The Human Rights to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation

A/HRC/RES/63/19View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A RES of the General Assembly, under agenda item 3 Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, published in 2026.

What other versions does this mandate have?

15 versions · 2012–2026

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2026	A/HRC/RES/63/19	The human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation	5,004	—Compare
2025	A/RES/80/216	The human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation	4,127	—Compare
2025	A/HRC/RES/60/9	The human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation	492	—Compare
2024	A/HRC/RES/57/13	The human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation	4,339	—Compare
2023	A/RES/78/206	The human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation	4,033	—Compare

What subjects does this mandate have?

6 subjects

Anti-Discrimination Measures Corporate Social Responsibility Right to Drinking Water Sanitation Water Management Women's Rights

What’s in this document?

28 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 and are essential for the enjoyment of human rights;

Calls upon States:

To take measures to ensure the progressive realization of the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, including in contexts of armed conflict, occupation and disaster, 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 emerging new challenges, including those posed by new technologies, 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, within their respective regulatory frameworks, 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 United Nations Water Conference, the preparatory process for the 2026 and 2028 United Nations Water Conferences and, once adopted, their respective outcomes;

To promote both women’s leadership and their full, 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, as well as sexual and reproductive health and rights, 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, including in accessible formats, including for women and girls with disabilities;

To take measures to empower all women and girls for preparedness in humanitarian emergencies and crises, notably in times of armed conflict or 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 on unpaid care work, especially 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, and to promote the monitoring and publication of data on these risks and their impacts on public health, 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, cooperation, 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;

To ensure meaningful and inclusive participation of rights holders and affected communities, including persons with disabilities through their representative organizations, in the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of water and sanitation policies and programmes, and to ensure that participation processes are accessible;

To encourage the effective participation of national human rights institutions in water-related intergovernmental processes under the auspices of the United Nations, in accordance with their mandates;

Encourages international financial institutions, development banks and other financing partners, consistent with their respective mandates, to apply a human rights-based approach to their financial policies and strategies when supporting investments in water and sanitation infrastructure, paying special attention to affordability, equality, including gender equality, non-discrimination, accessibility, participation and accountability in the management of these services;

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;

Reaffirms the request in paragraph 4 of its resolution 60/9 for the Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation with regard to the 2026 and 2028 United Nations Water Conferences;

Encourages the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, with a view to promoting the progressive realization of the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation at the 2026 and 2028 United Nations Water Conferences, to also actively engage, as appropriate, in collaboration with States and other stakeholders, including the special procedures of the Human Rights Council, in the preparatory process and to contribute to ensuring that the human rights dimension, including gender equality, is fully grounded in the agenda and outcomes of the conferences;

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 United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights 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.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What other versions does this mandate have?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

Table of contents