instances the failure to pay for services leads to disconnection.
- 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
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 35
- Paragraph text
- Pre-paid water meters are suggested as an option for service providers to ensure that households and individuals pay for the water that they use, as they require payment in advance. This may lead to "silent disconnections" due to lack of ability to pay, and can be a violation of the human rights to water and sanitation. Therefore, plans to use pre-paid meters must be carefully examined before they are installed. Some pre-paid water meters will allow for access to a limited quantity of water even where the individual or household has not paid. The quantity, continuity and quality of water would need to be carefully assessed for human rights compliance.
- 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
- 2015
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 41
- Paragraph text
- Public finance may also be provided for the maintenance and extension of water and sanitation services and facilities, including for connection charges. Where extensions are expected to reach all households, they can be an appropriate form of providing support to low-income households, as they will ensure more affordable and regular charges for water and sanitation than charges of informal provision.
- 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
- 2015
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 44
- Paragraph text
- On the other hand, significant inroads have been made through Community-Led Total Sanitation in expanding access to sanitation. Recognizing that improving sanitation relies to a large extent on practicing safe and hygienic sanitation, the approach focuses on mobilizing communities to analyse and improve the situation with regard to open defecation. Community-Led Total Sanitation is in principle opposed to the provision of subsidies based on the premise that subsidized sanitation often does not align with people's preferences and that such solutions have often been unsustainable by creating a culture of dependency.
- 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
- 2015
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
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 47
- Paragraph text
- In such instances, as in other contexts of self-supply, the human rights framework stresses that States have an obligation to support people in the realization of their human right to water and sanitation, where needed with financial assistance. States may not absolve themselves of their human rights obligations by relegating responsibilities to communities. What must be ensured is that sanitation and water services are affordable to even the most disadvantaged member of a community.
- 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
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 49
- Paragraph text
- The first step to ensuring that public financing is targeted toward the most disadvantaged is to acknowledge the inherent inequalities and biases in the current distribution of public financing. On that basis, States must adopt measures to reach the people who rely on public finance to ensure the affordability of water and sanitation services for all and to reduce inequalities in access. States need to reallocate resources to the most disadvantaged. Reallocating current public resources may mean extending access for all to citywide systems in urban areas or shifting from high-cost interventions that serve limited numbers of people to low-cost interventions that provide services to more people, particularly those who most need assistance.
- 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
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 53
- Paragraph text
- Where States choose to adopt universal systems for subsidizing service provision, they need to ensure that these are truly universal rather than reaching only as far as networked provision does. Financing for universal access, and indeed the universal realization of human rights, does not necessarily require one universal system. On the contrary, in many countries it will mean additional approaches that are targeted to reach people beyond utility networks.
- 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
- 2015
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 54b
- Paragraph text
- [Where States adopt targeted measures, this also poses challenges. In practice, unfortunately, such measures often fail to reach the target population for a variety of reasons, including:] There is excessive paperwork or a requirement for specific pieces of documentation that low-income or marginalized people may not have;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 54g
- Paragraph text
- [Where States adopt targeted measures, this also poses challenges. In practice, unfortunately, such measures often fail to reach the target population for a variety of reasons, including:] Those who are responsible for allocating public funding engage in corrupt practices;
- 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
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 57
- Paragraph text
- Targeted subsidies can be provided at the household level based on income. In many cultures, however, there is significant stigma attached to the receipt of subsidies, in particular where the application for the subsidy becomes publicly known. In a country in Africa, for example, there are subsidies available for a range of social services, but many people choose not to register even where they are eligible reportedly due to the stigma attached. One way to overcome such stigmatization would be to adopt ways of distributing subsidies that do not publicly expose people. Beyond this, however, broader cultural changes are needed in the perception of subsidies to overcome the often internalized shame and stigma of relying on public subsidies.
- 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
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 63
- Paragraph text
- Flat rates are commonly used where meters are not installed, where a charge based on a certain volume of water used or sewage discharged would be impossible to implement. Some countries use property taxes as the basis for charging unrelated to consumption. Differentiated flat rates could be used that rise or fall depending on such criteria as household size, income and property value, among others, with care taken that marginalized and vulnerable individuals and groups are not being charged an unaffordable rate.
- 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
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 64
- Paragraph text
- Uniform tariff approaches depend on a metered system, where households pay a fixed rate for each unit that they use. Such systems will generally be cheaper to administer than a differentiated system. However, they do not take account of households' size or ability to pay, or whether a household has particular needs that will require more water, such as dialysis or other health needs. They will almost invariably lead to better-off households having access to more water or paying lower bills than poorer residents. Where poorer households access larger quantities of water to meet their requirements, services may become unaffordable without additional safeguards.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Health
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 76
- Paragraph text
- Ensuring the affordability of water and sanitation services requires an effective legal and policy framework, which includes a strong regulatory system. The International Water Association Lisbon Charter recognizes the importance of regulation, recommending that regulators "supervise tariff schemes to ensure they are fair, sustainable and fit for purpose; promoting efficiency and affordability".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 81
- Paragraph text
- However, monitoring affordability is not a straightforward process. Accurate and meaningful monitoring of affordability is extremely complex. If carried out on the basis of an affordability standard, the necessary parameters for calculating affordability - the expenses for accessing water and sanitation in comparison to overall household expenditure, and the real income of a household - are difficult to measure. Monitoring whether a household's expenditure on water and sanitation exceeds a specific proportion of its income in a specific context is not easily done, given the precarious incomes of many low-income households, and the many different types of expenses for water and sanitation services in informal settlements, where affordability concerns are most acute. Given these difficulties, States often use an "average" or a "lowest" income level, and an assumed acceptable volume of water to set appropriate service charges. However, such generalizations hide whether individuals can actually afford services in their particular context, which may involve a large household, or individuals with specific health problems.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Health
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 82
- Paragraph text
- Other approaches to monitoring affordability take a different starting point. Rather than relying on an absolute affordability threshold, they look at the impact that the cost of water and sanitation services has on the enjoyment of other human rights. Human rights monitoring can greatly contribute to qualitative, more contextualized monitoring. For instance, treaty bodies can provide details on the impact of the lack of affordability on people's lives, including through disconnections, the challenges people face, and the inter-linkages with the realization of other human rights.
- 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
- 2015
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 83
- Paragraph text
- The ECE Protocol on Water and Health has developed an Equitable Access Scorecard, which assists States to monitor whether services are affordable. This scorecard looks beyond the affordability of tariffs to other measures that Member States may employ to ensure affordability. This includes monitoring the inclusion of affordability concerns in water and sanitation policy, the affordability of self-provision, whether public funding is made available to address affordability concerns, how much public funding has actually been spent on affordability concerns, and whether social protection measures are effective in ensuring affordability.
- 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
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
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 86
- Paragraph text
- Affordability is key for the realization of the human rights to water and sanitation. Ensuring affordable service provision for all people requires a paradigm shift - starting from the perspective of human rights. Economic sustainability and affordability for all people are not impossible to reconcile, but human rights require rethinking current lines of argumentation and redesigning current instruments. The main challenge is to ensure that targeted measures and instruments do, in fact, reach the people who rely on them most. For instance, tariffs must be designed in such a way that the most disadvantaged of those connected to formal utilities receive the assistance they need. It also requires ensuring that public finance and subsidies reach the most marginalized and disadvantaged individuals and communities, who are often not (yet) connected to a formal network, who may live in informal settlements without any formal title or in remote rural areas where self-supply is common, and who are often overlooked or deliberately ignored in current policymaking and planning.
- 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
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 87e
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur offers the following recommendations. States should take the following measures:] Consider affordability standards together with other standards, particularly for availability and quality, to ensure that people can afford to pay for the services based on human rights standards;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
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
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
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 87i
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur offers the following recommendations. States should take the following measures:] Focus on ensuring affordability for the most disadvantaged, including communities in informal settlements and communities that rely on self-supply, and explore different mechanisms to achieve this;
- 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
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
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
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
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 87n
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur offers the following recommendations. States should take the following measures:] Monitor affordability of water and sanitation service provision through focused studies that examine income levels in different settlements, considering all costs relating to access to water and sanitation, including hygiene and menstrual hygiene requirements;
- 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
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 87o
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur offers the following recommendations. States should take the following measures:] Where prepaid water meters are considered, ensure that households that face an inability to pay are not disconnected from water supply and that quantity, continuity and quality of water meet 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
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Common violations of the human rights to water and sanitation 2014, para. 12
- Paragraph text
- Developments over recent decades have brought greater clarity to the identification of violations of economic, social and cultural rights. The Maastricht Guidelines on Violations of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights draw on the typology of obligations to respect, protect and fulfil human rights, clarifying that failures to comply with any obligation - be it failures to utilize maximum available resources, or deliberate actions - constitute violations.
- 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
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2014
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
Paragraph