Access to clean water and sanitation services remain unacceptably low across the African continent. It is estimated that about 400 million people still lack access to clean water, while 800 million lack proper sanitation services. Despite an increase in access to basic water services, from 587 million in 2014 to 840 million in 2024, critical challenges such as climate-driven water scarcity and rising population levels are rolling back these gains. Yet, issues of water and sanitation have remained underfunded and politically sidelined. These pressures have led the African Union (AU) to declare 2026 the “Year of Assuring Sustainable Water Availability and Safe Sanitation Systems to advance Africa Agenda 2063” (African Union, 2026).
Challenges in accessing this precious commodity are shaped by a convergence of factors: Environmental stress, climate change, rapid urbanisation, weak infrastructure, and poor water governance. Conflicts, especially in the Sahel and Horn of Africa, have perennially disrupted water systems, severely affecting large populations, and thus increasing water poverty. The competition over shared water resources, including transboundary river basins, has also intensified hydropolitics, further complicating the already water resource management. At the country level, reports of weak institutional coordination, underfunded water and sanitation departments, and corruption have entrenched inequalities in access to water.
The impact is far-reaching: Health outcomes have been severely compromised with waterborne diseases such as cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and diarrhoea, still prevalent in African health facilities. In 2019, for instance, about 1.4 million deaths on the continent were attributed to inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) (World Health Organization, n.d.). Additionally, in 4 out of 5 water-poor households worldwide, the burden of water collection and management falls on women and girls, especially those in rural areas, disproportionately affecting outcomes beyond health, such as education, employment, and social development (World Health Organisation, 2019; The Guardian, 2026).