Across Africa, water and climate justice are inseparable. Climate change and the continent’s uneven responses to it are impacting water resilience through prolonged droughts, devastating floods, rising sea levels, and erratic rainfall. These environmental shocks are colliding with decades of underinvestment in public water infrastructure and ongoing attempts to privatise water supply and infrastructure. The result is a cascading crisis; millions of Africans are left without reliable access to safe, affordable water at precisely the moment when climate resilience demands it most.

Commodifying water access not only undermines equitable access, it also erodes the ability of states and communities to respond effectively to climate risks in both the short- and long-term. Private operators and financiers prioritise profit and cost recovery over resilience, neglecting investments in communities perceived to be economically unfeasible and failing to integrate water systems into broader strategies for climate adaptation. Simply put, the short-term profit incentives of the water privatisation industry are incompatible with the long-term planning and investments that the climate crisis demands. This weakens Africa’s capacity to confront a crisis that is already hitting the poorest and most vulnerable the hardest. At the same time, political instability, protests over rising costs of living, natural resource struggles, and escalating debt burdens have intensified the continent’s fragility.   Public health is also under severe strain, as water-borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and bilharzia continue to cripple a water-stressed continent. In such a volatile context, commodifying water threatens not just public health and dignity but also peace and democratic stability.

The Africa Week of Action Against Water Privatisation 2025 is therefore dedicated to the theme “Public Water for Climate Resilience.” The campaign will amplify the urgent message that democratic, publicly controlled and robustly-funded water systems are essential to protecting lives, securing livelihoods, and building climate-resilient futures. At the same time, it will show how public water is a stabilising force in moments of political tension, economic hardship, and social unrest, offering a unifying response to overlapping crises across the continent.

The objectives of the 2025 Week of Action are rooted in advancing climate resilience as a major imperative for water justice across the continent. At the core is the need to expose the risks of privatisation by demonstrating how commodifying water undermines human rights and weakens Africa’s ability to withstand climate shocks. Equally important is the promotion of public alternatives, showcasing successful models of publicly funded, community-driven, and climate-conscious water governance models that prove another path is possible. The campaign will also seek to build Pan-African solidarity by strengthening alliances among civil society organisations, grassroot mobilisers, trade unions, communities, and policymakers who are united in defending water as a public good. Linking water and climate struggles to continent-wide struggles for peace and democratic accountability will position public water at the heart of Africa’s response to multiple crises, aligning with global movements for climate and social justice.

To achieve these aims, a diverse set of activities will be undertaken across the continent. Community mobilisation will form the backbone of the week, with townhall meetings, public rallies, and local workshops designed to connect everyday struggles for water access with broader demands for climate and democratic justice. Complementing this, media and digital campaigns will raise awareness of how privatisation exacerbates vulnerability in the face of the climate crisis and political instability. Movement-building and knowledge sharing will also play a central role, with briefing notes and fact sheets produced to highlight the failures of privatisation and reinforce the case for public solutions. Pan-African solidarity actions will further connect the dots across countries, providing a platform for coordinated advocacy that underscores shared struggles and common alternatives. The campaign will finally, engage governments directly, pressing for increased budgetary allocations to water, stronger public utilities, and a decisive rejection of privatisation schemes.

The Week of Action is expected to deliver tangible outcomes that strengthen the movement for public water across Africa. It will increase public awareness of the link between privatisation, climate injustice, and social unrest, helping communities understand how these struggles intersect. It will also foster stronger coalitions, uniting activists, workers, and citizens in the fight for democratic water governance. Crucially, the mobilisation will culminate in concrete policy demands addressed to governments, regional institutions, and international bodies, pushing for structural reforms that protect water as a public good.

The 2025 Africa Week of Action Against Water Privatisation will underscore a simple but powerful truth: there can be no climate justice without water justice, and there can be no peace or democracy without equitable access to public water. By defending water as a public good and a human right, Africans are also defending their future against the cascading impacts of climate breakdown, political instability, and economic exploitation.