Sec. 1601. Findings and statement of policy
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Congress finds the following: Clean water and sanitation are among the most powerful drivers for human development. They extend opportunity, enhance dignity, and help create a virtuous cycle of improving health and rising wealth. Unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, and unsuitable and unhygienic living conditions exact an enormous toll on human health in developing countries, particularly for infants and children. Diseases linked to unsafe water and poor sanitation, as well as the time and energy women often devote to collecting water, significantly reduce economic productivity in less developed countries and promote lifecycles of disadvantage.
Water scarcity has negative consequences for agricultural productivity and food security, and seriously threatens international ability to increase food production at the rate required to meet the needs of the world’s growing population. The underlying cause of water scarcity in the large majority of cases is institutional and political, and requires sustainable and effective water resource management. Demand for water resources has contributed to armed conflict in many parts of the world, while conflict and civil strife often reduce access to clean water and sanitation for displaced persons and other innocent victims.
The continued degradation of watersheds threatens the benefits that healthy natural systems provide, and on which people rely. The effects of climate change are expected to produce severe consequences for water availability and resource management in many developing countries, which could result in severe and chronic water shortages. Unsuitable and unhygienic living conditions can exact a heavy toll on human health and productivity. Adequate housing is often a precondition for the enjoyment of various civic and human rights, including the rights to work, vote, obtain education, receive health care, and access other social services.
Rapid urbanization and future population growth are expected to exacerbate already limited access to water, as well as to adequate housing. Approximately half the world’s population lives in cities, often in slums characterized by unsafe water, poor sanitation, lack of basic services, overcrowding, inferior construction and insecure tenure. Because slum populations are growing rapidly, they require increased attention and better integrated programming. Inadequate laws, policies and enforcement mechanisms to protect real property use, lease, and ownership rights often subject slum dwellers to arbitrary, often supra-market rents, forced evictions, threats, and harassment.
Insecurity of tenure severely inhibits economic development by undermining investment incentives and constraining the growth of credit markets, imperils the ability of families to achieve sustainable livelihoods and assured access to housing, and often contributes to conflict over property rights. Women are affected disproportionately by forced evictions and insecure tenure as a result of gender discrimination, often including gender-biased laws that define women as legal minors or otherwise prevent them from owning or leasing land, property, and housing, making them more vulnerable to poverty, violence, and sexual abuse.
Expanding access to clean water, sanitation, and housing is essential for reducing the global burden of disease, advancing economic and social development, protecting basic human rights, and mitigating sources of conflict. It is the policy of the United States to recognize the human right to water and adequate housing, and to work in cooperation with the international community to ensure access to safe water, sanitation and adequate housing for all people.