A/HRC/24/44 I. Introduction 1. The present report is submitted to the Human Rights Council by the Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation in accordance with Human Rights Council resolutions 16/2 and 21/2. The focus is on sustainability in realizing the human rights to water and sanitation. 2. In preparing the report the Special Rapporteur engaged in a wide consultative process, which included numerous written contributions received from States and others, and the holding of a multi-stakeholder expert consultation. She is grateful to all those who contributed with their time and expertise. 3. While the benefits of access to safe water and sanitation have been widely pronounced, the international community is currently failing to ensure the availability of safe water and sanitation for all, without discrimination, including for future generations. About 1.8 billion people are estimated to lack access to safe water,1 2.5 billion have no toilets, septic tanks, piped sewer systems or other means of improved sanitation and about 1.1 billion people still practice open defecation.2 4. Moreover, while the Millennium Development Goals target calls for sustainable access, the monitoring framework not only fails to capture this dimension, but to some extent provides an incentive for quick solutions that have proven unsustainable in the long term. In a period of 20 years, more than 180,000 hand pumps installed in rural sub-Saharan Africa failed prematurely, representing a total failed investment of between $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion;3 if all of the pumps had continued to work, 70 million more people would have had access to water.4 Data available for some regions show that between 35 and 80 per cent of water systems, such as hand pumps, were not functioning at the time the data was collected. 5 Similar problems arise with sanitation, as various wastewater plants have stopped being operational a short time after their construction. 6 Deteriorating water and sanitation infrastructure, compounded by rapid urbanization and insufficient maintenance, causes yearly water losses of between 250 million to 500 million cubic metres in many megacities’ supply systems.7 However these “slippages” are not systematically monitored globally. 5. Another dimension that challenges sustainability is increasing water scarcity. In 2010, nearly all megacities were facing water scarcity.8 As the world population continues to grow, so has the demand for water: water withdrawals tripled over the last 50 years and 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Kyle Onda and others, “Global access to safe Water: accounting for water quality and the resulting impact on MDG progress”, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 9, No. 3, p. 880. United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Health Organization (WHO), Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: 2012 Update (2012), p. 15. IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, “Ghana and Uganda to pilot new model to improve rural water services” (2009). Available from www.source.irc.nl/page/48398. Global Water Challenge, WASH Sustainability Charter: Collaborating for Best Practices, slide 4. Available from www.slideshare.net/GlobalGiving/wash-sustainability-charter-collaborating-for-bestpractices. S. Sutton, “Preliminary desk study of potential for self-supply in sub-Saharan Africa” (2004), p. 7. E. Corcoran and others, Sick Water? The Central Role of Wastewater Management in Sustainable Development (United Nations Environment Programme and United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 2010), p. 60. UN-Water Decade Programme on Advocacy and Communication, Water and Cities Facts and Figures, p. 2. Megacities are those with over 10 million inhabitants. Ibid., p. 3. 3