AquaFed made its voice heard during the 41st United Nations Water Meeting in Rome on April 2 & 3, 2025

We made our voice heard during the 41st United Nations Water meeting in Rome on April 2 & 3, 2025. 

This meeting was meant to prepare the upcoming 2026 UN Water Conference, by focusing on the implementation of the UN System-wide Strategy for Water and Sanitation. 36 UN Members and 49 Partners, including AquaFed, were present to give their insights and opinion.

We got the chance to give a presentation during the plenary open session to give our vision of the 2026 UN Water Conference. Here is our full intervention: 

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"According to us, the Conference should be an active and ongoing process to accelerate partnership between all stakeholders that deliver results on the ground and directly achieve SDG6 and related Goals.

As you know AquaFed’s mandates cover public-private partnership and private sector participation, which are acknowledged as key elements in the range of solutions for Member States to address current water issues. In order to accelerate partnership-building under the banner of the UN 2026 Conference, we propose to add value with an additional program of activities implemented in two phases : 

-    Before the conference, through an ongoing series of regional workshops for governments and other stakeholders. The objective is to increase understanding of the necessary governance - legal and regulatory frameworks, for implementing public-private-partnership and private sector participation, particularly in countries that are seriously considering this option but have not finalized any projects,

-    During the conference, through  specific side-events focused on increased understanding of public-private-partnership contract and private sector participation.

I’d like to inform you that the Program will be launched during an high level event in New York on 8th of July. Invitation will be sent soon, by the end of April.  

Beyond the 2026 Water Conference, this program is also elaborated to support directly PCA Outputs 2.2 and 2.3 by providing a specific model of how these activities could be delivered.

As of now, AquaFed has developed detailed plans for the roll-out of the workshops and is actively engaging with Governments to identify the issues they need support with as the workshop program is designed to be demand-led. Additionally, this program get support in principle from investors and Multilateral Development Banks as well as from the 2026 Conference’s co-hosts, United Arab Emirates and Senegal. 

Moreover, we believe that the support of the UN Water family is critical for the successful implementation of this action-oriented program.  Therefore, we are seeking collaboration not only with UN member states but also with the UN country coordinators and other willing partners who are interested in joining us.

 
To further promote partnership-building, we also propose incorporating this work into the PCA 2 Workplan, specifically under PCA Outputs 2.2 and 2.3. 

Before stopping allow me to reflect on the broader vision for a pre-Conference partnership-building activity. We believe that one of the keys to success is the establishment of like-minded initiatives from other groups within the water sector. So far, the only other existing program is presented by Women for water partnership,  and we sincerely hope these two initiatives will serve as catalysts for others actors of the sector." 

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The next step towards the UN 2026 Water Conference is the high-level kick-off event in New York on July 8th, and we'll be there! We will also organize an AquaFed side event after the UN meeting. Stay tune for more information about it.