A/HRC/RES/27/7
and its follow-up resolutions 60/1 of 16 September 2005, entitled “2005 World Summit
Outcome”, and 65/1 of 22 September 2010, entitled “Keeping the promise: united to
achieve the Millennium Development Goals”, as well as in resolutions 66/288 of 11
September 2012, entitled “The future we want”, and 68/6 of 9 October 2013, entitled
“Outcome document of the special event to follow up efforts made towards achieving the
Millennium Development Goals”,
Bearing in mind the commitments made by the international community to achieve
fully the Millennium Development Goals, and stressing in that context the resolve of Heads
of State and Government, as expressed in the United Nations Millennium Declaration, to
halve, by 2015, the proportion of people unable to reach or afford safe drinking water, and
to halve the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation, as agreed in the Plan of
Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (“Johannesburg Plan of
Implementation”) and the outcome document of the high-level plenary meeting of the
General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals entitled “Keeping the promise:
united to achieve the Millennium Development Goals”,
Taking note of relevant commitments and initiatives promoting the human right to
safe drinking water and sanitation, including the Abuja Declaration, adopted at the first
Africa-South America Summit, in 2006; the Sharm el-Sheikh Final Document, adopted at
the Fifteenth Summit Conference of Heads of State and Government of the Movement of
Non-Aligned Countries, in 2009; the Panama Declaration, adopted at the third Latin
American and Caribbean Conference on Sanitation, in 2013; the Kathmandu Declaration,
adopted at the fifth South Asian Conference on Sanitation, in 2013; and the commitments
made on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation at the Sanitation and Water
for All High-Level Meeting, in 2014,
Taking note with appreciation of the work of the World Health Organization and the
United Nations Children’s Fund in their 2014 update on the Joint Monitoring Programme
for Water Supply and Sanitation,
Welcoming the fact that, according to the 2012 Joint Monitoring Programme report
of the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund, the Millennium
Development Goal target relating to the reduction by 50 per cent of people without access
to an improved water source was formally met five years before its deadline of 2015, while
being deeply concerned, however, that, according to the 2014 Joint Monitoring Programme
update, a large number of the world’s population still does not enjoy access to safe drinking
water, as 748 million people, nearly half of them in sub-Saharan Africa, still lack access to
improved drinking-water sources, and that at least 1.8 billion people are estimated to be
using an improved or unimproved drinking water source that is unsafe,
Deeply concerned that, according to the 2014 Joint Monitoring Programme update,
more than 2.5 billion people still do not have access to improved sanitation facilities,
including 1 billion people who still practice open defecation, and that the world remains off
track to meet the sanitation component of Millennium Development Goal 7, which called
for halving the proportion of the population without sustainable access to an improved
sanitation facility; and welcoming therefore the emphasis placed by States on the topic of
sanitation, for instance in General Assembly resolution 65/1 of 22 September 2010, in
which States committed to, inter alia, redouble efforts to close the sanitation gap through
scaled-up ground-level action, and the proclamation of 19 November as World Toilet Day
in the context of Sanitation for All, pursuant to Assembly resolution 67/291 of 24 July
2013,
Concerned that the official figures do not fully capture the dimensions of drinking
water safety, affordability of services and safe management of excreta and wastewater, and
therefore underestimate the numbers of those without access to safe and affordable drinking
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