A/HRC/36/45 providers’ performance by monitoring them, providing them with information and recommending strategies that might help them improve their standards. 67. According to Investing in Water and Sanitation: Increasing Access, Reducing Inequalities (UN-Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water, 2014 report), less than half of countries report a functioning process whereby formal rural drinking-water service providers report the results of their internal monitoring to regulatory authorities and also use the results to trigger corrective action. Moreover, performance results are not typically made public for a majority of service providers. Only for urban formal service providers were performance results made public for over 60 per cent of respondent countries. Countries indicated that the extent of independent surveillance of water quality was far greater in urban areas: nearly 70 per cent of countries reported surveillance in urban areas, compared to only 40 per cent in rural areas. 68. Similarly, formal sanitation service providers, whether urban or rural, typically do not report data to regulatory authorities. While a regulatory framework and standards for sewerage networks are generally available, they are not always effectively put in place and monitored.33 Sewerage systems often raise affordability concerns for the State, the service provider and the user and require careful monitoring. Connection charges may prevent poorer households from making use of this service, unless appropriate regulation is in place to ensure affordability. 2. Informal service providers 69. The situation becomes far more complex when monitoring informal small-scale providers. Piped systems are often not available to rural households or to those living in informal settlements in urban areas (see A/70/203, para. 64). This represents a significant problem of inequality in access, as people living in these areas, who are often poorer, have to rely on alternatives that are often of lower quality and that tend to cost far more. In these situations, some types of services, such as informal shared or communal facilities and unregulated individual on-site solutions, are seen as necessary short- to medium-term solutions. However, without suitable regulation and monitoring, none of these services can be guaranteed to comply with human rights standards. 70. Non-governmental organizations and community-based organizations are taking on an important role in informal service provision, stepping in where the State is not involved in such activities. Many of the same challenges in relation to regulation and accountability apply to the activities of such organizations, for instance ensuring consistent standards as regards quality of services and ensuring that organizations are accountable to the people they serve. Population groups in many countries are served by community and informal service providers, which rarely report internal monitoring results to authorities. 34 71. One approach to monitoring in informal settlements that has shown positive results is the use of participatory geographic information systems, which merge technical spatial information with a local community’s location-specific knowledge, often producing rich data including on land use, water sources, differentiated access to resources and sites of actual or potential environmental hazards. For instance, OpenStreetMap 35 initiatives in informal settlements in Nairobi have generated detailed data indicating how many households share a toilet, whether there are gender-specific toilets, whether the toilets have disability access and whether the toilets provide sanitary bins for women (see A/69/213, para. 82). 72. It is important that States and regulatory actors recognize the existence of informal service provision and assess the role that it plays in a given context. While the choice of the best policy approach to informal providers rests with the State and will depend on the particular circumstances of each case, human rights law prescribes that where services are 33 See A/70/203, para. 46. See also www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/WaterAndSanitation/SRWater/Pages/Differentlevelsandtypesofservices.aspx. 34 35 16 Ibid., para. 19. See www.openstreetmap.org.