Our Free Water for All campaign works towards providing universal access to clean water. We promote free access to water as a basic human right.
The right to water is arguably the most basic human right of all. And yet, across the globe, multinational corporations are attempting to take control of the water supply and privatize it. We believe that privatizing water is incompatible with ensuring free access to it as a human right. This particularly applies in the developing world, where controlling society starts with controlling water.
While water covers around 70 percent of our planet, just 3 percent of the world’s water is freshwater – the type that we drink, irrigate our farm fields with, and wash ourselves with. Of this tiny percentage, two-thirds is contained in frozen glaciers or is otherwise unavailable for our use.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) estimates that over 1 billion people worldwide still lack access to water, while a total of 2.7 billion find water scarce for at least one month of the year. Inadequate sanitation remains a problem for 2.4 billion people and results in them being exposed to diseases such as cholera, typhoid fever and other water-borne illnesses.
To address these problems, our Free Water for All campaign encourages people to start pilot projects to collect rainwater. Just as with our other campaigns, we find that promoting rainwater harvesting helps people to help themselves. In countries where water is scarce this campaign is closely related to our Free Food for All campaign. Without water to irrigate crops, Free Food for All would not be possible.