The week-long campaign, which runs from October 13 to 18, is being coordinated under the Our Water Our Right Africa Coalition (OWORAC) with the theme “Public Water for Climate Resilience.”
The coalition said the mobilisation aims to resist the growing trend of water privatisation and promote public, democratically managed systems that can withstand climate shocks.
Executive Director of Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), Mr. Oluwafemi Akinbode, said the coalition’s position remains firm that water is a human right, not a commodity for profit.
“We are witnessing an alarming pattern where governments use climate change as a justification to hand over public water systems to private corporations,” he said, adding, “Africa must invest in strong, publicly governed systems capable of protecting lives under climate stress, not surrender control to profit-driven interests.”The OWORAC statement noted that climate change is worsening water scarcity across the continent, from droughts in the Horn of Africa to floods in Nigeria and Mozambique. It warned that private desalination projects being promoted as climate solutions are energy-intensive, environmentally damaging, and often lead to higher tariffs for citizens.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, aligned with the coalition’s stance, stressing that water should never be treated as a commercial good.
“Publicly managed water systems are the foundation of climate resilience. When profit becomes the priority, people are left behind,” he said.
Neil Gupta, Water Campaign Director at Corporate Accountability, described water privatisation as a global crisis fuelled by powerful corporations in the Global North.
“Multibillion-dollar companies like Veolia and Suez have turned essential water services into profit-making ventures, with the support of institutions such as the World Bank and IMF,” he said. Gupta cited examples of foreign-backed water schemes in Lagos and Kenya as evidence of continued external interference in Africa’s water policies.
In his remarks, Professor Adelaja Odukoya, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Lagos, said water privatisation represents a form of “disaster capitalism” that exploits public suffering for profit. “Privatisation is wired to produce poverty, inequality, and exclusion,” he said, adding, “Water justice is environmental justice. We must end corporate control and reclaim water as a public good.”
The coalition called on African governments to stop tying public water access to financial returns and urged international institutions to end loan conditions that promote privatisation.
It also recommended greater investment in renewable energy, protection of watersheds, and community-led governance of water resources as pathways toward sustainable water management.
