Guide No. 1 presents the Conceptual Framework which the ILO considers should prompt the development of the Water and Sanitation (W&S) Sector by first of all recognizing that the supply of water and sanitation for personal and domestic use has been recognized by the United Nations as a fundamental human right and that this should also be a determining factor in order to reach the sustainable development goals. This Guide also includes some basic notions concerning water management related to risk management as well as specific accomplishments of the ILO concerning rural access and community contracting planning, and particularly, as concerns the framework of the ILO Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention 169 regarding carrying out consultation processes whenever these communities are involved.

The Guide has three chapters:

1. the first provides the conceptual framework of water understood as a human right and its conceptual link to sustainable development and W&S risk management;

2. the second chapter presents the methodologies and instruments that will be used and adapted to the W&S Sector, including a reference to ILO Convention 169 on indigenous people;

3. the third chapter illustrates the adaptation of Integrated Rural Access Planning (IRAP) to the W&S Sector, presents the case of Paraguay, and provides a descriptive example of how a prioritized system has been applied based on a multiple factor matrix that distinguishes it from the original IRAP model.