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Access to Water: A Policy Imperative
Access to sufficient, safe and affordable water is vital for human development. In addition to immediate domestic use, many poor households use water to earn an income through, for example, preparing and cooking food, laundry work, cleaning car windows or turning water into ice for sale. In rural areas, water is also used for livestock, for growing vegetables and for making bricks.
Widespread poverty has led to increasing inequalities and inequities between water consumption in the developing world and the developed world. Poor people face a triple impediment in seeking access to safe water: lack of availability of safe water, risk of contamination and high costs.
- a child born in the developed world consumes 30 to 50 times as much water as a child in the developing world
- In areas poorly served with water and sanitation, the child mortality rate is multiplied by 10 or 20 compared to areas with adequate water and sanitation services.
- poor people in the developing world pay on average 12 times more per litre of water than fellow citizens connected to municipal systems.
Sources: UN/WWAP (United Nations/World Water Assessment Programme),2003. UN World Water Development Report: Water for People, Water for Life, Paris, New York and Oxford, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and Berghahn Books; World Commission on Water for the 21st Century, World Water Council.
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Lack of access to adequate clean water is one of the most devastating effects of poverty. Whilst lack of water and exposure to water-borne diseases affect men and boys as well as women and girls, the latter’s disadvantaged health status and their traditional role in water collection in many societies, leave them particularly vulnerable (source: Rights and Humanity, Häusermann, J, The Impact of Discrimination on Women’s Health, An Aide Mémoire for the CEDAW Committee and Friends of CEDAW, Commissioned by The Department of Gender and Women’s Health, World Health Organization, Geneva, 2002).
The inequalities and vulnerabilities facing women and poor people raise considerable human rights concerns. It is a fundamental principle of human rights that everyone is entitled to enjoy, on the basis of equality, the necessities for life and dignity. Appropriate water policies and programmes need to address these inequalities and inequities.
Increasing attention is now being given to using the right to water to shape policy and action and to taking a human rights approach to development and water programmes. Over the last three decades water has been addressed in a series of international conferences dealing with development and/or the environment. There have also been a number of conferences focussing specifically on water. All these conferences have recognised that water is a basic human need and some have explicitly confirmed the right to water.
As early as 1977, the Mar del Plata Action Plan stated that “[a]ll people have a right to have access to drinking water” (source: United Nations Water Conference held at Mar del Plata (Argentina), 7 - 18 March 1977). Subsequent conferences have confirmed the right to water and stressed such human rights principles as universal access, participation and empowerment.
Implementing these principles is crucial in attaining internationally agreed development goals and targets. Many of these were brought together in 2000, at the Millennium Summit. This brought together many of the targets adopted at previous conferences, identifying key development priorities for the 21st Century. The Summit led to the adoption of the Millennium Declaration and Millennium Development Goals, a series of time-bound and measurable goals and targets. Target 7(ii) deals with water and confirms the political commitment of UN Member States to:
- reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water by 2015.
At the same time, the right to water is being increasingly relied upon as a policy imperative by water organisations and consortia throughout the world.
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