the human right to water and sanitation in emergency situations

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102 It is also important to note that there are various other international and regional monitoring bodies to which humanitarian agencies can submit evidence on the extent to which governments are implementing and/or violating their right to water and sanitation obligations. They include the monitoring committees of the other international legally enforceable human rights treaties, UN charter-based mechanisms (such as other Special Rapporteur), and regional treaty monitoring bodies and human rights tribunals. Finally, information to these treaty bodies can be sent confidentially. This possibility can be of the utmost importance in cases where organizations do not want to/are unable to risk public submissions. This can particularly be the case in times of war, for fragile states, during political conflicts, or due to any other sensitive issues humanitarian agencies have to deal with. The following figure summarizes the different advocacy initiatives that humanitarian agencies can develop. Figure 5 - Different types of advocacy NATIONAL and REGIONAL LEVELS Ensure State accountability by working with national or regional courts GLOBAL LEVEL Alert the CESCR to violations of the right to water and sanitation NATIONAL and REGIONAL LEVELS Ensure State accountability by working with national or regional courts GLOBAL and NATIONAL LEVELS Speak out against abuses and document violations of the rights to water and sanitation Head up advocacy based on the human right to water and sanitation LOCAL LEVEL Raise awareness of people affected by emergencies of their rights and provide information on how they can claim them GLOBAL LEVEL Raise international awarevemergencies © ACF - THE HUMAN RIGHT TO WATER AND SANITATION IN EMERGENCY SITUATIONS GLOBAL LEVEL Advocate for more funds and more attention GLOBAL LEVEL Attempt to influence policies of governments, donors and private companies to ensure protection of people’s rights
14.4. Developing an advocacy strategy The preceding sections have reviewed the various modalities of advocacy that ultimately all seek to effect practical changes on the ground. Emergency contexts often make it difficult to articulate explicit strategies, particularly where a situation changes rapidly. The following criteria should be met if a sound advocacy base is to be created: - understand the broader context of a particular situation. Man-made emergencies often result from the convergence of a range of factors, from the local to the global level. This is most palpable in situations of armed conflict where there are clashes of interests, but other crisis situations may also reflect similar aspects. It is important for organizations engaged in advocacy to analysis these factors and the ways in which they need to be taken into account in advocacy. Such analytical work is often done as part of situation reporting, outside emergency contexts – these reports are therefore a useful source of background research for use in planning advocacy work. - It is essential, as highlighted above, that advocacy be backed up by impartial, factual research. Although no-one usually disagrees with this approach in theory, carrying out impartial research is often difficult in the fraught, tense context of emergencies. It is sometimes difficult for organizations that are actively involved in bringing relief in emergencies to simultaneously prepare reports and statements that take a distanced view of events – and such research may require more staff time than organizations can make available in hectic emergency contexts. It therefore often makes sense for organizations to pool their research and advocacy. - The advocacy message must be effective. This usually means that the message must be relatively simple (it should typically be no more than a sentence), and that it should be of relevance for all key stakeholders without compromising their impartiality. This does not necessarily mean that the message cannot be critical of one or another of the stakeholders. In many cases, however, the short message will need to be backed-up by more comprehensive documents on specific aspects of the issue. One pre-condition for fulfilling these criteria will often be the ability of organizations working on the right to water to form an advocacy coalition that is appropriate both to the situation and to the selected strategy. The WASH Cluster may often be a “natural” home for such a coalition, although not all members of the Cluster may wish to be involved in a particular piece of advocacy. Coalition-based advocacy needs to take account of the respective status and policies of the coalition members. In practice, it is not necessary to obtain the unanimous agreement of all coalition members on all aspects of an advocacy strategy: it is usually more effective to have the coalition agree on a core message, each organization subsequently developing its own advocacy approach in coordination with the others. This allows for diversity, and also takes advantage of the different strengths of the organizations – for example some may be more experienced at advocating in international fora, whilst others may have better access to authorities or other stakeholders. 14.5. Conclusion - Part 3 - Advocacy on the right to water and sanitation in emergencies The right to water and sanitation is increasingly recognized as a human right and thus provides humanitarian actors and agencies with the wherewithal to develop advocacy campaigns that are not only “needsbased”, but also, and more to the point, “rights-based”. It is hoped that this handbook has given impetus to the reality that, when water and sanitation policy-makers and practitioners working to advance humani- © ACF - THE HUMAN RIGHT TO WATER AND SANITATION IN EMERGENCY SITUATIONS 103
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THE HUMAN RIGHT TO WATER AND SANITA
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ACkNOWlEDGMENTS Acknowledgments The
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Foreword fOREWORD Access to safe dr
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IHL International Humanitarian Law
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