A/HRC/30/39/Add.2 28. One of the systemic challenges hindering progress in access to sanitation in Kenya appears to be the law and policy that put the responsibility of providing sanitation facilities on individual households. Under the current structure, waterborne sewerage is the only part of sanitation systems that is under the direct responsibility of the service providers. Many households cannot afford to build sanitation facilities or have no authority to do so because they do not own the house or the building. While the relevant legislation, including the Building Code, contains provisions on sanitation and the local authorities are supposed to supervise their implementation, in many cases, particularly in informal settlements, the authorities do not oblige the building owners to provide sanitation when the building does not have such facilities. The National Environmental Sanitation and Hygiene Strategy 2010–2015 is based on the same foundation — taking a “community-led approach” — and explicitly states that the strategy does not propose any individual household-level hardware subsidies. Furthermore it establishes that to cater for the needs of the poor and vulnerable the strategy will rely heavily on community support networks (para. 6). The slow pace of progress in access to sanitation in the past decade in Kenya may be a signal that there are gaps, including poor budgetary allocation to the provision of on-site sanitation, in the system to progressively realize the right to sanitation. 29. The human rights framework does not require that the Government directly provide basic services for free. Rather, it requires the State to create an enabling environment for people to fully enjoy their human rights. However, in cases where people for reasons beyond their control cannot accede to their rights, including when they cannot afford to build sanitation facilities, the Government has the obligation to provide sanitation services directly. 30. The Special Rapporteur has learned that the Government does not invest enough in, or emphasize sufficiently, sewerage and waste water management. According to a census conducted in 2009, 74 per cent of households in rural areas and 62.5 per cent of those in urban areas relied on a pit latrine. In the global monitoring of the Millennium Development Goals, pit latrines are considered unimproved sanitation when they are public or shared or when they do not hygienically separate human excreta from human contact. The widespread lack of safe disposal of human waste is a serious threat to health in Kenya, and waterborne diseases are common. In 2009, over 3,000 people suffered from cholera and 40 of them died, and a cholera outbreak was reported in early 2015, at the time of writing the present report. About 17,000 children under the age of 5 reportedly die from diarrhoea every year.7 The Special Rapporteur would like to reiterate that the human right to sanitation is not simply about access to a toilet; rather, it is defined as a system for the collection, transport, treatment and disposal or reuse of human excreta and associated hygiene (see A/HRC/12/24, para. 63). She is thus of the view that, to realize the human right to sanitation, the Government must ensure that toilets are hygienic to use and to maintain, and that waste matter is safely contained, transported, treated and disposed of or recycled. Waterborne sanitation is by no means the only acceptable solution; depending on the context, including the housing density and the availability of water, there are many other possible solutions. To safeguard the health benefits of access to sanitation and to protect water resources, standards and targets for the full cycle of sanitation provision must be set, from the collection of wastes to their transport, treatment and disposal or reuse. 31. The Government, with the support of UNICEF and the World Bank, has progressed in the collection of data on access to sanitation by county. The county sanitation profiles include assessments of indicators on the enabling environment for sanitation, including 7 8 Kenya, Ministry of Health, and UNICEF, Realizing Open Defecation Free (ODF) Rural Kenya: Achievements and the Road Ahead (2014), p. vi.