A/HRC/30/39 hinder such access. Formalization and regulation of informal service provision must pay due attention to the impact of this process on levels of access, affordability and quality of service provision. Where States seek to replace informal service provision with formal providers, they must ensure that people can actually afford these alternatives and do not experience retrogression in the realization of their human rights. B. Monitoring affordability 80. Monitoring affordability is essential for assessing whether standards are being met, and whether people in fact have access to affordable services. Unless efforts are made to monitor whether services are affordable for all, States and service providers alike will struggle to provide appropriate support to individuals and households that may have difficulties in paying for services. 81. However, monitoring affordability is not a straightforward process. Accurate and meaningful monitoring of affordability is extremely complex. If carried out on the basis of an affordability standard, the necessary parameters for calculating affordability – the expenses for accessing water and sanitation in comparison to overall household expenditure, and the real income of a household – are difficult to measure. Monitoring whether a household’s expenditure on water and sanitation exceeds a specific proportion of its income in a specific context is not easily done, given the precarious incomes of many low-income households, and the many different types of expenses for water and sanitation services in informal settlements, where affordability concerns are most acute. Given these difficulties, States often use an “average” or a “lowest” income level, and an assumed acceptable volume of water to set appropriate service charges. However, such generalizations hide whether individuals can actually afford services in their particular context, which may involve a large household, or individuals with specific health problems. 82. Other approaches to monitoring affordability take a different starting point. Rather than relying on an absolute affordability threshold, they look at the impact that the cost of water and sanitation services has on the enjoyment of other human rights. Human rights monitoring can greatly contribute to qualitative, more contextualized monitoring. For instance, treaty bodies can provide details on the impact of the lack of affordability on people’s lives, including through disconnections, the challenges people face, and the interlinkages with the realization of other human rights. 83. The ECE Protocol on Water and Health has developed an Equitable Access Scorecard, which assists States to monitor whether services are affordable. This scorecard looks beyond the affordability of tariffs to other measures that Member States may employ to ensure affordability. This includes monitoring the inclusion of affordability concerns in water and sanitation policy, the affordability of self-provision, whether public funding is made available to address affordability concerns, how much public funding has actually been spent on affordability concerns, and whether social protection measures are effective in ensuring affordability. 47 84. In terms of global monitoring, there are heightened challenges due to data gathering and comparability. The proposed goal 6.1 of the Sustainable Development Goals explicitly refers to achieving affordable drinking water for all, hence calling for including the criterion of affordability in global monitoring. 47 20 ECE/WHO Protocol on Water and Health, Equitable Access Scorecard 2014, chapter 4, available from http://www.unece.org/?id=34032.