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Muddying the Water? Assessing Target-based Approaches in Development Cooperation for Water and Sanitation

2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 15; Issue: 2-3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/19452829.2014.896321

1945-2837

Malcolm Langford, Inga T. Winkler,

Child Nutrition and Water Access

AbstractIn the debate on the post-2015 development agenda, a clear preference exists for simple and quantifiable targets. The water sector provides a useful perspective in which to evaluate the use of this strategy because it has been subject to quantitative target setting since 1976. We critically analyze two early periods of target setting together with their most recent incarnation in the Millennium Development Goals. In so doing, we identify two stories concerning the utility of such a turn to metrics: the first is a perennial and at times justified optimism in target setting, and the second is a more cautionary tale about the dangers of measurement and its tendency to gloss over challenging but significant issues. In addition, we offer some brief conclusions on the implications for the post-2015 agenda and some potential measurement alternatives.Keywords: Human developmentMeasurementSustainabilityHuman rightsInequality AcknowledgementsThis article was prepared during research leave at the University of California (Berkeley). The authors would like to thank Angelika Paul for her research assistance as well as Guy Hutton, Rifat Hossain, Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, the participants at the "Power of Numbers" workshop at Château de Bossey in February 2013, and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version. This paper reflects the personal opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of their institutions.Notes1. United Nations, Report of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, 5–16 June 1972, A/CONF.48/14/Rev.1, Chapter I, Declaration, Principle 2.2. Ibid., Chapter II, Action Plan for the Human Environment, Recommendations 1(a), 9 and 10, 102(j), 51–55, 71, 77, 81 and 83.3. United Nations, Report of the United Nations Conference on Water, Mar del Plata, 1977, E/Conf.70/29, Chapter I.4. United Nations, Mar del Plata Action Plan, Resolution II, Plan of Action A Para. 1(b). See also Recommendations Para. 16(e) and Para. 44(i), and Resolution II, Plan of Action B Para. 5(a).5. United Nations, Mar del Plata Action Plan, Resolution II, Plan of Action A Para. 1(b). Note that this target was first articulated during the Vancouver Conference on Human Settlements in 1976 in the context of housing.6. UN General Assembly, Resolution 35/18 (10 November 1980), U.N. Doc. A/RES/35/18 para. 1 (emphasis added).7. United Nations, Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, 3–14 June 1992, A/CONF.151/26/Rev. 1 (Vol. I), Annex II, Agenda 21, Chapter 18.8.8. World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children, World Summit for Children, 30 September 1990, para. 20(2).9. Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 4–15 September 1995, para. 266(l).10. Explaining the omission of water and sanitation from the International Development Goals is difficult since historical accounts of the process are limited. In Hulme (Citation2007, 5–6), the overall process is characterized as rather serendipitous. A possible explanation for the specific exclusion lies in Hulme's account of the struggle over a sole focus on income poverty and a multi-dimensional list of themes. Water and sanitation may have been a casualty of the eventual compromise.11. Water Resources Management Strategy, World Bank Policy Paper, 1993. Note that the language was partly opaque in this document due to an internal struggle within the Bank: see Pitman (Citation2002, 2). The causes of the privatization shift are of course more complex and include the model provided by the privatization experience of the UK in the late 1980s and the growing awareness of existing private water corporations of the potential for new markets.12. Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development, International Conference on Water and the Environment: Development Issues for the 21st Century, UN Doc. A/CONF.151/PC/112 (1992).13. Agenda 21 states that water users should be charged appropriately only beyond the requirements of basic human needs and even speaks of free access to water for the indigent. United Nations, Agenda 21, Chapter 18.8.14. United Nations, Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Report of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, South Africa, 26 August–4 September 2002, A/CONF.199/20*, Chapter I, Resolution 2, Annex, paras 8 and 25.15. United Nations General Assembly Road map towards implementation of the Millennium Declaration, A/56/326, Annex, para. 1.16. UN CESCR, General Comment 15, The Right to Water, U.N. Doc. E/C.12/2002/11 (2003), para. 12(c)(ii).17. For an overview of national and international standards, which are often based on proportion of budget used for water consumption, see Krause (Citation2009).18. UNICEF/WHO, Millennium Development Goal drinking water target met: Sanitation target still lagging far behind, Joint News Release, 6 March 2012.19. Ibid.20. The 1990 baseline was 76% and access was reported at 83% in 2000. It is a real challenge to gain reliable figures for the baseline in 1980. A number of estimates suggest 60% in 1980, which would mean a 16% improvement in the 1980s. It can be calculated from "X. Access to Safe Water" in United Nations, Charting the Progress of Populations, available at www.un.org and also in Fogden (Citation2009).21. See Data Table 3, Access to Safe Drinking Water 1970–2008, available at www.worldwater.org22. See http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/worldpop/table_population.php23. See, for example, the European Commission at http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/what/environment/water-energy/index_en.htm24. Gross domestic product (GDP); ratio of "disposable national income" to GDP; total population (millions); land area (km2); urbanization (percentage of total population); and the dependency ratio (the share of population aged 15–64 to the sum of the shares aged 0–14 and 65+).25. United Nations General Assembly, International Year of Sanitation, 2008, A/RES/61/192, 6 February 2007.26. United Nations General Assembly, Follow-up to the International Year of Sanitation, 2008, 20 December 2010, A/RES/65/153.27. Interview with Jean-Louis Ville, Head of Unit D1, EuropeAid, October 2012.28. Although most investments in sanitation take place at the household level, which is not captured very well by the monitoring approaches focused on funding by governments, donors and other actors.29. Rio+20: United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, The Future We Want, UN Doc. A/RES/66/288, Annex, paras 246–247.30. United Nations System Task Team on the Post-2015 United Nations Development Agenda, Thematic Think Piece, "Addressing Inequalities: The Heart of the Post-2015 Agenda and the Future We Want For All," May 2012, 13.Additional informationAbout the AuthorsMalcolm Langford is a Research Fellow at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights and Director of its Socio-Economic Rights Programme. He is the Co-Coordinator of Metrics for Human Rights and was formerly an advisor to the UN OHCHR on Millennium Development Goals and human rights. He has published widely on human rights within the disciplines of law, economics, development studies and political science, and his publications include The Millennium Development Goals and Human Rights: Past, Present and Future (Cambridge University Press, 2013, edited with A. Sumner and A. Yamin).Inga Winkler is a Legal Adviser to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, Catarina de Albuquerque. Inga lectures regularly on economic, social and cultural rights including a current appointment at the Kent State University in the USA. She has been a visiting scholar at Stellenbosch and Berkeley. Inga holds a German law degree and a doctorate in public international law. Her thesis focuses on the human right to water and its implications for water allocation and has been published by Hart Publishing. Her research interests include economic, social and cultural rights; the UN human rights system; non-discrimination and equality; business and human rights; human rights in development, in particular in the context of the Millennium Development Goals and post-2015 discussions; and human rights monitoring.