The Human Right to Safe Drinking Water: A Global Challenge.

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Access to safe drinking water is an essential human right and an indispensable condition for life, health, and dignity. Yet, in 2025, millions of people around the world still lack access to clean water and adequate sanitation services. This issue, in addition to representing a grave social injustice, undermines the realization of other fundamental rights such as the right to health, food, and a dignified standard of living.

The right to drinking water implies the availability of safe water, physically and economically accessible, sufficient for the personal and domestic needs of every individual. It is therefore not only a natural resource, but a right that must be guaranteed without discrimination. According to the World Health Organization, a person should have between 50 and 100 liters of water per day to ensure minimum standards of health and hygiene.

Without water, there is no life. The lack of access to safe sources leads to the spread of diseases such as cholera, dysentery, and typhoid, which continue to affect the most vulnerable populations. In addition, water scarcity fuels local and international conflicts, exacerbates inequalities, and forces millions of women and girls, particularly in the Global South, to walk long distances every day to collect water, taking away time from education and other social activities.

The recognition of water as a human right is relatively recent. In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly, with Resolution 64/292, declared access to safe drinking water and sanitation a fundamental human right. The UN Human Rights Council has repeatedly reaffirmed that water is an integral part of the right to an adequate standard of living. At the global policy level, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted in 2015, dedicates Goal 6 to ensuring “clean water and sanitation for all.” World conferences such as those held in Rio in 1992 and Johannesburg in 2002 also placed water at the center of environmental and human rights debates.

Despite progress, the figures remain alarming. According to the 2023 UNICEF-WHO report, about 2.2 billion people still lack access to safely managed drinking water services. More than 3.5 billion people live without adequate sanitation, while every year over 800,000 people die from diseases related to contaminated water.

The problem is further aggravated by climate change, which intensifies droughts and floods, and by pollution caused by industrial and agricultural activities. Geographical inequalities are profound: while in many regions of Europe and North America access to water is nearly universal, in sub-Saharan Africa millions of people still live without safe sources.

Ensuring access to safe drinking water for all means not only protecting health but also promoting equality, sustainable development, and social peace. Achieving this requires strong public policies, infrastructural investment, international cooperation, and above all, recognition that water is not a commodity, but a common good to be protected and shared.

Official Sources:

• United Nations (2010) Resolution 64/292: The human right to water and sanitation. UN General Assembly. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/687002

• United Nations (2015) Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development UN. https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda

• WHO (2011) Guidelines for drinking-water quality, 4th edition. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241548151

• UNICEF & WHO (2023) Progress on household drinking water, sanitation and hygiene 2000–2022. Geneva: World Health Organization. https://data.unicef.org/resources/jmp-report-2023/

written by Sara Maggetto