1. Short Update on the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation
EWP planning meeting
Agnès Montangero
Helvetas
10 January 2011
HELVETAS 1

2. Short Update on the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation
Legal recognition of water and sanitation affirmed by UN
From international agreements into concrete actions
Learning from good practices
Human rights and MDGs
Need for further advocacy 2

3. Legal recognition of water and sanitation
Rights breakthrough: legal recognition of water and sanitation affirmed by UN
September 2010 United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution on Human rights and access to safe drinking water and sanitation
“[T]he UN affirmed [...] by consensus that the right to water and sanitation is derived from the right to an adequate standard of living.” “This means that for the UN, the right to water and sanitation, is contained in existing human rights treaties and is therefore legally binding”. 3

4. How to translate these international agreements into concrete actions?
From international agreements into concrete actions
The challenge
How to translate these international agreements into concrete actions? 4

5. Learning from good practices
The UN independent expert launched a compilation of good practices
A framework for assessing good practices from a human rights perspective:
Normative criteria
Cross-cutting criteria
Availability
Nondiscrimination
Quality/safety
Participation
Acceptability
Accountability
Accessibility
Impact
Affordability
Sustainability 5

6. Learning from good practices
Lessons learnt from some of the good practices….
Clear allocation of responsibilities
Clarifying responsibilities of the different institutions
Effective State oversight and sector regulation
Pro-poor orientation
Policy (focus on disadvantaged groups)
Financial instruments (cross-subsidies, pro-poor water tariff structure)
Empowerment
Increased participation
Ensuring a voice for the disadvantaged (e.g. public audit)
Setting targets and standards
Targets and timelines in the national environmental plan
Standards for minimum water quantity, water quality, maximum distance
Monitoring and accountability mechanisms
Independent regulatory body
Utility customer service approach (complaints mechanisms) 6

7. Human rights and MDGs
Integrating the rights to water and sanitation within MDG monitoring and policy-making can help to make progress towards the MDGs more inclusive and sustainable, while promoting equity, accountability and policy coherence.
MDGs
Human rights
Universal access to water and sanitation
50% reduction
Universal coverage (progressive realisation)
Aligning MDG indicators with normative human rights criteria
Access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
Improved sources (not necessarily safe); improved sanitation (not necessarily treat, dispose or reuse human excreta)
Availability, quality, acceptability, accessibility, and affordability
Non-discrimination – looking beyond averages
“average” or aggregate progress
Disaggregated data are indispensable for detecting and addressing discrimination (race, colour, sex, language, religion, etc.)
Participation and empowerment
Lack of adequate participation of many MDG-based planning processes for water and sanitation
Participation as a way to empower people to challenge existing inequities and to transform power relations (e.g. CLTS)
Strengthening accountability at national and global levels
Help to promote accountability at national and global levels
International human rights commitments provide a wider set of complementary standards and mechanisms for accountability 7

8. Need for further advocacy
…to support the development of concrete actions
Using lessons learnt from good practices
e.g. ensuring the development of pro-poor policies (focusing on disadvantaged people, focusing on participation/empowerment)
Improving aid targeting (focus on poorer countries / communities)
Contributing to MDG debate based on a human rights perspective … 8