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Title | Date added | Template | Body | Legal status | Document type | Year | Document code | Original document | Paragraph text | Thematics | Topic(s) | Person(s) affected | Year |
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A rights-based approach to adaptation, mitigation, finance, and cooperation | Jan 18, 2024 | Document | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | 2022 | |||||||
Affordability of water and sanitation services | Aug 19, 2019 | Document | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | 2015 | A/HRC/30/39 | ||||||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 13 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | This section considers the various costs associated with water, sanitation and hygiene, not only direct costs, but also time costs, as well as the additional burdens that corrupt practices and inadequate governance may cause. It concludes by considering the costs of inaction. |
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| 2015 | ||||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 14 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | 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. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 15 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | 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. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 16 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In relation to sanitation, associated costs for households range from construction of the toilet within the home and tariffs in the case of networked provision, to costs of on-site solutions such as the construction or maintenance of pit latrines and septic tanks. On-site technologies generally require regular cleaning and maintenance, including the emptying of pits or septic tanks, and the proper management and disposal or re-use of wastewater and excreta. Sanitation systems that require water for flushing, such as sewerage systems, will generally imply extra costs for the water needed for flushing toilets. |
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| 2015 | ||||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 17 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | While often overlooked, the use of hygiene facilities and services also has costs. The main expenses, other than installation of a handwashing station, are for water and soap for handwashing and personal hygiene, for water and cleaning products for domestic and food hygiene, and for sanitary napkins or other products for menstrual hygiene management. |
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| 2015 | ||||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 18 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In addition to material costs of service provision, the time spent on collecting water and accessing sanitation facilities outside the home must also be valued. As women and girls are largely responsible for collecting water, maintaining and cleaning sanitation facilities, and for ensuring the hygienic management of the household, these time costs have an important gender equality dimension. |
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| 2015 | ||||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 19 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Studies have shown that corruption within the water sector is common. Even where services are nominally affordable to people, corruption may increase the cost of accessing services above official pricing. There may be a lack of transparency in decisions relating to the choice of technology or service provider, which can result in inappropriate - often more costly - choices being made. Corruption also affects prices directly when bribes have to be paid for repair work, connection or reconnection. On a larger scale, there can be corruption within tendering processes for the delivery of services. Corruption tends to disproportionately affect poor and disadvantaged individuals and groups, as they lack the necessary power to oppose the vested interests of elites, and do not have the necessary resources to pay bribes. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 20 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Limiting corruption requires focused efforts by States, regulatory bodies and service providers. Introducing a strong legal structure based on human rights can provide for anti-corruption measures such as strengthening transparency and accountability mechanisms. For instance, one city in South-east Asia recognized the importance of addressing corrupt practices in order to increase access to water and sanitation for the poor, and instituted specific measures, including focused training for employees, the establishment of public offices so that customers could pay their bills directly rather than going through bill collectors, and the introduction of meters for all connections. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 21 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Poorly managed service provision can also have a significant impact on the cost of service provision. States must work to ensure that the right incentives are in place such that providers improve the management of water and sanitation services, including through appropriate organizational structure, optimized running costs, efficient service delivery (e.g. low water losses), among other measures. It also includes strengthening the human rights principles of participation, access to information and accountability in governance structures and decision-making processes. Further, where the provision of services is intended to provide profits for the provider or shareholders (whether publicly or privately owned), this imperative to extract profits can also increase costs for the user beyond levels of affordability, and prevent the company from reinvesting in the service (see Special Rapporteur's mission report for Brazil (2014), A/HRC/27/55/Add.1, para. 68). |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 22 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | The costs of ensuring access to water and sanitation may be high. Yet, the price of not investing is even higher. The lack of access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene underlies severe human costs such as poor health and high mortality rates, as well as major economic losses - globally, an estimated $ 260 billion is lost yearly due to lack of access to sanitation alone. In developed nations, advances in life expectancy and child mortality accompanied economic growth only after governments began making substantial investments in water supply and, more importantly, sanitation. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 23 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Studies have shown evidence of a positive cost-benefit ratio. One analysis estimated that for each dollar invested in achieving universal access to basic drinking water at home, the average return is $4. For universal access to basic sanitation at home, the estimated benefit is $3, while the return on eliminating open defecation in rural areas is $6 per dollar spent. The safe management and treatment of wastewater has received less attention in cost-benefit analyses. While requiring large initial investments, in the long term the price of inaction is far greater than the cost of ensuring adequate wastewater management. Studies on the economic returns of sanitation interventions show that both septic tanks with treatment as well as sewerage networks with treatment have a positive cost-benefit ratio, for instance about 1:4 in the Philippines and about 1:3 in Vietnam. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 24 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Although sometimes monetized in economic analyses, interventions provide some intangible benefits related to time saved, dignity gained and diseases and deaths prevented. The particularly positive impact for women and girls of investing in water and sanitation is crucial for achieving gender equality. Environmental benefits are also significant, given that improving water and sanitation services helps combat contamination and environmental degradation. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 25 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Affordability, as a human rights criterion, requires that the use of water, sanitation and hygiene facilities and services is accessible at a price that is affordable to all people. Paying for these services must not limit people's capacity to acquire other basic goods and services guaranteed by human rights, such as food, housing, health, clothing and education. Affordability standards must be considered together with standards of an adequate quantity and quality of water and sanitation to ensure that human rights standards are met. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 26 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Affordability provisions in water and sanitation laws are quite common. For instance, in Namibia, the Water Resources Management Act requires ensuring "that all Namibians are provided with an affordable and a reliable water supply that is adequate for basic human needs". In many instances, the challenge is to translate general provisions into concrete affordability standards. Such standards are essential to ensure that tariffs are set in a way that is affordable to people and to ensure accountability. Generally, people are prepared to pay a high price for water because it is essential for so many aspects of a person's life, but this does not justify a high affordability threshold. Willingness-to-pay studies therefore often deliver limited results in terms of people's actual capacity to pay. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 27 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | A number of countries have set standards for affordability. For instance, a regulation in Indonesia explains that "Tariff shall meet the principle of affordability... if domestic expense on the fulfilment of the standard of basic need for drinking water does not exceed 4% (four per cent) of the income of subscribers". For some households, however, even a small proportion of their expenditure will be too much, and water and sanitation must be available for free in these instances. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 28 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | It is impossible to set a generally applicable affordability standard at the global level. Any such standard would be arbitrary and cannot reflect the challenges people face in practice and the context in which they live, including how much they need to spend on housing, food and the realization of other human rights. The affordability of water and sanitation services is highly contextual, and States should therefore determine affordability standards at the national and/or local level. The human rights framework stipulates important parameters for the process of doing so, in particular in terms of participation. |
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| 2015 | ||||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 29 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | When seeking to ensure affordability in practice, measures to implement human rights often need to be reconciled with broader considerations of ensuring environmental and economic sustainability. "Social sustainability" in the form of affordable access must not be jeopardized in favour of measures that aim to secure economic and environmental sustainability. To be environmentally sustainable, there must be sufficient water resources of good quality available to serve existing and future users. Water tariffs should be designed to allow for access to sufficient water for essential purposes but, where necessary, to limit use for luxuries. Water resources must be protected from pollution, which means that sanitation services must include appropriate collection, transport, treatment and disposal of wastewater to protect both public health and the environment. However, sanitation tariffs must not be so high that people avoid using the service, which could put a strain on public health. |
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| 2015 | ||||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 30 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | To ensure economic sustainability, some have argued for full cost recovery through tariffs, i.e. for water and sanitation service providers to charge full operational costs (and in some cases also construction and rehabilitation) to existing and future users. Where there are sufficient numbers of well-off people compared to those who are unable to pay the full cost of a service, full-cost recovery may be possible, with some cross-subsidization between the former and the latter. However, even in countries with a relatively well-off population, for sanitation services in particular, governments frequently provide significant amounts of public funding in order to make the service financially viable and to protect public health. |
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| 2015 | ||||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 31 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In many developing countries, there are insufficient numbers of people who are well-off to provide a cross-subsidy. In these situations, full cost recovery only through tariffs will not be a feasible option. Public finance may be needed in such instances to ensure affordability for all households. To make such financing available and achieve affordability for all, as a first step States should make better use of budgets already allocated for water and sanitation, specifically to reduce inequalities in access to services. |
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| 2015 | ||||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 32 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | 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. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 33 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Disconnection of services due to an inability to pay for the service is a retrogressive measure and constitutes a violation of the human rights to water and sanitation (Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 15 (2002) (E/C.12/2002/11), para. 44a). Disconnections are only permissible if it can be shown that households are able to pay but are not paying. The South African 1997 Water Services Act states that disconnections may not result in a lack of access to services for non-payment where the individual is unable to pay for basic services. More recently, France adopted the Brottes Law, which prohibits disconnections for inability to pay. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 34 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In some instances, disconnections have taken place on a large scale. For instance, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department has been disconnecting water services with no consideration of whether people are able to pay or not. This led the former Special Rapporteur to state, "when there is genuine inability to pay, human rights simply forbids disconnections", and to demand the residents' immediate reconnection. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 35 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | 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. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 36 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | To ensure affordability for all and a sustainable system, States must develop appropriate pricing, tariff and subsidy structures. In the following section, the report explores how public financing is allocated, and who is likely to benefit from this. The report then seeks to discuss how financing mechanisms can be used to effectively target those groups who rely on these mechanisms to ensure the affordability of services. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 37 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Almost all large-scale water and sanitation systems receive some level of public financing. For sanitation in particular, while it has long been known that the costs of not having access far exceed the actual cost of providing access, it has been hoped that private sector participation would be sufficient to improve access to sanitation. However, more recently, research by the World Bank and others is beginning to show that it is unrealistic for the private sector to fill the service gap alone. States must be the driving force in investments in sanitation, in particular to cover the costs of constructing and maintaining infrastructure, and in some cases also for operation, for example where pit-emptying is prohibitively expensive. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 38 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In many instances, however, public financing is unequally distributed. Middle-class households often benefit from subsidies, both direct subsidies and "hidden" subsidies. Direct subsidies include tax breaks or financial incentives for constructing a toilet, which, when poorly targeted tend to benefit middle-income families. Subsidies are "hidden" when public financing is used to construct infrastructure and services that are intended to be used by all, but in fact are only available to middle- and high-income households. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 39 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Public finance is very common in large-scale piped water and sewerage systems, with governments (and other funders, such as multilateral and bilateral donors) investing significantly in networks, water treatment plants, wastewater treatment plants and trunk sewers. Provided that all households within a city are able to connect to use these services, this may be an efficient approach to ensuring that public finances are used well for water and sanitation service provision, even if it also results in subsidizing service provision for those who would not need such support to ensure affordability. |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 40 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In the majority of developing countries, piped water and sewerage systems are accessible only to a minority of those living in urban areas - and to very few of those living in rural areas. Focusing public finance on networked provision thus disproportionately benefits comparatively better-off households, unless specific action is taken to extend networked provision to all residents. |
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