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Rethinking Water Governance: Developing a Youth Manifesto for West Africa

Water is essential to everyday life, yet access to safe and affordable water remains a challenge for many communities across West Africa.

The situation is being made more difficult by climate change, pollution, poor infrastructure, and gaps in how water resources are managed and governed. These challenges affect communities differently, but young people are often at the centre of their impacts and the response to them.

Against this background, the Youth Climate Collective (YCC), in collaboration with the Strategic Youth Network for Development (SYND Ghana), is developing a Youth Manifesto on Water Sovereignty.

The manifesto will bring together perspectives from young people, communities, civil society organisations, and other stakeholders across the region to identify the key issues that should inform discussions and advocacy on water governance.

We are starting this process by listening.

What should the manifesto address?

We want to understand the water-related issues that people consider most important, the challenges communities are experiencing, and the changes they would like to see in how water is accessed, managed, and protected.

To support this process, we have developed a short poll to gather perspectives from across West Africa.

Let us know what you think

The responses will help inform the priorities and demands included in the manifesto.

We encourage individuals and organisations working on water, climate, development, community issues, and related areas to participate. We also encourage you to share the poll with your networks so that the process can capture perspectives from different countries and communities across the region.

The Youth Manifesto on Water Sovereignty will be developed from these contributions and will provide a basis for continued discussion and advocacy around water governance in West Africa.

Take the Poll