WATERLAT is an interdisciplinary network for teaching, research and practical action on the control and management of water and water-based services in Latin America and the Caribbean. The network brings together the cultural, ecological, economic-financial, health, managerial-operational, policy-institutional, and political dimensions of water issues. It has clear objectives and research priorities oriented at tackling water injustice, inequality, and defencelessness.

The origin of WATERLAT goes back to the early 1990s when a group of Latin American scholars and students based at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), Mexico, and at the Institute of Research Gino Germani, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, participated in joint research projects, teaching exchanges, and collaboration with practitioners in national and international institutions dedicated to water management, such as the Mexican Institute for Water Technology (IMTA). The work of these scholars was later consolidated and expanded by establishing a close interaction with colleagues at the University of Oxford that included the development of the international research project PRINWASS (2001-2004), which examined critically the privatization of water and sanitation services in 9 countries of Africa, Europe and Latin America. Today, the network has representatives in Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and has links with the larger research community GOBACIT, including collaborators from Africa and Asia. Although most members of WATERLAT are scholars and students based in academic institutions, we also have engaged water experts and practitioners working in government departments, water utilities, Non Governmental Organizations, etc., as well as representatives from social movements, water users groups, and other relevant social actors.

During the period 2009-2011 WATERLAT was supported by the Leverhulme Trust, which allowed us the consolidation and expansion of the network. The activities and outcomes of this period are reflected in the different sections of the website.