The Day After of the Water World Without Catarina

The three most recent Special Rapporteurs on the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation photographed together in 2023. Catarina de Albuquerque (center; 2008-2014), Léo Heller (right; 2014-2020), and Pedro Arrojo-Agudo (left; 2020-present).

This last Tuesday the 6th of October Catarina de Albuquerque has died. She had been fighting cancer for a long time. She was indeed a fighter in everything in her life.  Since then, there has been a thunder of messages and declarations of condolences from everywhere in the world. It is incredible how many people she has touched and how many people appreciated her. Many of us were in shock, and we have been ever since.  Working as automats in her last project: the Sector Ministers Meeting of Sanitation and Water for All on breaking the silos in Madrid.

I had the privilege of walking with Catarina for part or our professional lives when she was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation from 2010-2014. Her energy and her honesty, her deep knowledge and belief in human rights were so powerful that she attracted masses to her interventions and helped her build a strong and meaningful movement, engaging everybody in so many countries of the world.  Her work on Sanitation and Water for All was only the natural development from her position as special rapporteur. It allowed her to focus on how to support high level politicians working on water to improve the conditions of living of those more vulnerable in the world. And she did so relentlessly, in the middle of fighting with her illness.

While we are still all in shock, I nurture those moments and fast conversations where we were well tuned on our views on how to improve the United Nations system to work better in water. She talked fast, she lived fast, as if she knew she did not have time to lose.

She created a wave that would be difficult to stop in defense of human rights. We will honor her memory and continue her legacy to make this a better world for people and the planet.

Josefina Maestu

From the AGWA and WR4ER family
Former Director of the UN Office of the Water for Life Decade 2005-2015