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Title | Date added | Template | Original document | Paragraph text | Body | Document type | Thematics | Topic(s) | Person(s) affected | Year |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 13 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | 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. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 17 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | 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. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 19 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | 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. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 20 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | 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. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 25 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | 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. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 26 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | 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. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 27 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | 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. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 28 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | 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. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 29 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | 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. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 40 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | 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. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 42 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Residents of informal settlements often do not enjoy formal service provision, receiving their services from a range of different, often informal and/or small-scale providers or through self-supply. For water services, this can include water kiosks, water vendors that come to a user's home, as well as piped water delivered to the household. For sanitation, there is an even larger range of types of service, from no service at all through substandard pit latrines (seldom emptied and often overflowing) to shared or community-level toilets, to connections to a rudimentary sewage system, where wastes are not treated, to small-scale sewage systems with adequate treatment plants. Given this range of services that exists outside the formal system, any pricing, subsidy or tariff system can seem irrelevant to an often substantial part of the population. In many cities, tariff structures, subsidy systems or other special measures are only accessible for households with a formal address or to a registered household or individual. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 46 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | More generally, Community-Led Total Sanitation encourages community support and assistance from better-off households to people living in greater poverty. Yet many communities are not a coherent whole; there are entrenched power asymmetries and inequalities. People not only experience different levels of poverty and deprivation, but may be marginalized on grounds of ethnicity, caste or other factors. There may be instances where community support is not forthcoming. In other instances, people may feel that they have to rely on the charitable benevolence of others rather than feel entitled to the realization of their right to sanitation. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 49 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | 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. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 50 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | One option is seeking to develop truly universal systems that include everyone. Any such universal system for distributing public finance would include people who do not need such funding to access services. This raises questions in terms of the most appropriate use of available resources. Yet this needs to be carefully balanced against the risk of being under-inclusive and leaving out parts of populations that do rely on subsidies to ensure the affordability of services. Any type of targeting risks not reaching the people who are most in need. As a general principle, from the perspective of human rights, unintended exclusion is far more serious than unintended inclusion. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 53 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | 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. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 55 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | In all cases, it is critical that any sort of public financing is transparent, clearly explained and widely promoted to ensure that those entitled to it receive it, to reduce the scope of corruption, and to analyse whether the mechanism has been effective. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 57 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | 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. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 61 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | A broader mechanism for achieving access to water and sanitation services for people living in poverty is to put in place "social protection floors". These are nationally defined basic social security guarantees that ensure access to essential services, including water and sanitation, as well as providing basic income security to those in need. Human Rights Council resolution 28/12 of 9 April 2015 acknowledged "that social protection floors may facilitate the enjoyment of human rights… safe drinking water and sanitation, in accordance with the human rights obligations of States" and encouraged "States to put in place social protection floors as part of comprehensive social protection systems" (A/HRC/RES/28/12, paras. 6 and 8). Social protection floors can be particularly relevant for achieving gender equality and protecting marginalized or disadvantaged individuals and groups. At the national level, for instance, Cambodia has made support for sanitation and water in times of emergency and crisis a key intervention under the National Social Protection Strategy for the Poor and Vulnerable. In Mexico, the federal budget for social spending, which contributes to building a social protection floor, includes water supply and sewerage. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 72 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | In determining mechanisms for allocating public financing and setting tariffs, participation, access to information and an active role in decision-making are essential. Such decisions translate into the prioritization of resource allocation. Most important from the perspective of human rights is that such participation includes the most marginalized and disadvantaged individuals and groups to ensure that measures are taken that actually reach the ones most in need of public financing. This relates to decisions at the national level concerning overall resource allocation as well as decisions at the local level, including on the prioritization between different parts of a municipality to ensure citywide service provision, including in informal settlements. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 75 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | The discussion on ensuring affordability has repeatedly pointed out the crucial role of regulation and monitoring. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 76 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | 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". | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 79 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Above all, regulation of informal and small-scale service provision should assist in increasing access to water and sanitation for poor and marginalized households, and not hinder such access. Formalization and regulation of informal service provision must pay due attention to the impact of this process on levels of access, affordability and quality of service provision. Where States seek to replace informal service provision with formal providers, they must ensure that people can actually afford these alternatives and do not experience retrogression in the realization of their human rights. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 80 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Monitoring affordability is essential for assessing whether standards are being met, and whether people in fact have access to affordable services. Unless efforts are made to monitor whether services are affordable for all, States and service providers alike will struggle to provide appropriate support to individuals and households that may have difficulties in paying for services. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 84 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | In terms of global monitoring, there are heightened challenges due to data gathering and comparability. The proposed goal 6.1 of the Sustainable Development Goals explicitly refers to achieving affordable drinking water for all, hence calling for including the criterion of affordability in global monitoring. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 87d | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | [The Special Rapporteur offers the following recommendations. States should take the following measures:] Set affordability standards at the national and/or local level, based on a participatory process, involving in particular people living in poverty and other marginalized and disadvantaged individuals and groups, that consider all costs associated with water, sanitation and hygiene; | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 87g | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | [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; | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 88 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | In addition, the Special Rapporteur encourages the treaty bodies and other human rights monitoring mechanisms to pay increasing attention to the affordability of water and sanitation service provision in the particular contexts people live in. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 89 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | The Special Rapporteur encourages States and international organizations to further explore options for global monitoring that allow for more comprehensive monitoring of affordable access to services. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2015 | ||
Common violations of the human rights to water and sanitation 2014, para. 13 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | During the drafting of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the debates about the scope of violations of economic, social and cultural rights were definitively resolved. Initial proposals for a narrow concept of violations based on deliberate State "interference" or known failures to provide minimum essential levels of those rights were rejected. It was recognized that realizing the rights of the most disadvantaged relies also on addressing violations resulting from failures to take positive steps. States are obliged to progressively realize rights by applying "maximum available resources" and by prioritizing essential levels of access to the most marginalized. Ultimately, States have the obligation to fully realize the rights to water and sanitation by ensuring access to sufficient, safe, acceptable, accessible and affordable water and sanitation services for all. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2014 | ||
Common violations of the human rights to water and sanitation 2014, para. 14 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Ensuring access to justice for victims of a State's failure to meet any of its obligations is critical to guaranteeing that judicial and quasi-judicial mechanisms do not reinforce patterns of systemic inequality and deprivation, or exclude some of the most egregious human rights violations. The Optional Protocols to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities provide that any failure to comply with human rights obligations, including obligations to progressively realize economic, social and cultural rights, constitutes a violation. | Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation | Special Procedures' report |
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| 2014 |