9 November 2025
“Healthcare facilities are where
the vulnerable seek healing. Yet, without adequate
water,sanitationand hygiene, for too many people,
expected care can become inadvertent harm,” said Dr. Hans
Kluge, the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Regional Director
for Europe.
Emphasizing that healthcare is “being
tested as never before”, Dr. Kluge insisted that
bolstering them is an investment in withstanding
crises.
As part of this work, a UN-led meeting in
Budapest this week has resulted in more than 40 countries
adopting a programme to build more resilient and equitable
water, sanitation and hygiene systems, often referred to
collectively as WASH.
The 7th session of the Meeting
of the Parties to the
Protocol on Water and Health is co-led by the UN
Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the UN health
agency.
The Protocol on Water and Health remains
the only legally binding international
treaty explicitly linking environmental protection,
water governance and public health. It has helped countries
translate commitments into concrete improvements, such as
expanding safe drinking water, protecting biodiversity, and
boosting disease surveillance.
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Yet major challenges
remain. In addition to the 118 million people in Europe
whose healthcare facilities lack basic sanitation, another
70 million lack access to safely managed drinking water and
185 million do not have safe sanitation. These
vulnerabilities are only deepening as droughts, floods and
cyber threats increasingly disrupt services.
“The
Protocol is an example of how multilateral cooperation
impacts our everyday lives, but we still have much work
ahead,” said UNECE Executive Secretary Tatiana
Molcean.
Practical tools, global relevance
The
Protocol provides a toolbox of evidence-based resources,
such as an equitable access scorecard and water safety
planning, already in use in more than 30 countries. The
international agreement has supported at least 1,500
facility assessments and helped inform policies in schools,
hospitals and urban planning.
Countries across the
pan-European region have pledged to ensure safe water and
sanitation for all, through commitments like the Budapest
Declaration and the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), “but no one tells
you how to do it. That’s what the Protocol has to
offer,” stressed Marta Vargha, Vice-Chair of the
Protocol.
Concrete measures under the Protocol include
efforts to ensure safe water, sanitation and menstrual
hygiene in schools; to monitor wastewater for dangerous
viruses including COVID-19; to
tackle the spread of Legionella bacteria in domestic water
systems and to develop plans for carbon-neutral water
services.
Ahead of the UN climate summit in Brazil,
UNECE urged governments to put water and sanitation systems
at the core of climate resilience – a message highlighted
by Secretary-General António
Guterres in a message to the meeting: “Progress on
water and sanitation supports progress across multiple
Sustainable Development
Goals.”
