A/HRC/42/47/Add.3 I. Background 1. Pursuant to resolution 33/10 of the Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation undertakes official country visits to promote the progressive realization of the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation. 2. The Human Rights Council encourages all Governments to continue to respond to requests by the Special Rapporteur, to follow up effectively on the recommendations of the mandate holder and to make available information on measures taken in this regard (Resolution 33/10, para 15). Furthermore, the Manual of Operations of the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council stipulates that Special Procedures mandateholders can seek to enhance the effectiveness of their country visits in various ways, including by formulating their recommendations in ways that facilitate implementation and monitoring and undertaking follow-up initiatives through communications and further visits (paras. 97 to 105). 3. In this connection, the Special Rapporteur seeks to enhance the effectiveness of his official country visits by undertaking a follow-up analysis of those visits focusing on the implementation of recommendations presented in his country visit reports.1 4. The Special Rapporteur undertook his official visit to Portugal at the invitation of the Government from 5 to 13 December 2016. He issued a press release and the preliminary statement 2 at a press conference on 13 December 2016. The report of the official visit (A/HRC/36/45/Add.1) was presented to the Human Rights Council in September 2017. 5. In undertaking the present report, the Special Rapporteur has, between 1 January 2018 and 1 November 2018, conducted desk research on the implementation of the recommendations provided to the Government in his country visit report, to create a picture of the Government’s current actions, inactions and progress. To support this research, questionnaires to the Government were sent on 26 January 2018. Whilst no response from other stakeholders was received, the Government of Portugal submitted a written response to the questionnaire on 18 March 2018, along with below documents. The Special Rapporteur thanks the Government for the response.  Decree-Law n.147/2017, introduces a regime to automatically apply social tariffs  Resolução n.224/2016, recommending that the government improve citizens’ access to social tariffs for public water supply, sanitation and waste collection services.  Resolução n.225/2016, recommending that the government establish a mechanism to automatically transmit information on social tariffs paid by users for energy bills to water and sanitation utilities. 6. The main findings of the follow-up are presented, introducing the level of development of the recommendations. The level of implementation of the recommendations are assessed in accordance with the following categories: 1) good progress, 2) progress ongoing 3) limited progress, 4) progress not started, 5) unable to assess due to lack of information and 6) retrogression. 7. Prior to final submission, the current report was shared with the Government of Portugal on 22 July 2019 to which the Government did not provide any comments. 1 2 2 See: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/WaterAndSanitation/SRWater/Pages/FollowUpAnalysis OfficialCountryVisits.aspx. See: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21014&LangID=E.