This article by Shiney Varghese was published February 28, 2011 on Alternet

Given that nearly three quarters of the "water poor" belong to rural communities, it's time that international deliberations around the right to water focus on rural communities access to safe water.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) obliges states to protect all human rights, but first and foremost, the right to life. It also obliges states to protect its citizens' cultural diversity, and their right to an adequate standard of living, including the right to food. For rural communities, realization of each of these rights is dependent on their ability to access water in their immediate environment.

Over the last decade, the right to water has increasingly been understood rather narrowly as an individual's right to have access to safe and affordable water for drinking and sanitation. In this understanding of the right to water, there is a lack of comprehension of the history and cultures of communities in the global south. In many traditional communities, access to was was realized through the protection of community water sources.

This is no longer the case. Even where rural communities continue the ways of their ancestors, they no longer able to control the fate of their land and water resources. Diversion of water from rural areas, for industrial water use and/or for urban supply, may result in water scarcity and livelihood insecurity for rural communities.