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The Right 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. Yet worldwide a billion people still lack access to sufficient safe water, even for domestic purposes.
- 1.2 billion people lack access to an adequate supply of water
- 2.6 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation
- 1.8 million children die every year as a result of diseases caused by unclean water and poor sanitation.
- Close to half of all ill-health suffered by people in developing is caused by a lack of access to clean water and sanitation
- Illness caused by unclean water or poor sanitation causes 443million school days to be missed each year globally
- African woman may walk over 6 kilometres a day to collect water, spending as much as 8 hours.
Sources: UNDP Human Development Report, 2006; Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis JMP2004 (WHO / UNICEF); Report of the UN Integrated Task Force on Gender and Water at the 12th Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development, April, 2004.
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In many parts of the world, population growth, migration and the gradual destruction and increased pollution of freshwater resources create widespread water scarcity and threaten the sustainability of adequate clean water reserves. Water scarcity is exacerbated by inefficient use of water, and a lack of public awareness and education about the need and the ways in which to safeguard water resources. Environmentally destructive development models are also depleting domestic water sources, for example those involving industrial pollution of water, deforestation, the building of dams, diversion of rivers or construction on floodplains.
The competition among the different users of water is growing more intense. In the developing world, this has resulted in increases both in the number of people without access to water and sanitation, and in the costs of providing and purchasing these basic necessities.
In its Human Development Report 2006, the UNDP notes that disparity in access to water is not only about shortages of physical supply, but also results from political and socio-economic factors. Flawed water management policies, including under investment in infrastructure and the inadequate regulation and prioritisation of water usage, clearly reduce the availability of water. But, as the UNDP recognises, disparities in the access to the water that is available, result from poverty, inequality, and unequal power relationships.
Poor households are routinely excluded from receiving adequate water services by inequitable market structures, insensitive institutional rules and poor people's lack of legal entitlements. During water scarcity, poor communities frequently suffer disproportionately from water supply restrictions. So even when poor households are connected to formal water service networks, poverty and seasonal water scarcity can force them to use unsafe water sources, such as unprotected wells and streams.
Poor people are also particularly affected by policies designed to save public expenditure on public goods such as water, whether arising out of a shift towards privatization or a general cut in social expenditure. For poor households, the consequences of a state's failure to protect basic social sector budgets during economic restructuring can be devastating. Cuts in programmes that fund immunisation, safe drinking water and other health-related services can be particularly disastrous for children (source: ESAF Reform and the Poor, Speech by Kevin Watkins, Senior Policy Advisor, OXFAM at INF Global Forum, Washington, 24 September, 1999, OXFAM Policy Paper).
These are clearly issues of human rights and tackling these disparities is should be of priority concern for water policy makers. This is a policy imperative in order to achieve the realisation of the right to water for everyone.
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