Rights to Water and Sanitation: A Handbook for Activists

"Advocacy is one strategy that can be used to bring about improvements in water and sanitation. It can influence decision makers, call for an extension of services to underserved and unserved areas, challenge or draw attention to unfair or discriminatory practices, influence public policy and resource allocation, propose solutions to problems, create a space for negotiation between communities and authorities, mobilise funds or build awareness about an issue."

The purpose of this handbook, produced by the Freshwater Action Network (FAN) in cooperation with the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) and BothEnds, is to help civil society and those working on water and sanitation issues to adopt a human rights-based approach to advocacy. Geared primarily toward community groups, human rights non-governmental organisations (NGOs), rights-based development practitioners, and aid workers, this handbook aims to strengthen human rights-based advocacy by providing practical suggestions that activists and organisations can use in their efforts to improve water and sanitation service regulation and provision at international, national, and local levels. It also acts as a resource guide for finding further information.

The opening section of the resource explores the question: Why adopt a human rights-based approach to advocacy for improvements in water and sanitation? The global problem of the lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation is documented, as are factors that impede a government's ability to ensure access to water and sanitation (e.g., discrimination against certain groups or communities and the exclusion of communities in water and sanitation decision making). As noted here, through human rights-based advocacy, civil society can help to ensure the realisation of the right to water and sanitation by:

• Raising the importance and political profile of the right to access water and sanitation services;
• Demanding government and private service providers act in accordance with their obligations in relation to the right to water and sanitation;
• Drawing attention to violations of the right to pressure government to amend its laws, policies, or practices;
• Educating stakeholders - for instance, by identifying minimum standards for access to water and sanitation (based on international human rights standards) to help generate political will to better hone government programmes and resources to reach the economically poorest;
• Demanding accountability for violations of the right to water and sanitation from governments and private actors;
• Mobilising public opinion and building support for the right to water and sanitation;
• Assisting individuals and communities denied their right to water and sanitation by building awareness about their predicaments and promoting the solutions communities propose; and
• Promoting the right of communities to obtain adequate information from government and participate in decision making processes relating to access to water and sanitation.

The first section of the resource provides an introduction to the human right to water and sanitation. Section Two explains how to plan an advocacy campaign. The third section explores advocacy tactics for promoting and protecting the right to water and sanitation (e.g., lobbying, using media and communications, public campaigning and popular mobilisation, capacity building, legal advocacy and litigation, and building networks and coalitions). The appendices include a list of international commitments, a sample press statement, a sample lobbying letter, and a list of other resources.