What we advocate

1. As water is a human right, how does WaterAid use this to advocate for water for all?

2. What is WaterAid's position on the privatisation of water companies in the developing world?

3. What does WaterAid think about the financing of the water and sanitation sector?

4. Does WaterAid have an environmental policy?

1. As water is a human right, how does WaterAid use this to advocate for water for all?

WaterAid lobbied to establish the right to water, which was declared by the UN in 2002, and is now working to help the world's poorest people achieve that right in the following ways:

• Helping our partner organisations in the countries where we work to understand and promote the right to water and lobby their governments to allocate further resources to these basic services through our Citizens' Action project.
• Defending the right to water with some governments which question whether there is sufficient mandate for water to be viewed as a right.
• Working with a range of other rights organisations to develop learning and understanding about the right to water.

Read our full position statement on the right to water.

2. What is WaterAid's position on the privatisation of water companies in the developing world?

WaterAid believes it is the ultimate responsibility of national and local governments to ensure all citizens have access to adequate and affordable water and sanitation services and to decide how they are delivered to all, whether via public, private or non-profit providers or utilities.

As such, WaterAid encourages donors to build the capacity of national and local governments to effectively manage and regulate water and sanitation services so that those responsible for ensuring the deliver of services are accountable to, and meet the needs of, all communities, particularly poor people.

In the recent past, major donors have actively promoted private sector participation and the debate has become further polarised and focused on the role of large multinational water companies. However only around 5% of the world’s water is actually distributed by large private operators and evidence suggests that there are successes and failures with both public and private approaches.

WaterAid believes that privatisation should not be imposed upon poor countries through aid conditions, trade rules or conditions for debt cancellation. There is no single solution to ensuring everyone gains access to water and sanitation in developing countries. In most developing countries the reality is a complex mix of delivery mechanisms, including the local small scale private operator. So it is impossible to say in general terms whether it is a good idea for private, public or community organisations to be involved in the delivery and management of services.

Read our full position statement on private sector participation.

3. What does WaterAid think about the financing of the water and sanitation sector?

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), agreed by world leaders aiming to halve world poverty by 2015, include targets of halving the proportions of people without access to water and sanitation between 1990 and 2015. Today sanitation is seriously neglected and, at current rates of progress, the sanitation target will be missed by a staggering 700 million people. Water fares somewhat better and is on track globally. However, global figures hide regional differences and current trends predict that in Sub-Saharan Africa the water target will be missed and the sanitation target won’t be met for another century.

There are several estimates of the investment required to meet the MDG water and sanitation targets, ranging from $9 to $72 billion a year. The estimates vary significantly because of differences in the way they are calculated, and the quality of data on which they are based. Many estimates cover just the costs of securing access to water and sanitation for those without these services, and fail to include the costs of operation, maintenance, rehabilitation, surveillance and hygiene education necessary to ensure that existing services are sustained.

Progress towards achieving the MDG water and sanitation targets is further jeopardised by the fact that some existing finance for water and sanitation (from donors and domestic sources) is not being spent in some countries. To resolve this problem, there is a need for greater alignment between the systems used by donors and developing countries’ governments for budgeting, reporting and procurement. 

WaterAid believes that to bring the water and sanitation MDG targets within reach, aid flows need to increase by $4 billion a year from 2004 levels, with an additional $2 billion allocated to Sub-Saharan Africa.

Correcting the present under-investment in the sector cannot be justified unless the financial waste which goes on is also eliminated. Therefore WaterAid not only lobbies for more aid but also for improvements in how and where it is spent.

Read our full position statement on financing the sector.

4. Does WaterAid have an environmental policy?

Changes to water quality, quantity and availability as a result of climate change will all impact on WaterAid's aim of enabling the world's poorest people to gain access to safe water in the coming years.

In response to this WaterAid is strengthening the management of water resources within our projects, and we are partnering with organizations with expertise in water resources management in research and advocacy activities.

Find out more about our water resources management work.

WaterAid is also establishing a mitigation programme which, starting with UK operations, seeks to understand trends and thinking in climate change and establish standards for WaterAid's environmental impact which are monitored on a regular basis.

We also collect old mobile phones, which raise money for WaterAid, by either being re-used in developing countries or having their parts recycled in an environmentally friendly way which avoids the dangerous substance cadmium, found in phone batteries, ending up in landfill sites.

Find out how you can recycle your phone for WaterAid.