Water justice: why it matters and how to achieve it
Clean water is a vital component of safe, clean, and healthy communities. Despite this, billions of people around the world lack reliable access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. Many communities have been systematically excluded from safe water infrastructures due to racism, classism, and other forms of prejudices. These prejudice-linked WASH accessibility issues have led scholars and policymakers to invent the idea of “water justice.” Water justice aims to remove the artificial power structures that limit some communities’ access to clean water through activism and local empowerment. Many hope that education and community-based movements can help expand WASH services and institute water equity around the world.