Welcome to the rights to water and sanitation website

Use this site to find out more about why the recognition of water and sanitation as human rights is key to achieving universal access to safe water and sanitation. Also, find out about what progress has been made in getting the rights recognised and what impact recognition has made so far. Learn about ways in which you can get involved, how to use the rights-based approach in your advocacy work and read the news about all the latest developments.

Why recognising water and sanitation as human rights is important:

Water and sanitation are essential for life, for health, for dignity, empowerment and prosperity.  A human rights framework encompasses a broad spectrum from the rights based approach on the one side to the legal right to water at the other.  The rights based approach promotes participation in and information about people’s access to decision making forums that affect their access to water, sanitation and hygiene services.  The legal approach promotes national and international justifiable approaches that promote accountability and transparency and provide mechanisms to progressively realise increasing peoples access to water and sanitation.