Members from all over the world joined our World Water Day exchange on 20 March to celebrate the coalition’s collective Claim Your Water Rights achievements. Representatives from over 90 different organisations joined the discussion to hear about the variety of advocacy tactics civil society employs to enforce the human rights to water and sanitation at local and national level.
Members from India, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan and Zambia will share their experiences of employing different advocacy tactics – from political lobbying to movement building, from legal reform to lodging complaints – to enforce the human rights to water and sanitation at local and national level. Amaka Nweke provided a passionate presentation on Network of Water Rights Initiative’s use of political lobbying, elections advocacy, and legal reform in transforming Enugu ‘from coal city to water city’. P. C. Misra then shared the Indian Institute of Youth and Development’s experience of working with human rights commissions and local authorities to secure tangible water and sanitation improvements in Odisha, shifting from a service-provider to rights-based approach. Monica Olvera and Nathalie Seguin explained how Cantaro Azul and Freshwater Action Network Mexico deployed data digging and digital mapping to expose poor water quality in schools across Mexico. Jackson Mwenya provided another example of evidence-based advocacy, sharing Vision Africa Regional Network’s remarkable successes in enforcing corporate compliance and climate justice in Zambia. Mary James Gill concluded the presentations by detailing Centre for Law & Justice’s expert use of policy research and movement building to advance water rights and workers’ rights in Pakistan.
Members who missed these excellent presentations and the highly engaging discussion that followed can watch a recording of the exchange on our YouTube channel. We also encourage members to read our Lessons from Claim Your Water Rights report, which documents the diversity of tactics members employ to enforce water rights with interviews from members around the world.