South Africa is one of only 52 countries that guarantee access to water as a human right. "Access" from a human rights perspective means that water is physically accessible, clean and safe for consumption, and affordable. Section 27 of the country's constitution stipulates that everyone has the right to access sufficient water.

But South Africa is not doing well on meeting the standards of a full human rights approach to water access. In a recent paper, I and my colleagues at the Public Affairs Research Institute's Just Transition Programme set out the extent of this failure, and mapped out what needs to be done to rectify the situation.

The Just Transition Programme aims to contribute to a successful climate transition that prioritises social justice, equity and poverty reduction.

Part of our research method is ethnography - spending time in communities struggling to access water. We do this to learn what concrete changes are required to improve people's lives, from their own perspective.

Physical access to water for households has increased significantly since the country's first democratic elections in 1994. Nevertheless, water quality and safety has declined over the past ten years. Almost half the country's drinking water is considered unsafe for human consumption. Water service interruptions - sometimes lasting days - are becoming more common.

Read more: Basic water services in South Africa are in decay after years of progress

South Africa's household poverty rate (the number of households who live below the upper bound poverty line) is now at 55%. We found that water is becoming more and more unaffordable for impoverished households. The result is that these families have to limit the amount of water they use. This worsens poverty and inequality.

To solve this problem, the South African government needs to embrace a human rights approach to access to water, where people are given enough water to live a full life.

The first problem is affordability. People cannot access water if they don't have the money to pay for it, but most clean and safe water in South Africa must be paid for. Poverty is a key barrier to access.

The United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights to water and sanitation has emphasised that it is the responsibility of the state to assess whether households can afford to pay for water, without sacrificing other basic essential items such as food. It is up to governments to take steps to make water affordable.

The country's Free Basic Water policy was originally intended to address this issue. It guaranteed impoverished households access to a free 6,000 litres of water per month. This is roughly 200 litres per household of eight people per day. However, in practice this policy is not a meaningful solution, for two reasons:

the amount provided is an average of 25 litres of water per person per day. This is way below the World Health Organization recommendation of a minimum water allowance of between 50 and 100 litres of water per person per day.

many millions of poor households are excluded from the benefit because of poor implementation of the policy by municipalities.

This situation reflects the failure to create, implement and oversee a regulatory environment that is necessary to realise affordable access to sufficient, clean water for all South Africans.

Firstly, water policy - at both national and municipal levels - has failed to take a human rights approach. A human rights approach requires that access to sufficient, quality and affordable water is the starting point for all policy making and resource allocation decisions. This has not been the case.

Secondly, access to water has been narrowly defined as making water physically available without considering affordability. Most water access policy in South Africa includes statements declaring that water must be affordable for everyone. Unfortunately, all of these policy promises have remained exactly that - just promises.

Meeting the goal of affordability requires more from the government than stating that water should be affordable. The state must develop affordability standards - in other words, calculate a water tariff that everyone can afford - and monitor it. At the moment, there is no national government oversight of water tariffs and so the affordability policy is effectively meaningless.

Read more: The lack of water in South Africa is the result of a long history of injustice -- and legislation should start there

The actual state practices of tariff setting and approval, particularly in local municipalities, have not translated any of these promises into reality.

Thirdly, many households are denied access to even the 25 litres of free water per person per day, because municipalities don't always implement the free basic water policy as intended.

Read more: Why ordinary people must have a say in water governance

Fourthly, the state has failed to acknowledge the contradiction between providing universal access to services, and requiring municipalities to generate enough money to cover 90% of their running costs. Tariffs for water have increased at rates well above inflation over the past 20 years. But in a very impoverished environment where many people cannot afford to pay for water, up to two thirds of South Africa's municipalities have been classified as being in financial distress.

There is a fundamental - and currently insoluble - conflict between the tariffs that municipalities must charge in order to maintain fully funded budgets, and the tariffs that could be defined as affordable.

These actions should be taken in the short term:

the free basic water allowance must be increased

the household indigent policy, which determines how households can access free municipal services like water, must be restructured.

affordability standards must be developed in close consultation with affected communities. This is the only way to set water tariffs that are based on what households are actually able to pay.

there must be oversight of the provision of sufficient, affordable water for everyone.

In the longer term, these two additional problems must be solved:

municipalities are losing revenue from water, particularly from leaking pipes and other infrastructure

the local government fiscal framework requires that municipalities earn a surplus on trading services such as water. This must be changed so that municipal finances prioritise affordability of water instead.

The ethnographic research team for this work was led by Mahlatse Rampedi, who holds a master's degree and has ten years of experience, together with Ntokozo Ndhlovu, who holds an honours degree.