Aligning system strengthening approaches with human rights principles
This blogpost was originally published by Sanitation and Water for All on LinkedIn and is prepared by Make Rights Real, a group of individuals and organisations, the majority of whom are SWA partners, collaborating on the integration of human rights into water and sanitation sector.
Published on: 08/01/2025
Systems strengthening and human rights are often discussed as if they are separate approaches, with limited options available for effectively combining them. However, the opposite is actually true: There is great value in systematically integrating human rights into systems strengthening approaches.
Within a systems strengthening approach, stakeholders are encouraged not make single short-term interventions, but to implement well-planned activities together as a sector, as well as linking in to other sectors on the issues that affect all development goals. Systems strengthening involves understanding what others are doing, so new endeavours can support or complement them without duplication.
Human rights encompass a legal, universally acknowledged normative framework that provides guidance, standards, and direction for development. These are fundamental rights and freedoms inherent to all individuals, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, gender, religion, or any other status or identity. Human rights are international law, laid down in various treaties and declarations.
There is global consensus to the meaning of human rights, including the human rights to water and sanitation, and the interpretation of its terminology and legal clauses is acknowledged across many (international) declarations, resolutions and court cases.
Sanitation and Water for All engages in high-level political influencing on human rights to water and sanitation and see systems strengthening increasingly becoming a technical tool rather than addressing power dynamics, which is at the heart of the issue. As a result, they encourage systems thinking to actively consider both realizing and claiming human rights to water and sanitation. The collective goal is to reintroduce accountability and participation into the systems.
Key human rights principles of equality and non-discrimination, accountability, sustainability, access to information and transparency, and participation serve as guiding principles for all roles and responsibilities within the sector.
For example, the principle of equality requires the prioritisation of the needs of individuals and areas currently underserved. Each of the human rights principles serves as a benchmark for evaluating actions and decision-making. They underscore the process of realising the rights to water and sanitation, requiring thorough analysis and coordination of all relevant factors and stakeholders, thus impacting 'the system' as a whole.
There is plenty of common ground between systems strengthening and human rights principles: The building blocks used in systems strengthening refer directly and indirectly to human rights principles.
Specifically, 'accountability' holds a central position in systems-strengthening evaluation. This is evident not only as a separate building block but also in various aspects such as discussions on the roles and responsibilities of institutions and actors, evaluating the presence of legislation and policies, planning and coordination among WASH actors, and the compatibility of budgets and costs, amongst other examples.
All system strengthening approaches recognise the need to employ these approaches to elevate non-discrimination and equality in access to WASH services, using terms like 'eliminating inequalities', 'rectify exclusion', 'ensure equity', 'social inclusion', 'diversity'. Some organisations have chosen to develop a distinct building block dedicated to equality, like WaterAid's building block "Gender and Social Inclusion."
"WASH delivery must have an inclusive approach to make sure that no one is left behind." - IRC WASH Systems Academy
Although this indeed compels participants to focus on it in its 'own' building block, there are still two concerns: Firstly, the title's selective emphasis on gender may imply a bias towards specific groups. Secondly, isolating equality as a separate building block might hinder the assessment of other building blocks from an equality perspective. At the moment of writing though, WaterAid is actively addressing the latter concern by developing additional indicators ("guiding questions") that reflect human rights principles for each building block.
Other organisations have tried to incorporate human rights principles across the indicators utilized for analysing and rating a specific building block. One example is the IRC building block on 'Finance' that includes a scoring indicator to consider whether "there are subsidies in place to address equity".
"Particular attention must be paid to marginalised individuals and groups in all WASH system building blocks to understand what can be done to rectify exclusion and discrimination as part of WASH systems strengthening." - IRC WASH Systems Academy
Generally, though, although building blocks strive to encompass and classify all facets of a complex WASH system, they usually only address human rights principles in a fragmented manner, lacking comprehensive integration.
The Make Rights Real consortium proposes that practitioners incorporate a human rights perspective into their systems strengthening practice, utilizing the "PASTE framework." This framework applies a human rights perspective to each building block under review by posing critical questions related to the five human rights principles: Participation, Accountability, Sustainability, Transparency & access to information, and Equality & non-discrimination.
When guiding questions (indicators) for all building blocks encompass all human rights principles, the likelihood of assigning a high score to a particular building block without considering human rights implications will be reduced. This, in turn, can lead to better outcomes in terms of equality and accountability.
When considering the building block of ‘finance’ (from the IRC assessment tool), it is not sufficient to consider whether “there are subsidies in place to address equity” (a scoring indicator of the IRC building blocks assessment tool1). It is also important to consider related human rights principles, such as: How transparent is decision-making around budgets and the raising of finance? How do budgets, and taxation regime and tariff reforms ensure that the needs of marginalised and vulnerable groups are included? Does the government allocate the maximum resources at their disposal towards the realisation of the HRWS? What accountability mechanisms exist to ensure that budgets are spent as intended, and that the risks associated with corruption, which generally impact the poorest people worst, is minimalised?
Consequently, the power of human rights within a systems strengthening approach is to provide the strength in systems strengthening. Examining complex systems from a human rights perspective pushes stakeholders to consider equality and justice alongside existing values of efficiency and cost effectiveness. By incorporating human rights principles, we decrease the likelihood of assigning a high score to a programme that may be cost-effective, but is actually failing in terms of equality and sustainability.
Promising initial strides are being made in incorporating a human rights perspective into systems strengthening analysis initiatives. Including the above-mentioned efforts of WaterAid’s recent iteration of its WASH system building block tool to include human rights principles. The Malteser International's "Global Program on WASH and Human Rights in Nepal and Uganda," which runs from 2022 to 2025, employs the "Make Rights Real approach" to proactively engage with local government officials. This approach sensitizes them to their human rights obligations before their participation in a system strengthening workshop. Moreover, the program integrates various human rights-based indicators into a modified IRC-scoring analysis tool. Initial outcomes are promising, as participants in the workshop are now introduced to human rights principles, influencing the assessment and evaluation of building blocks with human rights considerations.
Through using the PASTE acronym, and accompanying questions, the Make Rights Real initiative helps organisations to look critically at their system strengthening tools to ensure that the human rights to water and sanitation are being realised through their programming.
When human rights-based indicators are integrated in system strengthening tools, a deeper understanding enables more target interventions to address systemic challenges. There is improved participation with community members and people who experience marginalisation and exclusion. Stakeholders involved in the systems strengthening approach have increased clarity of their respective roles and responsibilities, resulting in increased focus on government responsibility and leadership. And ultimately, all of it contribute to improved results in terms of access to services for those currently left behind.
If you’d like to learn more about ways to integrate human rights principles into your systems strengthening approach, learn more about Make Rights Real or reach out to Laura van de Lande: laura.vandelande@wash-united.org
This article is dedicated to the memory of Louisa Gosling, who was a leading member of Make Rights Real.
A note from IRC: For more content on this topic, also read our recent blog Evidencing gender equality & social inclusion in WASH systems :: IRC and follow this space for forthcoming publications on how social inclusion can be embedded into a systems strengthening approach.
At IRC we have strong opinions and we value honest and frank discussion, so you won't be surprised to hear that not all the opinions on this site represent our official policy.
