There have been several calls for transformation in food systems to address the challenges of climate change, hunger, continuing population pressure, and to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Although complicated, working across scales and actors is critical for food-system transformation, alongside understanding the entry points. As agricultural research for development (AR4D) is ultimately about farming practices and farmer livelihoods, a focus on the local scale is essential, as in most cases, farms and districts are where the most action is required. Through effective cross-scale work, lessons from local levels can shape the thinking of regional and national governments, as well as the private sector. Involving multiple and ideally nested scales, designing sets of solutions, and developing actionable, fundable, and implementable solutions is likely to provide rich food-system outcomes. Partners need to provide the tools, signals, and resources so that local people, communities, and policy planners are empowered to drive transformation.

Access to affordable water and sanitation services is crucial for the realization of the human rights to water and sanitation. Where these services are available but not affordable, people will not be able to use sufficient amounts of water and adequately maintain latrines, or will turn to cheaper, unsafe sources or practices. Another consequence is that people, in order to support the costs of water and sanitation, might compromise the realization of other human rights such as food, housing, health or education. However, the issue of affordability does not always receive the attention it deserves. As people will go to great lengths to pay for water to ensure their survival and health, there is often an assumption that people will obtain the water they need even without the state support.

This chapter examines the nature of the obligation of states to progressively realize the human rights to water and sanitation, aiming at informing public policies on the operationalization of that obligation. Even with more than one decade since the General Assembly explicitly recognized water and sanitation as a human right, it is often not clear how to unpack the generality of the obligation of progressive realization of human rights, particularly in the era of the 2030 Agenda. Both the SDGs and the progressive realization obligation have been criticized for being aspirational goals, the former because of the significant margins of discretion given to each state to set their own national targets and the latter because it is viewed as vague, having no defined time frame or pace of implementation and therefore not imposing a clear positive obligation on states (Porter, 2015).

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development contains a broad set of goals requiring unprecedented global commitment and cooperation between countries (United Nations, 2015d, 2015e). From the human rights perspective, the agenda reflects elements of international human rights law and offers critical opportunities to further advance the realization of human rights for all people everywhere without discrimination (OHCHR, n.d.-c). The challenge posed is to ensure that strategies and policies to implement the 2030 Agenda are effectively based on the established human rights framework. Goal 17 of the Agenda refers to strengthening the means of implementation and “revitalizing the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development.” Several targets of Goal 17 aim at the full implementation of official development assistance by developed countries, reaching certain proportions of aid relative to gross national income.

In most societies, many groups and individuals rely on places beyond the scope of the household to live and enjoy their rights, including their rights to water and sanitation. These groups include persons in penal institutions and detention centres, health care professionals and patients who spend long periods in hospitals and health centres, students in boarding schools and workers who are required to spend considerable lengths of time in open workplaces. They also include people who reside in those spheres because of homelessness, people living in poverty who may lack access to water and sanitation in or near their homes and people who work formally or informally in the public spaces of urban areas. More broadly, they include the general public who commute daily.

The CEDAW, the SDGs, and the ICPD PoA are all but a few salient examples of how the international sphere attempts to influence abortion policymaking. In the international sphere, we focus on intergovernmental organizations and examine how they impact reproductive policy. Our theory distinguishes regional from international intergovernmental bodies and goes into detail about the rationale for this distinction. The first significant finding here is a heretofore-overlooked relationship between international entities and reproductive health. Additionally, we compare the influence of international organizations with domestic government measures meant to increase women’s substantive representation, such as quotas. This chapter, thus, also incorporates discussions from Chapters 4 and 5. Our findings reveal the influence of intergovernmental organizations in determining international norms of women’s rights and gender equality. That said, not all types of action are equal, and who attempts to influence national reproductive policies from within the international sphere and how they do so is of great importance.

The CEDAW, the SDGs, and the ICPD PoA are all but a few salient examples of how the international sphere attempts to influence abortion policymaking. In the international sphere, we focus on intergovernmental organizations and examine how they impact reproductive policy. Our theory distinguishes regional from international intergovernmental bodies and goes into detail about the rationale for this distinction. The first significant finding here is a heretofore-overlooked relationship between international entities and reproductive health. Additionally, we compare the influence of international organizations with domestic government measures meant to increase women’s substantive representation, such as quotas. This chapter, thus, also incorporates discussions from Chapters 4 and 5. Our findings reveal the influence of intergovernmental organizations in determining international norms of women’s rights and gender equality. That said, not all types of action are equal, and who attempts to influence national reproductive policies from within the international sphere and how they do so is of great importance.