Water Rights, Poverty and Inequality

In recent years, access to water has featured high in international policy agendas and debates. The UN Millennium Declaration and the World Summit on Sustainable Development pledged to halve the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water by 2015. In 2002, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights stated that access to water is a basic human right recognised under international law (e.g. The Hague, 2000; Bonn, 2001; Kyoto, 2003), and a number of donors committed to support water supply programmes in developing countries. Water-related objectives and actions are included in the NEPAD Policy Document, and an African Ministerial Conference on Water was established by African leaders in 2002.