The Human Rights to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation

A/HRC/RES/57/13View PDF

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the Human Rights Council, under agenda item 3Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, published in 2024.

What else is in this group?

14 documents · 2012–2025

Newer documents in this group exist (latest: 2025).

2025A/RES/80/216The human rights to safe drinking water and sanitationCompare with earlier document
2025A/HRC/RES/60/9The human rights to safe drinking water and sanitationCompare with earlier document
2024A/HRC/RES/57/13The human rights to safe drinking water and sanitationCompare with earlier document
2023A/RES/78/206The human rights to safe drinking water and sanitationCompare with earlier document
2022A/RES/76/153The human rights to safe drinking water and sanitationCompare with earlier document

This group bundles related documents that are not individually ordered.

Grouped automatically by matching titles within the same organ.

Who cites this mandate in the budget?

1 entity

Extracted automatically from each entity’s budget submission.

What subjects does this mandate have?

7 topics

Anti-Discrimination Measures Conferences Right to Drinking Water Sanitation Sustainable Development Water Management Women's Rights

What does this mandate say?

26 operative paragraphs

Reaffirms that the human right to safe drinking water entitles everyone, without discrimination, to have sustained access to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic use and that the human right to sanitation entitles everyone, without discrimination, to have physical and affordable access to sanitation, in all spheres of life, that is safe, hygienic, secure, socially and culturally acceptable and that provides privacy and ensures dignity, and also reaffirms that both rights are components of the right to an adequate standard of living;

Calls upon States:

To take measures to ensure the progressive realization of the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, applying a gender-responsive and inclusive approach that respects, protects and fulfils all human rights of women and girls and responds to the needs of all women and girls in diverse situations and conditions as agents and beneficiaries of change;

To identify patterns of failure to respect, protect or fulfil the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation for all persons without discrimination and to address their structural causes in policymaking and budgeting, while undertaking comprehensive planning aimed at achieving sustainable universal access to safe drinking water and sanitation, including in instances where the private sector, donors and non-governmental organizations are involved in service provision;

To take measures towards ensuring affordable water and water facilities and services, including by basing any payment for water services on the principle of equity, ensuring that these services, whether privately or publicly provided, are affordable for all, including for persons in marginalized or vulnerable situations, and that poorer individuals should not be disproportionately burdened with water expenses compared with richer individuals;

To accelerate the cross-sectoral implementation of the internationally agreed Sustainable Development Goals and targets, including Goal 6, on ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, including by working collaboratively with all stakeholders in a coordinated manner, consistent with their obligations under international law and taking into account the outcomes of the 2023 and 2026 United Nations Water Conferences;

To promote both women’s leadership and their full, effective, equal and meaningful participation in decision-making on water and sanitation management and to ensure that a gender perspective is mainstreamed into all water and sanitation programmes;

To ensure access to safe and affordable drinking water and adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all women and girls, including for menstrual health and hygiene, including hygiene facilities and services in public and private spaces, and to address the widespread stigma and shame surrounding menstruation and menstrual health and hygiene by promoting educational and health practices in and out of schools, in order to foster a culture in which menstruation is recognized as healthy and natural, and by ensuring access to factual information thereon;

To take measures to empower all women and girls for preparedness in humanitarian emergencies and crises, notably in times of armed conflict or natural disaster, by ensuring universal and equitable access to water and sanitation services and related information in accessible formats and implementing gender-responsive policies, plans and programmes that address, inter alia, effective menstrual health and hygiene and adequate access to and disposal options for menstrual products, without compromising their rights, safety and dignity;

To reduce the time spent by women and girls in collecting household water and to protect all women and girls from being physically threatened and assaulted, including from sexual and gender-based violence, when accessing sanitation facilities outside their homes or practising open defecation and urination, and to promote safe public spaces and improve the security and safety of all women and girls through gender-responsive rural and urban planning and infrastructure;

To take steps to ensure that water and sanitation facilities and services are accessible for persons with disabilities and apply the principles of universal design in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to meet the needs of persons with disabilities, especially women and children with disabilities;

To progressively eliminate open defecation by adopting policies to increase access to sanitation, including for individuals in the most vulnerable and marginalized situations;

To raise international awareness of the issue of waterborne diseases, in particular cholera and diarrhoea in children, which can be prevented through safe drinking water and adequate sanitation and hygiene, and to engage in partnerships with relevant stakeholders to implement projects aimed at scaling up access to safe water and sanitation in developing countries;

To enhance efforts to substantially reduce the share of untreated wastewater released into the environment and to ensure that plans and programmes for improving sanitation services take into account the need for appropriate systems for the treatment of wastewater produced, including that containing antibiotic-resistant bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes, and the disposal of infant faeces, with the aim of reducing the risks to human health, drinking water resources and the environment, acknowledging the potential of wastewater reuse;

To provide for effective accountability and regulations mechanisms for all water and sanitation service providers, including private sector providers, to ensure that they respect human rights and do not cause or contribute to human rights violations or abuses;

To provide financial resources and support capacity-building and technology transfer in a sector-wide approach to help countries, at their request, in particular developing countries, to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all, and to recognize the need for and implement integrated water resources management to ensure sustainable and equitable use of water and the protection of ecosystems;

To respond effectively to health and humanitarian crises and their consequences by, inter alia, enhancing efforts progressively to realize the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation;

To develop an adequate and effective framework for integrated water resources management, including of groundwater resources, through enhancing knowledge and data, institutional capacity, laws, regulations and their enforcement, policy and planning, stakeholder participation and appropriate financing, and to ensure that their policies and plans are fully implemented and that the resources remain available for future generations, in order to ensure water supply and management for an adequate standard of living;

Calls upon non-State actors, including business enterprises, both transnational and others, to comply with their responsibility to respect human rights, including the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, including by cooperating with State investigations into allegations of abuses of the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation and by progressively engaging with States to detect and remedy abuses of the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation;

Calls upon States to ensure, as appropriate, that their development efforts in the areas of water, sanitation and hygiene are aligned with their human rights obligations under international law;

Requests the Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, with a view to promoting the progressive realization of the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation at the 2026 United Nations Water Conference, to actively engage, in collaboration with States and other stakeholders, in the preparatory process to ensure that the human rights dimension is adequately reflected in the agenda and outcome of the Conference and to ensure broad and inclusive civil society representation;

Decides to convene, at its fifty-ninth session, a panel discussion on the realization of the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, with a particular focus on mainstreaming the human rights of safe drinking water and sanitation into the upcoming 2026 United Nations Water Conference, and also decides that the discussion shall be fully accessible to persons with disabilities, including through the provision of hybrid modalities;

Requests the Secretary-General to provide all the resources for the services and facilities necessary for the panel discussion, and requests the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a summary report on the panel discussion and to present it to the Human Rights Council at its sixty-first session;

Encourages all Governments to continue to respond favourably to requests by the Special Rapporteur for visits and information, to follow up effectively on the recommendations of the mandate holder and to make available information on measures taken in this regard;

Requests the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner to provide the Special Rapporteur with all the resources and assistance necessary for the effective fulfilment of the mandate;

Decides to remain seized of the matter.

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