Statement of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation: United Nations General Assembly Plenary Meeting on the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation

New York, 27 July 2011

Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for the invitation to participate in this important meeting. It is indeed an honour and a pleasure to be here with you today in order to examine the progress achieved as well as the remaining challenges for the implementation of General Assembly (GA) resolution 64/292 in the context of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

When, exactly one year ago, after the historic GA vote on the rights to water and sanitation, journalists asked me about the impact of the recognition of these human rights, I immediately remembered the wise words by Eleanor Roosevelt who said that “human rights begin in small places, close to home” and “unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere”.

Hence today as we gather to celebrate the first anniversary of the resolution we must ask ourselves these same questions: Will this resolution have any impact on the lives of the billions of people without access to safe water and sanitation? Will it help to prevent the roughly 1.5 million child deaths that occur each year due to water and sanitation related diseases? Will it lead to improvements in schools where water is lacking and girls drop out because there are no sex segregated toilets? Will it help to change the situation in hospitals that are without water and sanitation and face high rates of maternal mortality?

An example of the billions of people suffering from lack of safe water and sanitation are the situations of Fahtma and John. I met Fahtma and her daughters in one of my country missions. They had to walk for hours every day to fetch water. They could not work or attend school, because much of the day was spent in this task. The family often suffered from diarrhoea and one friend had almost been raped the day before I met them, while walking to fetch water. I also met John, a homeless man, during another one of my missions. The public restrooms in his city had been shut down. John became, as he put it, the “sanitation technician” for the local homeless community. He improvised a toilet inside a tent, where people would defecate into plastic bags. John would then collect and carry away the faeces on his bike, trying to find an open toilet where he could empty them.

These human rights violations must be stopped. General Assembly resolution 64/292 must serve as a guide for putting an end to the suffering of all the Fahtmas and Johns. Am I expecting too much from a General Assembly resolution when I expect it to have a tangible impact in people’s lives? I don’t think so. Challenges are and will remain great, but experiences already taking place around the world show that the recognition of water and sanitation as human rights can truly make a difference.

Mr President,

What has the recognition of the right to water and sanitation achieved?

When both this Assembly and the Human Rights Council adopted resolutions recognizing water and sanitation as fundamental human rights, States undertook very clear commitments. They recognized that water and sanitation are derived from the right to an adequate standard of living and must be available in sufficient quantity, and be accessible, safe, affordable and culturally acceptable to all, without discrimination.

These resolutions raised political attention and helped to create the sense of urgency that is badly needed to improve access to water and sanitation around the world, entailing a new vision for the world we live in. A world where everyone has access to safe water and sanitation. A world where people do not get sick from the water they drink or make other people sick because they are forced to defecate in the open. A world where people do not have to choose between taking their child to the doctor and paying their water bills.

This new vision requires a shift in the mindset of policy-makers, national governments, local authorities, NGOs, UN agencies, the private sector and also of the people themselves. It means that the most vulnerable, the poorest, the indigenous, the slum dwellers and the homeless, those who are usually voiceless, are no longer left behind and have to be prioritized in policy making.

This new vision means that access to safe drinking water and sanitation is not a gesture of charity or simply a good idea for policy makers. Unlike human rights, good ideas are subject to changing political currents. Good ideas are not legally binding.

Does this mean that human rights ignore the resource limitations every State may face or the impact of crisis? Of course it doesn’t. By recognizing the rights to water and sanitation, States are expected to take deliberate steps to progressively realise these rights making maximum use of available resources, while putting an end to all forms of discrimination in the access to water and sanitation - and a lot of progress can be made even within a climate of limited resources. Some of these steps are, for example, the recognition of these rights in national legislation and the adoption of national plans of action for the realisation of the rights to water and sanitation, putting the priority on un-served and under-served communities so as to provide a minimal level of access for everyone.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Since the explicit recognition of the right to water and sanitation last year, I have been receiving repeated requests for help from governments, NGOs, service providers, and UN agencies who want to implement the human rights to water and sanitation, but need assistance and guidance in doing so.

Over the past 3 years, I have been collecting good practices. I have received over 200 submissions from the five continents and I will present a compendium to the Human Rights Council in September. These practices cover a diverse array demonstrating that there is no single path and showing that the realisation of the rights to water and sanitation is within reach.

Let me share some examples. One is the arborloo ecological type of toilet introduced in different countries, including Malawi, which aims at composting directly the faeces in a pit, and to grow subsequently a fruit tree on this very fertile soil. Selling the fruit becomes a way for the arborloo owner to make money to pay for this sanitation solution.

National legal instruments are also important tools for the protection of the right to water. In a recent court decision in Botswana, for example, indigenous communities who were evicted from their land and saw their water borehole dismantled successfully brought suit under the country’s Water Act. The appellate court, informed inter alia by the General Assembly resolution, noted that the Water Law allowed anyone occupying land to drill boreholes for domestic use without a specific water right.

At the global level, I am glad that thanks to my mandate’s cooperation with the WHO, the UN-Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water (GLAAS) Report, a global tool in the assessments of policies and financing flows in the sector, will include next year more information related to issues such as national recognition and the justiciability of the rights to water and sanitation as well as public participation and non-discrimination. Also, UNICEF’s and WHO’s Joint Monitoring Programme, which reviews progress in the achievement of MDG targets related to access to water and sanitation, is working closely with me in the development of new indicators that will take into account human rights criteria. I am leading a task-force charged with developing indicators to measure non-discrimination and equality in the access to safe water and sanitation.

In this context, let me call on all UN Member States to apply the human rights to water and sanitation framework when negotiating the post 2015 global development agenda. Why is this crucial? Because the current MDG framework does not measure the impact of discrimination on access to water and sanitation. Hence a State can be an “MDG hero” while having left unchanged the fate of indigenous people, or slum-dwellers, or people with disabilities. Furthermore, as I speak now, water quality is not being monitored world-wide. Affordability of and the distance to water and sanitation services are not being assessed. The harsh reality is that we simply don’t know how many people have access to water and sanitation that meets the standards stipulated by the human rights framework of availability, quality, accessibility, affordability, and acceptability. Now and long after the MDG timeframe has expired, the global development agenda must be aligned with the human rights commitments undertaken by this same Assembly.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The lessons I learned over the last 3 years while conducting missions and meeting communities and policy makers that work to improve access to water and sanitation demonstrate that these rights are within reach. This is true even in countries or communities with very limited resources, even in situations of emergency.

Of course, numerous challenges remain, including financial and purely technical obstacles. However, I must emphasize that political will and sound management continue to play the most decisive role in the expansion of access to water and sanitation of good quality.

In this spirit, I conclude by calling on all relevant stakeholders – including States, UN agencies, donors, civil society and the private sector – to use the human rights framework in all their efforts - national and global - to ensure access to water and sanitation for all. The point of departure provided by the recognition of the human rights to water and sanitation both by this Assembly and the Human Rights Council is a vital tool in this endeavour. By applying this framework, results of interventions will be better, outcomes more successful, and impact more sustained.

Thank you for your attention.