The Department of Water and Sanitation will embark on its annual month-long National Water Month campaign in March 2024. Water Month is an expansion of the World Water Day, spearheaded by United Nations on 22 March, which focuses its attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources.

This day is used as a basis for longer-term action involving governments across the globe with an aim to ensure that everyone in the world has access to safe water by 2030, while not impacting negatively on the environment.

Each year, the United Nations Water sets a theme for World Water Day which corresponds to a current or future challenge. The theme for 2024 is “Leveraging Water for Peace”. This theme aims to galvanise communities all over the world to share water resources to enhance peace instead of conflict. Thus, the theme entails that water can be a tool for peace when communities and countries cooperate over this precious shared resource, but water can also spark and intensify conflict when access is denied and usage unfairly shared.

South Africa will celebrate National Water Month from 1 – 31 March 2024. The programme is designed to have an opening and closing events as well as weekly events sub-themed from the main theme, all working towards the main theme and messaged according to our determined key messages.