Nowhere is the crisis felt more severely than with the escalating water crisis. In our stakeholder engagements, community after community has come forward with serious concerns about misspent public money heading into the pockets of politically connected individuals and companies instead of fixing and maintaining water services. As the year comes to a close, several parts of Johannesburg have seen large protests of people angry and frustrated with having no water. In 2025 one of this project’s core accountability campaigns will focus on the right to water. We know that many towns and rural areas have been living with intermittent supply for years. We know that, according to the Blue Drop report of 2022, 46 per cent of South Africa’s drinking water is unsafe. At the same time, tariffs have increased by over 200 per cent in the last ten years. 

We need adequate public financing of water services and an end to retrogressive water disconnections that deny people their basic human right to adequate and safe water.

Thankfully one thing we do have in South Africa is motivated community-level organisations and social movements and we have exemplary legal NGOs. Many people are organising around various service delivery demands. This campaign hopes that we can contribute to connecting these too often siloed efforts to hold public office to account.