A/HRC/45/10 What is “maximum usage”? D. 28. Budget allocations, even those which might on the face of it seem satisfactory and maximal, do not always provide evidence that States are, in fact, utilizing the maximum of their available resources to achieve a particular right. To focus solely on allocations fails to capture the detrimental impact on the actual spending of those resources by inefficiency and corruption, for example. 23 Once available resources have been allocated, States must ensure that they are indeed fully and effectively spent for the progressive realization of the human rights to water and sanitation, taking into account the life-cycle costing of the provision of water and sanitation services, which is relevant to the human rights principle of sustainability.24 Life-cycle costing requires States to understand current costs related to the provision of services and how these costs might change in the future, for instance, through degradation of the services, changing user needs, climate change and increases in the cost of materials. 29. From a human rights perspective, effective usage means that States specifically target resources towards populations in vulnerable situations and underserved areas. Such a targeted approach requires disaggregated spending information accessible to a non-expert. That information might show that, even if spending on water and sanitation projects has increased, the additional funds have mostly benefited the capital city’s middle-income neighbourhoods and not peri-urban neighbourhoods, where the majority of the population lacks access to tap water. According to one report, only 6 per cent of the bottom 20 per cent of the poorest benefit from the US$ 320 billion that Governments spend each year on water and sanitation services. 25 Using disaggregated information as well as demographic and geographic data can reveal that a budget spending may not meet real needs or may have a discriminatory effect instead of enabling progress in the reduction of inequalities in the enjoyment of the human rights to water and sanitation. 26 For instance, through a project for tracking financing to the sanitation, hygiene and drinking water sector (TrackFin), which is part of the UN-Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water initiative, WHO identifies and tracks water supply-, sanitation- and hygiene-related expenditures, thereby providing information on geographic spending and spending in rural and urban areas. 30. Effective and efficient usage of resources is closely related to transparent and accountable budgeting. For instance, it is questionable whether the provision of State funds to for-profit providers through subsidies is in line with the effective and efficient usage of resources. Resources transferred to private operators are rarely reinvested in service improvements or in expansions aimed at servicing those living in hard-to-reach areas. 27 Using non-financial resources effectively and efficiently is also essential, particularly for service provision. By avoiding the mismanagement of operations and of workforce resources, the provision of services tends to improve and, in turn, result in better and more equal services for all. Furthermore, from the perspective of integrity and transparency, the so-called “capture” of regulators by providers creates an invisible impediment to the effective and efficient usage of non-financial resources. IV. Minimum core obligations 31. All human rights are fundamental, and each right gives rise to inviolable entitlement, namely, the most basic, lowest levels of rights that all people should be afforded in all circumstances. The inviolable element of a right is the intangible baseline or an essential 23 24 25 26 27 8 Eitan Felner, “Closing the ‘escape hatch’: a toolkit to monitor the progressive realization of economic, social and cultural rights”, Journal of Human Rights Practice, vol. 1, No. 3 (November 2009) pp. 402–435. A/HRC/30/39, para. 14. Luis Andres and others, Doing More with Less: Smarter Subsidies for Water Supply and Sanitation (Washington, D.C., World Bank Group, 2019). Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Manual on Human Rights Monitoring (2001), chap. 8, p. 22. Aoife Nolan, “Privatization and economic and social rights”, Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 40, No. 4 (1 November 2018), pp. 815–858.