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Special
Reports/Water Crisis |
Establishing right to
water
By Nasir Ali
Panhwar
AVAILBILITY of water in Pakistan has alarmingly declined from
5,000 cubic metres per capita in 1950s to nearly 1,000 cubic
metres in 2008, because of increase in population, inefficient
irrigation, mismanagement and unequal water rights.
 The
quality of environment for the majority of the population
remains poor. Only 36 per cent of households had tap water
supply in 2006-7. The differences between urban and rural
areas are stark as 62 per cent of urban households have access
to tap water, compared to only 22 per cent of rural
households.
Nearly 75 per cent of the
population or some 125 million people have no access to clean
drinking water. The situation is worse in rural areas. Water
crisis has several serious health, social, and political
implications. Water-borne diseases such as cholera, gastro,
diarrhoea and typhoid cost the national exchequer 1.8 per cent
of GDP (Rs120bn) annually because of poor access to safe
drinking water and better sanitation. The situation is
becoming precarious with the passage of time.
Budget allocation for water supply and sanitation amounts to
less than 0.2 per cent of GDP. Over 60 per cent of the
population gets their drinking water from hand or motor pumps,
with the figure in rural areas being over 70 per cent. This
figure is lower in Sindh, where the groundwater quality is
generally saline and an estimated 24 per cent of the rural
population gets water from surface water or dug wells.
The links between water quality and health risks are well
established.
According to Unicef 20 to 40 per cent of hospital beds in
Pakistan are occupied by patients suffering from water-borne
diseases, such as typhoid, cholera, dysentery and hepatitis,
which are responsible for one-third of all deaths. Access to
improved drinking water was not only a basic need but also a
basic human right and must be respected.
Poor water and sanitation is a major public health concern in
the country. Water-borne diseases are responsible for
substantial human and economic losses. These include loss of
millions of working hours of productivity annually, and
associated costs for healthcare. Sickness of the main bread-
earner can have a severe economic impact on a poor household,
and in case of contagious diseases, may even affect the whole
community.
Water crisis is essentially a crisis of governance. Lack of
adequate water institutions, fragmented institutional
structures and excessive diversion of public resources for
private gain has impeded the effective management of water
supplies. The protection of the right to water is an essential
prerequisite to the fulfillment of many other human rights.
Therefore, without guaranteeing access to a sufficient
quantity of safe water, other human rights may be jeopardised.
This serves to demonstrate that the issue of water and human
rights is not a radical or revolutionary suggestion, but
merely a new way of thinking about well established concepts.
Formal recognition of such a right would mean acknowledging
the environmental dimension, more specifically the water
dependent dimension of existing human rights. Moreover, a
formally recognised right to water would make it increasingly
difficult to disregard international environmental provisions
that relate to the protection and management of water.
The explicit recognition of water as a human right could
represent a usable tool for civil society to hold governments
accountable for guaranteeing access to water of sufficient
quality and quantity and assist governments to establish
effective policies and strategies.
To ensure access to drinking water without discrimination and
to allow the individual right to water to be fully exercised,
public authorities need to take measures aimed at improving
the quality of water, reducing losses and establishing better
and more equitable pricing of water supplies.
Active legal measures under the auspices of human rights
protection can be taken to benefit disadvantaged groups,
especially people living in poverty. State would need to
ensure that the poor receive a minimum supply of drinking
water and sanitation.
Water must be considered as a social and environmental
resource. The term ‘right to water’ does not only refer to the
rights of people but also to the needs of the environment with
regard to river basins, lakes, aquifers, oceans and ecosystems
surrounding watercourses. Therefore, a right to water cannot
be secured without this broader respect. A failure to
recognise water as an environmental resource may jeopardise
the rights based approach, which views water pri marily as a
social resource.
If we consider the maintenance of adequate access to and
supply of good quality water, we need to look at how this is
to be achieved beyond the provision of safe drinking water and
sanitation. Maintaining a safe water supply means that overall
river basin management, agricultural practices, and other
works are important.
If we want to mean ingfully strengthen and uphold any right to
water, we need to make certain that river basins and ground
waters are managed in their entirety. Steps need to be taken
to make provision for environmental flows for healthy river
systems, which means to maintain downstream ecosystems and
their benefits.
The global environmental instruments that incorporate a right
to water point to wider environmental resource management as
important to respecting such a right. Practically, what should
be assessed is whether adequate supplies of water of good
quality are maintained for the entire population of this
planet, and if not, how this can be achieved. If we accept
that there is a right to water, guaranteeing this right in the
face of increasing populations and increasing environmental
stresses, becomes increasingly challenging.
Ensuring this right for present and future generations
requires that a long term view be taken. A greater integration
of environmental principles and human rights principles
particularly the ecosystem approach will be required.
Water, as an environmental resource, needs to be further
promoted and managed within the framework of a river basin and
ecosystem approach. The rights based approach is based on an
essentially human centered view as it promotes water as a
social resource.
However, a human right to water would not only mean the
expansion of existing human rights and duties in the context
of achieving access to water by all, but also an
acknowledgement that healthy functioning of river systems and
ground waters are essential for people, plants and animals
Courtesy :
The DAWN
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Pakissan.com;
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