As South Africa’s water crisis reaches a breaking point, President Cyril Ramaphosa has published the National Water Action Plan (NWAP), outlining strategic interventions to reverse the significant deterioration in water supply and quality over the short, medium and long term.
The release of the plan followed a meeting of the National Water Crisis Committee (WATERCOM) in Pretoria on Thursday.
WATERCOM, chaired by Ramaphosa and comprising a range of government departments and public agencies, as well as the South African Local Government Association (Salga), was established following the 2026 State of the Nation Address in February in response to the increasingly severe water supply interruptions in several parts of the country.
The plan, developed by WATERCOM, sets out a focused, programmatic series of actions to ensure a reliable supply of quality water to all South Africans, aiming to address the root causes of the water supply challenges in many municipalities.
Informed by extensive consultation with stakeholders across all three spheres of government – national, provincial and local – and associations such as Salga, the NWAP outlines a strategy to increase investment in infrastructure, including through private sector investment; implement legal and regulatory reforms to improve municipal service delivery; and address corruption and criminality in the water sector.
