12 Amendments of Maria HEUBUCH related to 2014/2239(INI)
Amendment 1 #
Draft opinion
Recital -A (new)
Recital -A (new)
-A. whereas the human right to water and sanitation was explicitly recognised by the UN General Assembly and Human Rights Council in 2010;
Amendment 5 #
Draft opinion
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas at least 600 million people do not have sustainable access to safe drinking water, and a third of the world population lacks basic sanitation; whereas, as a result, it jeopardises the right to health as diseases spread, causing suffering and death and posing major impediments to development; whereas about 2 000 children under five years old die daily from diarrhoea, and a majority of these deaths are linked to inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene; whereas there is, however, a clear downward trend in these numbers;
Amendment 7 #
Draft opinion
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas a lack of access to water and sanitation has consequences for the realisation of other human rights, including the right to education, since children - especially girls - are often forced to skip or drop out of school due to a lack of separate and decent sanitation facilities;
Amendment 14 #
Draft opinion
Recital B a (new)
Recital B a (new)
Ba. whereas the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which entered into force in 2013, created a complaint mechanism allowing individuals or groups to file formal complaints on violations of the human right to water and sanitation, among other rights;
Amendment 22 #
Draft opinion
Recital C a (new)
Recital C a (new)
Ca. whereas the privatisation of basic utilities in Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s has i.e. hampered the achievement of MDGs on both water and sanitation, as the focus of investors on cost recovery has among others intensified inequalities in the provision of such services, at the expense of low-income households; whereas in light of the failure of water privatisation, the transfer of water services from private companies to local authorities is a growing trend in the water sector all around the world;
Amendment 26 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Highlights that the human right to water and sanitation is closely linked to a number of key global challenges addressed in the post-2015 framework, such as health, energy, food, employment, gender equality and environmental sustainability;
Amendment 34 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Stresses the responsibility of the State to ensure that the provisions of services of water and sanitation are sustainable, accessible, safe, affordable and culturally acceptable, without discrimination; strongly supports the inclusion of the goal of ensuring safe drinking water and adequate sanitation and hygiene for all by 2030 among the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be adopted in September 2015; stresses that realisation of all SDGs requires mobilisation of much more financing for development than is currently provided, including from new sources, as well as robust and effective water governance, the creation of monitoring compliance mechanisms and the setting- up of strategies to ensure the full justiciability of these rights, with a view to achieving universal access;
Amendment 45 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Emphasises that assistance for safe drinking water and sanitation should be given high priority in the allocation of funds and in assistance programming; favours open-mindedness in relation to different aid modalities, but strict adherence to development effectiveness principles and to an unwavering focus on poverty eradication and the maximisation of the development impact; stresses the need to monitor financing strategies and budgets to ensure that allocated funds address existing disparities and inequalities in access to water and respect the human rights principles of non- discrimination and equality, as well as access to information and participation;
Amendment 49 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Deems that the strong interdependencies between water and other fundamentals such as energy and food require clear recognition in the post- 2015 framework; in particular, recalls that access to water is essential for agriculture in order to realise the right to adequate food; hence, stresses the need to ensure access to sufficient water for marginalised and poor farmers for subsistence and small-scale farming;
Amendment 50 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 b (new)
Paragraph 3 b (new)
3b. Notes that the UN Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water (GLAAS) outlines that donor funds for water are currently predominantly directed to construction of large-scale infrastructure, which often leads to the degradation of existing systems1; calls on the EU to reflect in its allocation of funds the recommendation of the UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation according to which donors should review their funding allocations to favour small-scale rather than large-scale infrastructure, and to allocate more funds to operation and maintenance, capacity building and awareness-raising; __________________ 1Realising the human rights to water and sanitation / Handbook, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), 2014, p. 31.
Amendment 51 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 c (new)
Paragraph 3 c (new)
3c. Notes with concern that, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, people living in slums generally have to pay more than those living in formal settlements to receive unregulated, poor quality services; hence, urges developing countries to prioritise budget allocations for services for disadvantage people and for people living in areas that do not have access to services, so as to progressively eliminate inequalities; in particular, insists that regulatory bodies and providers engage residents of urban informal settlements in the design of tariffs, subsidies and the mode of payment of service charges;
Amendment 53 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Welcomes the ‘1 % solidarity for water and sanitation’ and other initiatives taken by citizens and authorities in some Member States in order to support projects in developing countries with funds from consumption fees; reiterates its call on the Commission to encourage solidarity arrangements in this area; in particular, encourages the promotion of Public- Public partnerships in water facilities in developing countries, in line with the Global Water Operators’ Partnership Alliance (GWOPA) coordinated by UN Habitat;