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Development cooperation in the water and sanitation sector 2016, para. 57
- Paragraph text
- In order to effectively incorporate the human rights to water and sanitation in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, particularly with respect to development cooperation, an adequate architecture must be established to assist in the formulation, guidance, management and support of the development agenda. That architecture should ideally place the normative content of the human rights to water and sanitation at the centre of the specific processes related to Goal 6 overall and targets 6.1 and 6.2 specifically. The Panel should be acutely aware of the need to base its recommendations in human rights principles and the normative content of the human rights to water and sanitation, as outlined in the present report. In so doing, the Panel should be able to duly address concerns raised by civil society organizations regarding the possible propensity to predominantly favour a business-oriented approach to the sector. The establishment of an entity with greater openness and a wider plurality of stakeholders and viewpoints is essential to successfully introducing the human rights to water and sanitation into development cooperation and to achieving the water and sanitation-related goals of the 2030 Agenda.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Sustainability and non-retrogression in the realisation of the rights to water and sanitation 2013, para. 42
- Paragraph text
- While support and participation of donors and NGOs in water and sanitation service delivery is welcome, there are challenges to sustainability when they become service providers and questions of accountability and transparency arise. A key risk to sustainability is the fact that few NGOs provide services on a permanent or long-term basis. Most usually disengage from projects after a certain period, which may have negative impacts on the long-term viability of services if no proper sustainability strategy is put in place. Even with the best of intentions, these systems may be responding to immediate and concrete needs to the detriment of building a system that can remain functional over time. While providing immediate access is important, it is equally central to guarantee long-term operation and maintenance, and to plan with government and communities for phased exits and local ownership. The lack of long-term focus has been linked to a lack of political incentives, particularly for donors, to put resources towards maintaining existing infrastructure, over building new ones that give better visibility for their investment and support.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Stigma and the realization of the human rights to water and sanitation 2012, para. 44
- Paragraph text
- Human dignity is the foundation of all human rights. The International Covenants on Human Rights proclaim that the rights enshrined therein derive from the inherent dignity of the human person. Human dignity is an intrinsic and universal quality of the human person. Behaviour and activities that violate human dignity can include activities or statements that "demean and humiliate individuals or groups because of their origins, status or beliefs", as well as negative stereotyping that implies that members of a particular group are inferior. Stigma is, by its demeaning and degrading nature, antithetical to the very idea of human dignity. Stigma as a process of devaluation, of making some people "lesser" and others "greater", is inconsistent with human dignity, which is premised on notions of the inherent equality and worthiness of the human person. It undermines human dignity, thereby laying the groundwork for violations of human rights. Human dignity is closely linked to the realization of the human rights to water and sanitation, and to various related rights such as non-discrimination, the right to be free from inhuman or degrading treatment, and the right to privacy.
- 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
- All
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Integrating non-discrimination and equality into the post-2015 development agenda for water, sanitation and hygiene 2012, para. 39
- Paragraph text
- The Special Rapporteur is of the view that a forward-looking post-2015 development agenda must be ambitious. It must tackle disparities and emphasize non-discrimination and equality as core principles. This view is shared increasingly by States, United Nations entities, development actors and civil society organizations. This comes from practical evidence found on the ground. Appallingly, much of the progress made since 2000 has left the most marginalized in a similar situation. Indeed, many agree that the current set of Millennium Development Goals, which focus on average progress, has masked the inequalities that lie behind these averages, thus requiring a new method of measuring progress. According to the United Nations Development Group, inequalities have been identified as one of only nine major areas for consultation at the global level. This sentiment is widely shared by those working in the water and sanitation sectors, agreeing that "concerns of non-discrimination and equity related to fulfilling the right to access water and sanitation should be reflected in future indicators".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Right to health in early childhood - Right to survival and development 2015, para. 9
- Paragraph text
- Low birth weight, lack of breastfeeding, undernutrition, overcrowded living conditions, indoor air pollution, unsafe drinking water and food and poor hygiene practices are the main immediate risk factors for pneumonia and diarrhoea. However, while such diseases are proximate causes of death and are duly reflected in statistics, poverty and inequalities are the root causes, or underlying social determinants. Poverty increases young children's exposure to risks such as poor nutrition, violence, inadequate sanitation, lower levels of maternal education, inadequate stimulation in the home, increased maternal stress and depression and, at the same time, limits access to health and other services. In 2013 the under-5 mortality rate in low-income countries was more than 12 times the average rate in high-income countries. There are also significant disparities in under-5 mortality and morbidity within countries, driven by poverty, gender and other inequalities. Low levels of literacy and poor access to education among women correlate strongly with high rates of under-5 mortality.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Health
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Women
- Youth
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Development cooperation and the human rights to water and sanitation 2017, para. 77
- Paragraph text
- Process assessment should encompass the variety of measures performed throughout project implementation with a basis in upholding human rights standards. Examples include ensuring the active and meaningful participation of all stakeholders and providing access to transparent information. Process assessment is especially crucial to situating development cooperation projects in a broader context. In this sense, UNICEF urges partner States to include a “narrative” aspect, which cannot be reflected in reporting mechanisms based on quantitative standards, as it helps to nuance apparently positive or negative results. However, the use of narratives is generally less common among funders and could help to give more substance to quantitative indicators. For instance, Japan has set a target to build capacity for 1,750 professionals working in water supply in Africa. Yet the specific content of such interventions is not defined, nor does it interact with a subsequent outcome indicator. Specifically, it is not possible to assess the nature of the training imparted to the professionals and related improvements to service provision as a result of the training.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 61
- Paragraph text
- 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.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Development cooperation and the human rights to water and sanitation 2017, para. 62
- Paragraph text
- Achieving behavioural change in beneficiaries and institutions and creating awareness on safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene services are fundamental to ensuring transformative development and sustainable water and sanitation projects. Yet efforts to achieve those objectives are seriously limited by time-based constraints that are common in development cooperation projects. The usual time frame for the full cycle of project implementation is from three to five years at most. A combination of several factors make such time frames too short to guarantee effective capacity-strengthening and lasting behavioural change. Ensuring the continuity of measures initially funded through development cooperation, especially those related to project management, may be a determinant in guaranteeing projects’ medium- to long-term sustainability. Several projects assessed revealed that funding was allocated to deploy local activists or community workers tasked with raising awareness on hygiene and encouraging local participation in user associations. However, those projects did not contain conditions or mechanisms that would ensure continuous support for those functions after the project terminated.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing of persons with disabilities 2017, para. 15
- Paragraph text
- Institutionalization is a clear example of how violations of the right to housing occur when disability is misconstrued as a medical condition. Removing persons with disabilities from the general population and subjecting them to isolation and extreme social control is rationalized on the basis that they are being provided with “treatment” or “care”. Institutionalization often combines the worst living conditions with severe deprivation of liberty and cruel and inhuman treatment, including physical and sexual abuse. Conditions are invariably overcrowded, with limited or no access to sanitation and hygiene facilities, as has been documented in countries including Guatemala, Indonesia and Mexico. Residents in institutions and institution-like settings are often precluded from having outside social or family relations and deprived of choices about activities, social relationships, sexuality and identity. Persons with psychosocial or intellectual disabilities are at highest risk of being institutionalized forcefully and, outside formal institutions, are often subjected to extreme levels of institution-like control in privately operated rooming houses or “halfway” houses.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Health
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- Persons with disabilities
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Service regulation and human rights to water and sanitation 2017, para. 54
- Paragraph text
- The regulatory framework must provide a contextual meaning of the social and cultural acceptability of water and sanitation facilities. This cannot be done in a meaningful way without the genuine participation of those who use the services. While water should be of an acceptable colour, odour and taste for each personal or domestic use, these are highly subjective parameters, and perceptions of these characteristics depend on local culture, education and experience. Personal sanitation is a highly sensitive issue across regions and cultures, and differing perspectives about which sanitation solutions are acceptable must be taken into account when designing, positioning, and setting conditions for the use of sanitation facilities (see A/70/203, para. 13). Regulations should stipulate that facilities need to allow for acceptable hygiene practices in specific cultures, such as anal and genital cleansing, and menstrual hygiene (see A/HRC/12/24, para. 80). Acceptability often requires separate facilities for women and men in public spaces, and for girls and boys in schools, which should be reflected in regulatory frameworks. Regulation should play an essential role in ensuring that toilets are constructed in a way that safeguards privacy and dignity.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- Boys
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Service regulation and human rights to water and sanitation 2017, para. 22
- Paragraph text
- The instruments delegating service provision, including contracts, must reflect the national regulatory framework and human rights standards. This means that these instruments should include a clear definition of the human rights responsibilities of service providers, coverage targets to eliminate inequalities in access, sufficient provision for participation, access to information and mechanisms for accountability. While ensuring this, non-State service providers are also expected to respect human rights. To that end, they must exercise due diligence to become aware of and address any potential impact on the realization of the human rights to water and sanitation, including by analysing the proposed delegating instruments from a human rights perspective (see A/HRC/15/31, para. 38), and where appropriate by undertaking human rights impact assessments. The General Assembly has recently called upon non-State actors, including business enterprises, to comply with their responsibility to respect the human rights to water and sanitation, including by cooperating with State investigations into allegations of abuses of these rights, and by progressively engaging with States to detect and remedy such abuses (see General Assembly resolution 70/169, para. 6).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Service regulation and human rights to water and sanitation 2017, para. 11
- Paragraph text
- The obligation to fulfil has three components: the obligation to facilitate, the obligation to promote and the obligation to provide. The obligation to facilitate requires States to take positive regulatory measures to create an enabling environment for service providers to respect the human rights to water and sanitation as well as to contribute towards the full realization of these rights. Facilitating measures include not only according recognition of these rights within national policies and legal frameworks and adopting national strategies and plans of actions to realize them, but also setting service standards for service providers to comply with, in line with the normative content of the human rights to water and sanitation, monitoring service providers’ compliance with the established standards, and exercising regulatory functions, directly or through a separate body. For example, where, due to a lack of regulation, access to water and sanitation facilities is either not available or inadequate in public buildings, such as schools, prisons or hospitals, or where people living in informal settlements are left with no option but to resort to unregulated informal services, the State is in breach of its obligation to facilitate.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Gender equality in the realization of the human rights to water and sanitation 2016, para. 57
- Paragraph text
- Although the pivotal role of women as providers and users of water, as well as the need to equip and empower women to participate at all levels in water resources programmes, has long been recognized, it is mostly men who manage and control the water services, resources, wastewater and solid waste industries at all levels. The integration of women into these types of jobs can contribute to gender mainstreaming throughout the sector and to services being managed from the perspective of women. Women's participation in the sector can be encouraged by developing policies and strategies, including on education, with defined targets and timelines. As a good example, in the National Drinking Water Policy of Pakistan it is outlined that special efforts will be made to recruit and induct women in water supply-related institutions and other relevant agencies to ensure that the needs of women are adequately addressed in the design, operation and maintenance of water supply systems. Aquafed and the Women for Water Partnership have reported that they are working together with companies and water associations to develop employment policies that aim to increase the representation of women in their staff and to remove prejudices against female employees.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Gender equality in the realization of the human rights to water and sanitation 2016, para. 52
- Paragraph text
- Adequate water and sanitation services, including menstrual hygiene facilities, must be accessible in the workplace, without hindrance, for all employees, in a manner that corresponds with their gender identity. The Special Rapporteur has noted that there is an urgent need to recognize and address the currently neglected lack of facilities that allow for adequate sanitation and menstrual hygiene management for women and girls in the workplace. Women and girls risk their health or miss out on workdays when such facilities are lacking. For example, 60 per cent of all women working in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia work in the agriculture sector and their workplace often does not include facilities that would allow them to manage their sanitation and menstruation, or those facilities are located far away from the place of work. Regulations often do not apply to women working in the informal sector, and women working in public spaces such as markets often have no access to facilities altogether. In the manufacturing industry and in dense urban areas, women and girls sometimes work in overcrowded spaces where privacy is limited and sanitation facilities and spaces are inadequate to manage their menstruation.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Development cooperation in the water and sanitation sector 2016, para. 72
- Paragraph text
- Owing to a lack of expertise or the use of inappropriate technology, water and sanitation infrastructure provided through development cooperation may not be well-maintained or well-operated, making it necessary to provide further funding for education and training. Capacity-building is key to ensuring the sustainability of investments and a human rights-based approach should be adopted in this respect. Doing so would involve the main stakeholders directly and indirectly concerned in the adequate provision of services and strengthening their ability to perform tasks and produce outputs, collectively define and solve problems and make informed choices. Other forms of cooperation, such as public-public partnerships, which are absent from the policies of most international funders, can respond effectively to that need. In that context, it is noteworthy that a petition to the European Commission with 1.9 million signatures that was ultimately endorsed by the European Parliament called for the adoption of a human rights approach to development cooperation based on not-for-profit principles and solidarity among water operators and authorities, including capacity-building partnerships aimed at improving the quality of water services.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Development cooperation in the water and sanitation sector 2016, para. 69
- Paragraph text
- Funders must face those challenges head-on to create proper arrangements to ensure that funding actually reaches its destination, thereby effectively generating benefit for the poor and realizing the human rights to water and sanitation.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Development cooperation in the water and sanitation sector 2016, para. 20
- Paragraph text
- Nevertheless, the overall global increase in funding to the sector masks significant annual variations in disbursed funds and funding modalities. Regarding funding commitments, for the 2010-2012 period, 41 per cent of aid commitments were grants and 59 per cent were concessional loans. In addition, critical reviews of development cooperation flows indicate that the available data on those flows may be fragmented at best. That could be due in part to a lack of collaboration between funders to provide consolidated, reliable, accurate and disaggregated data. Regarding disaggregation, the majority of development projects registered in the relevant database of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), accounting for more than half of the amount of funds dedicated to the sector, do not clearly indicate, for example, whether rural or urban areas have been targeted. Considering the markedly lower levels of access to adequate water and sanitation services in rural areas compared with urban areas, that information gap indicates a need for improved reporting by Member States. Another noteworthy source of data inaccuracy is the non-inclusion of important interventions in informal settlements because those are considered to be part of so-called "slum/squatter upgrading".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 85
- Paragraph text
- For households that receive water and sanitation through utilities, data is available through the International Benchmarking Network for Water and Sanitation Utilities, which includes data on water tariffs charged by a significant number of utilities. Beyond such existing initiatives, a review of potential indicators demonstrates the complexity of monitoring affordability. Determining and monitoring the costs of non-networked supply and including them into measures of affordability is particularly challenging, but essential from the perspective of human rights. Focusing solely on utility tariffs bears the risk of severely underestimating expenses and would paint an overly positive picture of affordability that only captures the better-off, while neglecting the very real challenges that the most disadvantaged people and communities face in accessing water and sanitation. This review shows that monitoring affordability in its complexity (including water, sanitation and hygiene access expenditure) is feasible, but would require a combination and analysis of data from different sources. The Special Rapporteur encourages States and international organizations to explore these options further to ensure more comprehensive monitoring of the affordability of access to services.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 74
- Paragraph text
- Participatory budgeting is increasingly common in municipalities across the world, enabling residents to agree on the budget priorities of local government. Such processes have often contributed to improving basic service provision, including water and sanitation.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Different levels and types of services and the human rights to water and sanitation 2015, para. 12
- Paragraph text
- Use of sanitation facilities and services must be available at a price that is affordable to all people (see A/HRC/30/39). This must include all associated costs, ranging from regular tariffs to connection fees in the case of networked provision, to costs of on-site solutions such as the construction or maintenance of pit latrines and septic tanks. There are often costs that go unrecognized when planning for technical solutions. For example, on-site technologies may require regular maintenance, including the emptying of pits or septic tanks and the sludge management. Sanitation based on a flush toilet generally requires payment for additional quantities of water. Paying for these services must not limit people's capacity to acquire other basic goods and services guaranteed by human rights, such as the right to food, housing, health and education. Affordability does not necessarily require services to be provided free of charge. People are generally expected to contribute according to their means. However, when people are unable, for reasons beyond their control, to access sanitation through their own means, the State is obliged to find solutions for ensuring their access to sanitation free of charge.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Common violations of the human rights to water and sanitation 2014, para. 76
- Paragraph text
- While courts in many jurisdictions are amenable to litigation challenging human rights violations, access to justice should not generally rely on litigation. States must ensure that water and sanitation services are provided within a context of clear rules. They must adopt measures to prevent human rights violations, for instance through carrying out human rights impact assessments. Where violations are being alleged, dispute and complaint mechanisms should be available with the aim of resolving issues quickly and efficiently. Where human rights violations are not adequately addressed, individuals must be able to proceed to court. Being able to turn to the courts - as a last resort - is an essential component of ensuring access to justice. Violations of the rights to water and sanitation have generally been dealt with more effectively in States where constitutional and legislative protections guarantee that those rights are directly or indirectly justiciable. In States where this is not yet the case, courts and governments should be guided by international developments and recognize the rights to water and sanitation as justiciable. Governments should promote the use of international law in interpreting domestic law.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Common violations of the human rights to water and sanitation 2014, para. 49
- Paragraph text
- The obligation to ensure minimum essential levels of water and sanitation is considered an immediate obligation. However, huge numbers of people lack access to even basic services, and more than one billion people practise open defecation. Where a State has the capacity and resources to ensure minimum essential levels of rights, this obligation must be met immediately. In many instances, it can be achieved with a redistribution of resources and comprehensive strategies and plans aimed at achieving universal access. However, the human rights framework does not demand the impossible. There are situations where States lack the capacity to ensure access to basic services for all immediately. In such circumstances, human rights law requires that addressing such massive deprivations related to the minimum essential levels of the rights to water and sanitation be accorded the highest priority. A State "must demonstrate that every effort has been made to use all resources that are at its disposition in an effort to satisfy, as a matter of priority, those minimum obligations". Hence, where minimum essential levels are not ensured, the State is, prima facie, violating human rights, and it bears the burden of proof to demonstrate that it lacks the capacity to do so.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Common violations of the human rights to water and sanitation 2014, para. 39
- Paragraph text
- A seminal decision on the obligation to progressively realize socioeconomic rights is that taken in the Grootboom case, in which the Constitutional Court of South Africa considered the plight of a community lacking basic shelter, sanitation facilities and access to clean water. To determine whether the State had complied with the obligation of progressive realization, the Court applied a standard of "reasonableness". It held that a reasonable programme must: be comprehensive, coherent and coordinated; be capable of facilitating the realization of the right; prioritize the needs of those in the most desperate situations; make appropriate financial and human resources available; be balanced and flexible; make appropriate provision for short-, medium- and long-term needs; be reasonably conceived and implemented; and be transparent. Through that approach, the Court clarified that, while it is the role of the Government to determine precise policies and programmes, it is the proper role of courts to assess whether policies and programmes are in compliance with human rights. In Grootboom, the Court found that the State's programmes failed to address as a priority the circumstances of those in the most desperate situations, and required the Government to take measures to correct this.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Common violations of the human rights to water and sanitation 2014, para. 16
- Paragraph text
- In its general comment No. 15 (2003) on the right to water, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights builds on a comprehensive understanding of violations, applying the categories of human rights obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the right to water. While the Committee has not yet adopted a general comment on the right to sanitation, it has issued a formal statement recognizing that similar obligations apply, following an approach taken by the Special Rapporteur in her 2009 report to the Council. The present report applies this framework and develops a typology of common violations of the rights to water and sanitation. In addition to the obligations to respect, protect and fulfil, it puts a particular emphasis on equality and non-discrimination, as well as on participation, and also examines extraterritorial obligations. The latter obligations cut across the "respect, protect, fulfil" framework. This typology is not proposed as a rigid classification, being utilized as a framework for surveying the range of violations which must be addressed, with inevitable overlaps in the categories. What is most important is to ensure that no type of violation is ignored and that no victim is denied access to effective remedies.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Participation in the realization of the human rights to water and sanitation 2014, para. 82
- Paragraph text
- One approach to participation in this area is participatory geographic information systems, which rely on maps. They merge technical spatial information with a local community's location-specific knowledge, often producing rich data including on land use, water sources, differentiated access to resources and sites of actual or potential environmental hazards. For instance, OpenStreetMap initiatives in informal settlements in Nairobi have generated detailed data, indicating how many households share a toilet, whether there are gender-specific toilets, whether the toilets have disability access and whether the toilets provide sanitary bins for women. Such data provide a powerful tool for monitoring trends and patterns of neglect or underinvestment. They can also provide a baseline, which becomes useful in monitoring the environmental impact of extractive industries, for instance, leading to demands for remedial action. Communities have also used self enumeration, popularized by Shack/Slum Dwellers International, to collect data. It has been an effective tool for countering the view that it is impossible to plan for service provision in informal settlements because of a lack of reliable data.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Equality & Inclusion
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Sustainability and non-retrogression in the realisation of the rights to water and sanitation 2013, para. 36
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- Often States fail to adopt a tariff structure which is both affordable and promotes enough revenue to ensure financial sustainability. In most urban public water systems, charges often barely cover the recurrent costs of operation and maintenance, leaving little or no funds to recover the capital costs of modernization and expansion. A survey of such systems in 132 cities in high-, middle- and low-income countries found that 39 per cent did not recover even their operation and maintenance costs. The impact of decreased spending then threatens the sustainability of water systems as lack of reinvestment leads to deterioration of the system and leakages, and the low level of investment in the water sector hampers growth. In rural areas neglect of operation and maintenance budgets and cost recovery contribute to widespread non-functionality. Accessibility and quality are compromised because of limitations on services, lack of expansion and lack of maintenance. Affordability is also affected because funds that would have been available before the financial downturn have been decreased or reallocated, and therefore prices to the user increase to cover the shortfall.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Wastewater management in the realization of the rights to water and sanitation 2013, para. 20
- Paragraph text
- In 2010, the human right to water and sanitation was explicitly recognized by the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council, and is guaranteed as a component of the human right to an adequate standard of living. The Special Rapporteur, in her capacity as an independent expert on the issue of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation, defined sanitation from a human rights perspective as a system for the collection, transport, treatment and disposal or reuse of human excreta and associated hygiene. The Special Rapporteur has stated that States must ensure without discrimination that everyone has physical and economic access to sanitation, in all spheres of life, which is safe, hygienic, secure, socially and culturally acceptable, provides privacy and ensures dignity. She further considers that domestic wastewater, which flows from toilets, sinks and showers, should be included in the description of sanitation insofar as water regularly contains human excreta and the by-products of the associated hygiene (see A/HRC/12/24, paras. 63 and 87). The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights endorsed this definition at its forty-fifth session in its statement on the right to sanitation. (E/C.12/2010/1).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Wastewater management in the realization of the rights to water and sanitation 2013, para. 53
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- Water and wastewater management is often entrusted to large and powerful "hydrocracies" that are trained for, and have vested interests in, large infrastructure. Many administrations and funding agencies favour sewer networks and sewage treatment plants over more decentralized systems. Such preferences should be contrasted with the institutional framework for faecal sludge management: often there are no clear institutional responsibilities for wastewater management beyond sewerage networks. This gap is exacerbated in informal settlements that lack legal land tenure, which, where sanitation facilities exist at all, tend to be served largely by septic tanks and pit latrines. Municipalities often deliberately avoid providing formal services in those areas because they fear legitimizing informal settlements. Legislative frameworks must assign institutional responsibilities for wastewater and, more specifically, faecal sludge management. The challenges in informal settlements are among the most urgent. As a short-term solution, non-governmental organizations have acted as intermediaries between municipalities and users to allow people to gain access to services before a more long-term solution is found.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Wastewater management in the realization of the rights to water and sanitation 2013, para. 32
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- During her country missions, the Special Rapporteur has constantly witnessed challenges in the operation and management of septic tanks and the disposal of septage, giving rise to severe challenges for the realization of human rights. On site sanitation solutions have been promoted as a way for people to quickly "gain access to sanitation" without giving due regard to what happens when pits fill up. Often, tanks are not properly maintained and pollutants leak into groundwater and environment, impairing the health of neighbouring residents or those depending on shallow aquifers. Once the tanks are full, they need to be emptied. This process of emptying, collection and transportation usually lacks regulation, control and accountability, resulting in contents being dumped by collection trucks relatively close by, into waterways or the larger environment, adjacent to locations where people live, farm, fish or work. Trucks serving a given municipality are often not sufficient to meet the demand. Moreover, poor households, in order to avoid periodically hiring unaffordable trucks, might divert the water overflowing from their tanks leading to continued exposure and health risks.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Stigma and the realization of the human rights to water and sanitation 2012, para. 28
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- The silencing effect of stigma is pronounced in relation to prisoners, who are often forgotten and neglected. Prison conditions, including concerning water and sanitation, are notoriously substandard in many parts of the world. The Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment has noted that in many countries "authorities simply do not regard it as their responsibility to provide detainees with the most basic services necessary for survival, let alone for a dignified existence or ... an 'adequate standard of living' " (A/64/215 and Corr.1, para. 43). In one country he found that "it is the task of [the detainees'] families to bring them water in plastic bottles and food in plastic bags. Since there are no toilets, they must use the same bottles to urinate and the plastic bags to defecate" (ibid.). In another country he was confronted with "detainees [using] the water in the toilets for drinking" (ibid., para. 44). There is often a perception that prisoners "deserve" inadequate services and that scarce resources should not be used to improve prison conditions. The stigmatization of prisoners results in low priority given to their needs and a failure to meet basic 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
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
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