The Hearing the Unheard film amplifies the voices of grassroots groups advocating for safe water and sanitation across the globe. It includes a wide array of contributions from water rights defenders that submitted over 114 video testimonies from 54 different groups in 18 countries across Africa, Asia, and the Americas as part of the #HearingTheUnheardHRWS digital campaign. In the film, water rights activists articulate the water and sanitation challenges they face and explain how they are fighting for change.
During the panel discussion, the speakers emphasised the need to address structural exclusion and power imbalances in order to advance access to safe water and sanitation. “We don’t leave people behind by accident,” said FANMex’s Nathalie Seguin. “The marginalisation of grassroots groups is structural and to solve it we need structural solutions.”
ProDESC’s Gabriel Rocha highlighted the importance of robust and safe civic spaces for those most affected by a lack of water and sanitation to promote human rights.
“To even out power imbalances, we need to ensure safe and democratic civic spaces, get resources to civil society, and strengthen accountability,” Rocha said. “Where water and sanitation rights have been realised, they have been realised by people – and this was not handed to them, it was fought for.”
Check out the 12-minute film, as well as the testimonies submitted by grassroots groups, on our Youtube channel.
End Water Poverty brings together activists from around the world to share their expertise on leading successful campaigns for water justice at the 2023 All Systems Connect conference in May.
From 2-4 May 2023, we’re joining an impressive group of water rights activists in the Hague, the Netherlands, for All Systems Connect – a global conference hosted by IRC that links actors and activists across sectors so they can share strategies for a more just world. We’re leading the social justice theme at the symposium, foregrounding the voices and actions of people who are championing fair access to safe water, proper sanitation and a healthy environment for their communities.
Well-managed natural resources and public services are essential to social justice. When both are readily available, they keep people healthy, freeing them to get on with learning and making a living. When these basics are missing or are denied to communities, people are forced to take a stand. They are women and men who care about their families, friends and neighbourhoods – and speak out, employing diverse and savvy strategies to take action against inequality and discrimination.
It’s because of activists and their dedicated campaigning that justice is won. Today, this commitment is in high demand as governments and corporations around the world pollute and exploit water and other natural resources, plunging communities deeper into poverty and ill health.
Tipping the balance of power in favour of the many
Currently, injustice prevails in too many societies, and access to power, resources and services remains divided by race, class, gender, nationality and geography. Because access to power, privilege and services is stacked in favour of wealthier, more powerful actors, special measures are needed to safeguard the rights of groups who are side-lined and denied a seat at the table.
When communities stand up and demand their rights to water and sanitation, governments exploit legal loopholes or use violence to silence them. In response, communities use creative strategies to get their point across, deploying a combination of persuasive and compelling strategies to effect change. They play a vital role in strengthening governance by persistently holding states accountable. It is their agency and actions that activate legal and policy frameworks, and political commitments. Social justice is about action.
That’s why we’re platforming community activists, social movements and civil society organisations at All Systems Connect, and creating opportunities to exchange experiences, strategies and actions.
CONNECT Social Justice
CONNECT Social Justice, the theme we’re leading, comprises four sessions focused on community actions to claim the rights to:
water, sanitation, housing and a safe environment
civic and political space, voice and agency
work and making a living
gender justice
These sessions include a screening and discussion of our new Hearing the Unheard film, a synthesis of video testimony from dozens of marginalised groups across the world as part of the #HearingTheUnheardHRWS campaign. There will also be a rights-claiming exchange between activists, and a session foregrounding the actions of sanitation workers, waste pickers and informal traders for social change.
On Tuesday 2 May, we launch our new report highlighting lessons learned from the Claim Your Water Rights campaign. After the Symposium, as part 2 of the launch, we will convene an online peer-to-peer exchange between campaign members (more on this soon).
Throughout, speakers from Africa, the Americas and Asia will unpack the links between water, sanitation, climate, health, gender and economic justice, and share how they’re building connected movements for change.
On 23 March 2023, End Water Poverty, the Water Integrity Network (WIN) and our partners hosted Hearing the Unheard: Human Rights to Water and Sanitation, an official side event to the UN 2023 Water Conference which amplified the voices of grassroots communities fighting for water and sanitation.
We wanted to ensure that the voices of communities were heard at the conference. As UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to water and sanitation Pedro Arrojo-Agudo said at the event: “I dream that events like this one, instead of being side events outside the UN building, will be central events at the UN headquarters … with social movements and water defenders occupying the centre with access to the microphone and States listening attentively.” This side event and digital campaign are a first step towards this broader goal.
It’s not about leaving no one behind, it’s about putting rights-holders in front
#HearingTheUnheardHRWS is not just an event. It’s a digital campaign that has a life beyond the UN Water Conference. It’s also a political statement, and a powerful evidence base. Over the month of March, we gathered testimonies on the lived experience, agency, responses from government and demands of 54 different groups in 18 countries; a total of at least 114 video submissions so far.
This event and its campaign is not about leaving no one behind, it’s about putting them in front. It’s about listening. It’s also about committing. And it’s about promoting accountability.
Those who were able to attend the side event in person, were able to do so because of some degree of privilege. And that meant that they had access to power. The other side of the coin is that, despite an explicitly inclusive vision, the participation of many grassroots and marginalised people had been prevented by travel costs, visa requirements, and the accreditation criteria and protocols of UN Water itself. In organising the #HearingTheUnheardHRWS event we weren’t able to bring various grassroots speakers because they were unable to get visas which is why we had two empty chairs at the event – they represented the speakers who could not be there to speak in person.
It is not an accident that some people are not at the table. It is not an unfortunate set of circumstances. It is structural and it is deliberate. We have created a world in which, according to Oxfam, over the last decade, the richest 1% have captured around half of all new wealth.
Structural interventions are needed if we want to change this, if we really want to build a world in which everyone has access to safe water and sanitation, a world in which no-one, not a single woman, man, or child, has to battle for safe drinking water or safe and dignified sanitation.
It is grassroots communities and water rights defenders like the ones we heard from who are on the frontline: engaging their politicians, standing up to police and corporate power, defending rivers, lakes and groundwater. Communities are the agents of change. They activate legal obligations and political promises. We need to find meaningful ways to back these communities and water rights defenders standing up for their rights because that is where rights realisation is happening.
Alana Potter (End Water Poverty) and Barbara Schreiner (Water Integrity Network)
Hearing the Unheard’s highlights
The #HearingTheUnheardHRWS event’s programme was packed with incredible speakers, including grassroots water rights defenders Patricia Eduviges Silva Lópezand Migdalia Girón; state representatives Lord Zac Goldsmith, Isabella de Roldáoand Risimati Mathye; and high profile representatives from the UN Rio Hada and Pedro Arrojo-Agudo.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Rio Hada framed the event by underscoring that access to water and sanitation are “game-changing rights” that are “indispensable to a healthy planet and sustainable development”. Yet, despite being formally recognised as human rights, billions of people worldwide live without access to safe drinking water and dignified sanitation as corporations consume and contaminate water with impunity, access remains deeply rooted in discrimination and inequality, and local human rights defenders are paying with their very lives for their resistance to human rights abuses. “This is not merely a tragedy,” Hada said, “it’s a human rights failure.” Hada committed to amplifying the demands from grassroots communities because the only way to fulfil these rights is “to listen and give voices to ordinary people”.
Patricia Eduviges Silva López, an indigenous community activist and nurse from Mixteca Oaxaqueña, México, shared how advocating for women to have a more equitable voice in decision-making in her local community enabled them to advance their access to safe water through rain-water catchment. “Once the community recognised women’s right to participate in decision-making,” she said, “we were able to work together to implement the rain catchment project. We realised we needed each other.”
Guatemalan human rights defender Migdalia Girón, explained how women living in rural areas in Latin America struggle to access water with many spending hours a day hauling water, sacrificing their time, health and opportunities. “I bring their voices here,” she said.
Girón urged the international community to offer more financial support directly to rural communities who “want to be part of the solution” and to speak out in support of laws and policies that bring women into decision-making processes. “Water is a right and common good passed down to us,” she said. “We must protect it and pass it on to future generations.”
The United Kingdom’s Minister of State for Overseas Territories, Commonwealth, Energy, Climate and Environment Zac Goldsmith said that those most affected by a lack of access to water and sanitation, including women, girls and indigenous groups, are “a vital part of the solution” and argued for a fundamental shift to turn the targets and commitments made at the conference into action. The Vice-Mayor of Recife Isabella de Roldáo similarly emphasised the importance of centring those most affected by a lack of water and sanitation in debates about the future. The South African Deputy Director-General of Water and Sanitation Risimati Mathye spoke about the challenges and opportunities presented by the right to water which is enshrined in the South African Constitution and the need for strong institutions. He strongly endorsed the call to centre rights-holders in the provision of water and sanitation services.
Inputs from Bobby Whitfield, CEO and Chair of the Liberia National Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Commission, and Jefferson Koijee, Mayor of Monrovia, demonstrated the Government of Liberia’s political leadership of human centred WASH services and its commitment to supporting marginalised groups.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to water and sanitation Pedro Arrojo-Agudo’s address began with a provocation: “We don’t get what we don’t fight for and we don’t fight for what we don’t dream.” He said that the UN 2023 Water Conference has made him optimistic, not because of specific commitments from States, but because of he believes that we are at the starting point of creating the UN that we all need. A UN that engages rights-holders and human rights defenders in dialogue, that harnesses the energy and legitimacy that human rights defenders bring. “Another world is possible,” he said, “because it is necessary.”
In addition to live testimony from water rights defenders, the event included video testimony from seven grassroots communities fighting for their rights to water and sanitation. Watch these videos here:
We’ll be uploading all of the video testimonies from the digital campaign to our Youtube channel. So keep an eye out for them!
As the UN Special Rapporteur said in his input at the side event: “We don’t get what we don’t fight for, and we don’t fight for what we don’t dream”.
We must keep up the fight with all the passion that has been shown during the #HearingTheUnheardHRWS side event and campaign, so that rights-holders can take centre stage. We must use our power, whatever the different nature of that power is, to take the fight forward beyond this conference.
Thank you!
A special thanks to the organisations who facilitated the videos and live testimony presented in the side event: Centre for Law and Justice (CLJ), Coalition Eau, FANMex, Guardianes del Agua, La Goutte d’Eau, Matabeleland Institute of Human Rights (MIHR), Mogote Colorado, MUDEM A.C. and ONGAWA.
We’re grateful to the Water Integrity Network (WIN) for chairing the event and working alongside us to organise it; to our partners who contributed to the event costs (Coalition Eau; Franciscans International; ONGAWA; Simavi; Water Witness and WIN); to our co-convenors and speakers; to the UN Human Rights Office, and to the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to water and sanitation, to whom we had the honour of presenting the Water Justice Manifesto last week.
Special thanks to the Department of Water and Sanitation in South Africa and the Government of Liberia for endorsing and sending high level speakers and delegates to join us; to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office of the Government of the United Kingdom, to WaterAid for hosting and supporting End Water Poverty, and to the Government of the Netherlands for funding support to make this event possible.
This website use cookies in order to improve and customize your browsing experience and for analytics and metrics about our visitors. We value your privacy, to find out more about the cookies we use, and data collected, see our Privacy Policy.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
On 23 March 2023, End Water Poverty, the Water Integrity Network (WIN) and our partners hosted Hearing the Unheard: Human Rights to Water and Sanitation, an official side event to the 
Patricia Eduviges Silva López, an indigenous community activist and nurse from Mixteca Oaxaqueña, México, shared how advocating for women to have a more equitable voice in decision-making in her local community enabled them to advance their access to safe water through rain-water catchment. “Once the community recognised women’s right to participate in decision-making,” she said, “we were able to work together to implement the rain catchment project. We realised we needed each other.”
Girón urged the international community to offer more financial support directly to rural communities who “want to be part of the solution” and to speak out in support of laws and policies that bring women into decision-making processes. “Water is a right and common good passed down to us,” she said. “We must protect it and pass it on to future generations.”
A special thanks to the organisations who facilitated the videos and live testimony presented in the side event: Centre for Law and Justice (CLJ), Coalition Eau, FANMex, Guardianes del Agua, La Goutte d’Eau, Matabeleland Institute of Human Rights (MIHR), Mogote Colorado, MUDEM A.C. and ONGAWA.