Access to Water
Make access to drinking water an effective right for all! The members of the French Water Partnership support the 2010 United Nations General Assembly declaration recognizing the right to acces to drinking water and sanitation as a human right. Yet, despite this statement, this right is far from being a reality for all human beings. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2022, 1.7 billion people consumed water contaminated by fecal matter. The implementation of the human right to access to drinking water therefore remains an open question, all the more so as the problems differ from country to country, and particularly between rural and urban areas.
Objectives
On this topic, the members of the French Water Partnership support:
- Effective implementation of the human right to drinking water
In addition to official recognition, the human right to drinking water must be effectively implemented by each nation, in particular through: the establishment of an appropriate legislative and regulatory framework, the sharing of costs to ensure that prices are affordable for each category of user, and the participation of users in water management.
- Involving and empowering local stakeholders (local authorities, civil society, private operators) in the implementation of local public water services
To ensure that water services are properly managed at local level, the responsibilities of the various public authorities, service managers and users need to be clearly defined.
To be effective, their collaboration could be based on contractual agreements.
A control and regulation mechanism, provided by the public authorities, should guarantee good governance of the services.
In addition, the emphasis must be placed on consultation between the different types of stakeholders in the sector (public authorities, operators, users) and the effective involvement of citizens, to ensure the proper management of water services.
- Mobilizing sustainable financing to meet real needs
Access to drinking water is mainly financed by 3 types of funding (the 3 Ts): tariffs, taxes and transfers.
These can be complemented by sources of funding from decentralized solidarity mechanisms (e.g., the 1% solidarity scheme under the French Oudin-Santini Act) or other types of innovative financing.
Equity mechanisms between users should also be considered, to ensure at the very least the recovery of operating costs, while enabling access to drinking water services for the most disadvantaged, at an affordable price.
- Improving monitoring databases for the sector
Indicators and monitoring systems need to be improved in order to identify the extent of real needs in terms of access to drinking water, and to monitor and evaluate progress.