Inclusive Development As An Imperative To Realizing The Human Right To Water And Sanitation

Abstract

There are a plethora of governance instruments for operationalizing human
rights obligations on water and sanitation at multiple levels of governance.
The realization that the human right to water and sanitation depends on the
discourses and approaches used in a country to implement it implies that it is
not self-evident that implementing the right will lead to inclusive development.
The inclusive development aims at not only social inclusion but also ecological
and relational inclusion, where the latter aims at ensuring that the structural
causes of inequality are also addressed. Relying on an extensive literature
review and jurisprudence on the human right to water and sanitation, we
develop an ideal-typical conceptual framework for assessing the human right
to water and sanitation with inclusive development as an imperative. Our
framework is based on the premise that governance instruments are valueladen tools which can steer social changes depending on the contextual
political paradigm which can be garnered from the goals, ownership models,
accountability mechanisms and incentives of actors involved in the governance
process. We, therefore, propose a simple model for assessing whether the
governance instruments for operationalizing the human right to water and
sanitation will, in fact, lead to inclusive development.