Legal issues in water resources allocation, wastewater use and water supply management : report of a consultation of the FAO/WHO working group on legal aspects of water supply and wastewater management (Geneva, 25-27 September 1990)

The report presents the recommendations of a FAO/WHO consultation on legal constraints which have limited the development of domestic water supply and sanitation. Three commissions were set up to look into the following issues: a. reallocation of water resources; b. legal regimes of wastewater use; and c. institutional issues in wastewater management. The first commission suggested that governments ought to have the legal power to allocate and reallocate water use rights so that the priority should be to serve the basic household needs of a population. Help, it was thought, needed to be given to developing countries in the acquisition of the appropriate legal and institutional mechanisms to achieve this goal. The second commission indicated that governments need to be able to control the allocation of raw wastewater and the use of treated wastewater. Specific environmental and health measures were thought desirable in this context. It was felt that developing countries should be given help in establishing legal regimes for wastewater management. The third commission suggested that developing countries need to make improvements in their water supply and sanitation institutions to achieve sustainability, especially with reference to their ability to enforce and collect water supply and wastewater disposal charges. It was also suggested that the role of the private sector as an alternative means of mobilizing resources required further investigation.