The Human Rights to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation

A/RES/72/178View PDF

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 72bHuman rights questions, including alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, published in 2017.

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

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What subjects does this mandate have?

2 topics

Right to Drinking Water Sanitation Services

What does this mandate say?

21 operative paragraphs

Reaffirms that the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, as components of the right to an adequate standard of living, are essential for the full enjoyment of the right to life and all human rights;

Recognizes that the human right to safe drinking water entitles everyone, without discrimination, to have 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, while reaffirming that both rights are components of the right to an adequate standard of living;

Welcomes the work of the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, and takes note with appreciation of his reports on development cooperation, as well as his report on service regulation and the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation;

Calls upon States:

To implement the internationally agreed Sustainable Development Goals and targets, including the Goal on ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, consistent with their obligations under international law;

To ensure the progressive realization of the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation for all in a non-discriminatory manner while eliminating inequalities in access, including for individuals belonging to groups at risk and to marginalized groups, on the grounds of race, gender, age, disability, ethnicity, culture, religion and national or social origin or on any other grounds;

To continuously monitor and regularly analyse the status of the realization of the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation;

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 within a broader framework, while undertaking holistic planning aimed at achieving sustainable universal access, including in instances where the private sector, donors and non-governmental organizations are involved in service provision;

To promote both women’s leadership and their full, effective and equal participation in decision-making on water and sanitation management and to ensure that a gender-based approach is adopted in relation to water and sanitation programmes, including measures, inter alia, to reduce the time spent by women and girls in collecting household water, in order to address the negative impact of inadequate water and sanitation services on the access of girls to education and to protect women and girls from being physically threatened or assaulted, including from sexual violence, while collecting household water and when accessing sanitation facilities outside of their home or practising open defecation;

To progressively eliminate open defecation by adopting policies to increase access to sanitation, including for individuals belonging to vulnerable and marginalized groups;

To approach the sanitation issue in a much broader context, taking into account the need to pursue integrated approaches;

To consult and coordinate with local communities and other stakeholders, including civil society and the private sector, on adequate solutions to ensure sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation;

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 sewage produced, including disposal of infant faeces, with the aim of reducing the risks to human health, drinking water resources and the environment;

To provide for effective accountability 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;

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;

Invites regional and international organizations to complement efforts by States to progressively realize the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation;

Calls upon Member States to enhance global partnerships for sustainable development as a means to achieve and sustain the Goals and the targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,14 and highlights that the 2030 Agenda marks a paradigm shift towards a more balanced and integrated plan of action for achieving sustainable development that reflects the indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights;

Reaffirms that the high-level political forum on sustainable development, under the auspices of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council, has the central role in overseeing follow-up and review at the global level, and encourages Member States to share their experiences and best practices with regard to the Goals under review during the 2018 high-level political forum, including the Goal of ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all;

Also reaffirms that States have the primary responsibility to ensure the full realization of all human rights and to endeavour to take steps, individually and through international assistance and cooperation, especially economic and technical cooperation, to the maximum of their available resources, with a view to progressively achieving the full realization of the rights to safe drinking water and sanitation by all appropriate means, including, in particular, the adoption of legislative measures;

Stresses the important role of the international cooperation and technical assistance provided by States, specialized agencies of the United Nations system and international and development partners, as well as by donor agencies, and urges development partners to adopt a human rights-based approach when designing and implementing development programmes in support of national initiatives and plans of action related to the rights to safe drinking water and sanitation;

Decides to continue its consideration of the question at its seventy-fourth session.

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