 March 22 was World Water Day and served as a location to highlight the massive inequity in access to safe water and sanitation. For instance, 80% of the rural population of Africa lack safely managed drinking water. 75% lack safely managed sanitation and 70% lack basic hygiene services. These shocking details are from a special report of WHO UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene. While accessibility in the urban regions of the continent is better, 40% of the population in urban Africa also lack safely managed drinking water. According to UNICEF's press release on the joint report, 2 out of 3 people lack safely managed sanitation and half the population lacks basic hygiene services. Universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all and access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all are among the key targets set by the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. Africa is a long way from meeting these targets. The report noted that an estimate 418 million people lacked even a basic level of drinking water service. 839 million have no access at all to basic hygiene services. 779 million lack basic sanitation services. 208 million of whom must resort to open defecation. UNICEF and the WHO warned that the SDG targets will not be met in Africa unless a 12-fold increase can be achieved in the rate of expansion of access to safely managed drinking water that has occurred over the first two decades of this century. Safely managed sanitation requires a 20-fold increase to meet the SDG target and basic hygiene services need a 42-fold increase. While the population of Africa increased by 500 million, from 800 million to 1.3 billion between 2000 and 2020, only 290 million have gained access to basic sanitation services. Africa is not resource poor. Most countries in Africa have sufficient groundwater to sustain the whole population for over 50 years of drought according to a study. The exceptions include Rwanda, whose aquifers can supply water for less than five drought years. Burundi and Uganda have groundwater to suffice for five to ten years of drought. Guinea-Visau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana and Togo on the Western Atlantic coast have enough groundwater for 10 to 50 drought years. However, extracting water to supply the rural communities most in need requires infrastructure most African countries lack. Governments have not sufficiently invested in such infrastructure. Many of these governments have a policy framework that does not encourage investment in the public sphere. The report recommends that in order to improve access to these services, financing must come from a combination of annual government budgets and increased donor and private sector investment. However, experts point out that limiting government spending and relying on private investment are the kind of policies that cause the crisis in the first place. Private investment cannot fix inequitable water supply since they are meant to maximize their earnings by targeting densely populated areas. Experts note that supplying water, sanitation and hygiene services to the rural population does not bring profits. Hence, private firms have no incentives to do the same. A massive expansion of public investment is essential to ensure water, sanitation and hygiene for all.