Ensuring Safe Drinking Water

Ensuring Safe Drinking Water

By: Punam Ghimir

Feb 11, 2011

In 2002, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights stated that "the right to water clearly falls within the category of guarantees essential for securing an adequate standard of living, particularly since it is one of the most fundamental conditions for survival." Unfortunately, not only the Kathmandu Valley but every growing city in Nepal faces an acute shortage of water.

Basic human right

What will it mean if access to clean water is defined as a basic human right? If people are legally entitled to fresh water, then it is no longer a commodity that others can choose to provide or withhold. It must be provided to all, regardless of circumstances, without discrimination, now and in the future. And since the right would be internationally held, countries that recognise it would have to work together to provide adequate water to everyone, within and outside their borders.

Recognition of water as a basic human right obligates governments to take concrete steps to protect the right of individuals and communities, show respect for the right in their actions, protect the rights that already exist, and provide a framework in which the right can be achieved by all. This includes finding ways to make sure water supplies are not polluted by industrial or agricultural waste or sewage. It also includes helping individuals and communities develop and maintain clean water supplies and learn how best to manage the water available to them.

At the minimum, everyone needs access to enough water to prevent dehydration and disease. To be safe and health-giving, drinking and cooking water must be free from microbes and parasites, and from dangerous chemicals and other hazards, seen or unseen. To be used and used well, it must be available, affordable and reliable. Children are the most affected by the lack of clean water, their small bodies more vulnerable to the effects of germs, parasites and dangerous chemicals. Access to clean water gives them the chance to live healthy lives, a right we already consider theirs, and at much lower cost than that of making a sick child well again.

With children, the major problem is malnutrition that results from poor quality water and the development of severe childhood diarrhoea, the second largest cause of childhood death. According to a UNICEF report, 4,100 children die every day from severe diarrhoea, preventable with something as simple as access to clean water. Access to clean water is vital for the survival of humanity. So if access to clean water is to be a basic human right, anyone who is deprived of clean water, even those whose economic or social position robs them of the power to take action on their own, will have a basis on which to seek a solution for their problems, and governments will have an obligation to support them in their efforts to do so. Climate change is only making the situation worse as sources of safe drinking water are quickly disappearing. What could be a more important basic human right than that to live? Clean, safe water is the foundation of life, and the most basic of all human rights.

Waterday.org reports that "one billion people around the world don’t have clean drinking water." The world’s poorest regions are the hardest hit, with majority of these people being in Asia and Africa. Of them, some of the worst affected are women and children. Women, mostly in the developing countries, and Nepal is no exception, have to walk miles just to collect water to keep their families going - that is if there is water to be had in the first place. This necessity bars these women from going to school and receiving an education. Lack of access to a basic necessity robs women of the chance to be active members of their communities. And statistics show that taking these women and giving them the resources they need to be active in their societies have powerful results. Families are strengthened, communities are built, economies improve, education increases, and the entire village benefits.

The United Nations has taken notice. For the UN has declared water a basic human right and added access to water to its Millennial Developmental Goal. Water is needed for survival and a driver of prosperity.

Slow death

It is a major issue for the global community as a whole, and steps need to be taken now to ensure that people around the world have access to water. Water is the first and primary need to sustain life. It is a human right and should be preserved as such. Without water we die. Without clean water we die more slowly.

Source: The Rising Nepal