A/HRC/36/45/Add.2 I. Introduction 1. The Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation undertook an official visit to Mexico at the invitation of the Government from 2 to 12 May 2017. The main objectives of his visit were to review the access to water and sanitation services in Mexico, to identify the main obstacles hindering the full realization of those rights and to provide recommendations for tackling those obstacles and for ensuring the full enjoyment of those human rights by everyone in society. 2. The Special Rapporteur thanks the Government of Mexico for the invitation and organization of his visit, and for the open and constructive dialogues that took place. He is grateful to the federal, state and local authorities who met with him and provided information. He met with numerous civil society organizations, community representatives and people living in urban and rural areas, and particularly thanks the civil society organizations that helped to organize essential elements of the visit and the field presence of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Humans Rights for its invaluable support. The Special Rapporteur also thanks residents who told him about the challenges that they face in accessing water and sanitation services and invited him into their homes. 3. During his mission, the Special Rapporteur met with government officials from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, the Interior, the Environment and Natural Resources, the Economy, Finance and Public Credit, Health, and Public Education, as well as local authorities in San José del Rincón, Mexico State, and in Chiapas State. He also met representatives from the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies, the Supreme Court of Justice, the National Human Rights Commission, the Human Rights Commission of Mexico City, the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples, the National Water Commission, the National Institute for Women, the Federal Consumer Protection Agency, the Federal Commission for Protection Against Sanitation Risks, the Federal Office for Legal Protection of the Environment, the Mexican Institute of Water Technology and the Mexico City water service provider (Sistema de Aguas de la Ciudad de México). The Special Rapporteur visited Iztapalapa (Santa María Aztahuacan and Lomas de San Lorenzo) and Xochimilco (San José Obrero) in Mexico City; Papantla (Emiliano Zapata) and Filomeno Mata in the Veracruz State; and Tuxtla Gutiérrez and San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas State. 4. Mexico faces numerous challenges to ensuring the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation to all its people, many of whom live in peripheral urban areas and highly dispersed rural communities throughout the country. Many live in regions of high or very high water stress, experience low levels of development, face different socioenvironmental conflicts and significant levels of poverty, requiring specific approaches for service provision. Adding to those challenges in recent years has been an economic environment in which government revenues have sharply diminished, in large part due to falling oil prices. Federal budgets for essential services have been significantly reduced, reportedly by over 37 per cent from 2016 to 2017 for the water and sanitation sector. Such cuts will have a potentially dramatic effect on the progressive realization of the human rights to water and sanitation in the short, medium and longer term. That negative impact could be aggravated by the institutional situation of the sector, which was described by one expert as being “on life support” due to its current political, financial and budgetary conditions. 5. The Special Rapporteur recalls that the primary obligation for the realization of all human rights, including the rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, lies with the Government of Mexico, which is expected to use the maximum available resources to meet that end. Representatives of the Government mentioned that the country recognizes the interdependency and indivisibility of all human rights with no order of priority of some human rights over others. However, the Special Rapporteur was concerned to hear from different authorities that the rights to drinking water and sanitation are not among the highest priorities of the Government in the context of its human rights obligations. Civil and political rights issues, including addressing allegations of torture and forced 3