On 30 April 2021, Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa and the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights issued a joint statement welcoming the Guidelines on the Right to Water in Africa that were officially launched by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights during its 68th Ordinary Session on 24 April.

The Guidelines establish the legal framework applicable in countries of the African Union with regard to the right to water. They set strict limitations on the delegation of the provision of water services to a private actor. In particular, they stipulate that water services must not be outsourced where this could “constitute or contribute to the marketisation or commercialisation of water”. The guidelines also state, more generally, that private actors’ involvement in water must not “lead to the commercialisation of water”. This framework calls into question the trend observed in many African countries towards the commercialisation of water, in particular by outsourcing water services to multinational corporations.

The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has underscored the vital importance of quality, transparent, gender-responsive, participatory and democratically governed public services, including water management and delivery. In this context, the Guidelines are a timely addition to a growing number of normative texts that have reaffirmed in the last years the State obligations to provide quality public services, such as education, healthcare, housing, water and sanitation, in order to realise economic, social and cultural rights.