Five Strategic Priorities for the African Union to Prevent Torture and protect human rights defenfers in 2026
The African Union’s 2026 Theme of the Year — “Assuring Sustainable Water Availability and Safe Sanitation Systems to Achieve the Goals of Agenda 2063” — presents a critical opportunity to link water governance with human dignity, accountability, and torture prevention.
Water and sanitation are not merely development issues. Their denial, destruction, or weaponisation directly facilitates torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (CIDT), gender-based violence, repression of civic space, and structural discrimination. In places of detention, conflict zones, informal settlements, and protest contexts, water is frequently instrumentalised as a tool of coercion and punishment.
This policy paper identifies five strategic priorities through which the African Union can ensure that the 2026 theme contributes meaningfully to the prevention of torture and the protection of human rights defenders across the continent.