Monitoring Progress on the Water and Sanitation MDGs: Human Rights and Maximum Available Resources Edward Anderson and Malcolm Langford

The Rights and Resources Critique of the MDGs The Millennium Development Goals have been commonly interpreted and used as national targets. But criticism: from a human rights perspective, the MDGs fail to take into account the more nuanced obligations of State’s under international law. This includes the duty to use the maximum available resources to realise social rights. The result is that the MDGs framework may wrongly reward countries for performance on social rights; favouring middle- income countries and discriminating against poorer countries

Even more concerning since Majority of Poverty now in Middle-Income Countries

Standard Measurements on MDGs Numbers of States ”On Track”

Alternative 1: Have countries accelerated post- 2000? (‘progressively realised’) Fukuda-Parr and Greenstein (2010; 2012)

Alternative 2: Have countries used their maximum available resources? We test performance on two MDG targets and UN-recognised rights, water and sanitation, from the perspective of a country’s maximum available resources. A number of proxy indicators are used to measure resources, including: GDP, dependency ratio, population shares, aid, educational levels and water resources. The relationship between resources and progress on access to water and sanitation is measured for resources at both points in time and for changes over time.

Access to improved water source (%) Mean Mean, pop weighted Minimum Maximum 100 No. of countries

Access to improved sanitation (%) Mean Mean, pop weighted Minimum Maximum 100 No. of countries

Levels: water 12 GDP per capita (US$ PPP)4.1***4.4*** Population1.5***1.7*** Land area-2.3***-2.1*** Urban population (%)0.2***0.1*** Dependency ratio-37.0***-24.3*** Water resources Average years of schooling (ages 15+)-1.2*** No. of observations R2R

Levels: sanitation 12 GDP per capita (US$ PPP)11.9***10.7*** Population1.3**1.9*** Land area-1.9***-3.0*** Urban population (%)0.1***0.1 Dependency ratio-53.9***-24.1*** Water resources-0.9**-0.3 Average years of schooling (ages 15+)-3.1*** No. of observations R2R

Changes: water 12 GDP per capita (US$ PPP)0.7 Population9.9***11.5*** Land area-- Urban population (%)0.2*** Dependency ratio-5.6**-4.4 Water resources- Average years of schooling (ages 15+)--0.1 No. of observations R2R

Changes: sanitation 12 GDP per capita (US$ PPP)1.5***1.9** Population4.0**2.5 Land area-- Urban population (%)0.4*** Dependency ratio-18.3***-12.2*** Water resources- Average years of schooling (ages 15+)-0.2 No. of observations R2R2 0.22

Outliers: water (levels) CountryYearActual access (%) Predicted access (%) Difference Libya Equatorial Guinea Mauritania Madagascar Guinea-Bissau Papua New Guinea Sierra Leone Madagascar Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea

Outliers: sanitation (levels) CountryYearActual access (%) Predicted access (%) Difference Gabon Gabon Gabon Congo, Rep Gabon Ghana Ghana Haiti Bolivia Bolivia

Outliers: water (changes) CountryEnd yearActual change (%) Predicted change (%) Difference West Bank and Gaza Yemen, Rep Algeria Jordan Algeria West Bank and Gaza Yemen, Rep Yemen, Rep Rwanda Sudan

Outliers: sanitation (changes) CountryEnd yearActual change (%) Predicted change (%) Difference Djibouti Jordan Djibouti Haiti Gabon Haiti Haiti Nigeria Liberia Bhutan

Interpretation Government capacity to improve access to water and sanitation depends various factors, including but not limited to GDP per capita By controlling for these indicators using regression analysis we can obtain a better indication of government ‘effort’ or priority attached to water and sanitation Key challenges remain in the choice of capacity indicators The method can however be used to guide more detailed, country- level analysis on progress and government efforts