Geneva
28 July 2010 will mark an important milestone in international efforts aimed at improving the global situation in water supply and sanitation with the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of a resolution recognizing access to clean water and sanitation as a human right. The resolution is calling on States and international organizations to provide financial resources, build capacity and transfer technology, particularly to developing countries, in scaling up efforts to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all. Contrary to general perception, this objective, which is closely linked to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, is still to be achieved in the pan-European region. At present, nearly 140 million people – 16 per cent of Europe’s population – still live in homes that are not connected to a drinking-water supply, and about 85 million people do not have access to adequate sanitation. According to the best estimates of the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 13,000 children under the age of 14 die every year from water related diarrhoea, mostly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In 2006, more than 170,000 cases of water-related disease were reported.
“International agreements are crucial to support the actual implementation of this resolution”, declared Ján Kubiš, UNECE Executive Secretary. “In this respect, the UNECE region possesses a unique tool: the UNECE/WHO-EURO Protocol on Water and Health to the UNECE Water Convention”.
The Protocol on Water and Health, which entered into force in 2005, is the first major international legal mechanism for the prevention, control and reduction of water-related diseases. Its main aim is to protect human health and well being by better water management, including the protection of water ecosystems, and by preventing, controlling and reducing water-related diseases. To meet these goals, Parties are obliged to establish national and local targets in areas covering the entire water cycle and to report on the implementation of the targets.
The upcoming second session of the Meeting of the Parties to the Protocol, to be held on 23-25 November 2010 in Bucharest, will present an excellent opportunity to discuss the implementation of the General Assembly resolution in the pan-European context.
Note to Editors
The Protocol on Water and Health to the UNECE Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention) was signed in London in 1999, on the occasion of the third Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health. It entered into force on 4 August 2005.
The Protocol counts 24 Parties (Albania, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, and Ukraine).
The Protocol aims to provide universal access to water supply and sanitation while the quality of the water supplied should be adequate and does not constitute a potential danger to human health (art.4). This shall include the protection of water resources which are used as sources of drinking water, treatment of water and the establishment, improvement and maintenance of collective systems. To this aim, the Protocol requires Parties to take positive measures to assist individuals and communities to enjoy access to safe water and adequate sanitation, measures which are tailored to the countries’ social, economic and environmental conditions. Moreover, the Protocol includes far-reaching provisions on public information, public participation and access to justice, public awareness and education. It also includes provisions on international duty of solidarity requiring Parties to assist each other to achieve the objectives of the Protocol.
The Protocol also contains provisions on non-discrimination. In particular, article 5 requires that “equitable access to water, adequate in terms both of quantity and of quality, should be provided for all members of the population, especially those who suffer a disadvantage or social exclusion”. The Protocol thus illustrates and embodies the close linkages between human rights, health, environmental protection and sustainable development.
The Protocol relates directly the achievement of various Millennium Development Goals, in particular Goal 4 (to reduce child mortality) and Goal 7 (to ensure environmental sustainability, in particular target 10 - halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking-water and basic sanitation by 2015 – and target 11 - achieve a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020).
Various activities of the Protocol’s programme of work directly relate to water and sanitation as human right. These include a workshop on equitable access to water held in Paris in July 2007 and other activities in this area led by France as well as activities in the area of small scale water supply systems in the European region, which will result in publication of an awareness-raising material and a guidance document. ARoundtable on "The Human Right to Water and the Protocol on Water and Health: making access to water a reality", was jointly organized by WHO-EURO, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and UNECE, on the occasion of the first meeting of the Parties to the Protocol in January 2007 in Geneva. A document on good practices to enhance solidarity and facilitate access to water and sanitation for poor, vulnerable and socially excluded people will be prepared in 2011 based on the results of a questionnaire.
Ref: ECE/ENV/10/P24