The U.N. Water Conference, co-hosted by Tajikistan and the Netherlands, takes place at U.N. Headquarters in New York, kicks off today on March 22, World Water Day, and lasts through March 24. 

This year’s conference will serve as a midterm review of the Water Action Decade (2018-2028). U.N Secretary-General António Guteres has said the conference must result in a “bold Water Action Agenda that gives our world’s lifeblood the commitment it deserves.” The conference aims to  foster greater discussion on water-related issues, including access to safe drinking water and sanitation, sustainable development, climate resilience, and international water cooperation.

During the next three days, Just Security will provide analysis and coverage of the U.N. Water Conference’s notable moments. We invite you to regularly check this page for the latest commentary from the conference as it is updated to reflect meetings, speeches, expert analysis, and more.

Friday, March 24, 2023

Notable Events

• Plenary (10:00 AM ET)
  • Statements will be made by Member States and the European Union, as well as intergovernmental organizations, associate members of regional commissions, specialized agencies, interested United Nations Organs, and representatives of accredited NGOs and other stakeholders.
• Interactive Dialogue: Water Action Decade: Accelerating the implementation of the objectives of the Decade, including through the UN Secretary-General’s Action Plan (10:00 AM ET)
  • This dialogue will raise questions concerning implementation of commitments made in the Water Action Agenda, assessing the efficacy of the Water Action Decade at the political level, and strengthening multilateralism around water through collaboration between different actors.
• Informal Special Event: Water Leadership: Uniting for a Sustainable World (10:00 AM ET)
  • This event will focus on developing mechanisms and opportunities to ensure that the voices of youth, women, local authorities, Indigenous Peoples, and discriminated and marginalized communities are appropriately reflected and integrated into all aspects of water leadership at the local, regional, and global levels. It will also create inclusive leadership mechanisms for the follow-up and monitoring of the Water Action Agenda, identifying priority intergenerational, intersectoral, gender and geographically inclusive partnerships and commitments to scale up engagement.
• Plenary (3:00 PM ET)
  • The Conference will conclude by reporting on the interactive dialogues and adopting its final report.

Thursday, March 23, 2023

Notable Events

• Plenary (10:00 AM ET)
  • Statements will be made by Member States and the European Union, as well as intergovernmental organizations, associate members of regional commissions, specialized agencies, interested United Nations Organs, and representatives of accredited NGOs and other stakeholders.
• Interactive Dialogue: Water for Climate, Resilience and Environment: Source to Sea, Biodiversity, Climate, Resilience and DRR (10:00 AM ET)
  • This dialogue will raise questions concerning the linkages of water, climate, and environment, barriers to providing information for improved water management, and mechanisms for incentivizing environmental protection.
• Informal Special Event: Reducing inequalities – implementing Human Rights (10:00 AM ET)
  • This event aims to put equality and human rights at the center of the agenda addressing the global water crisis. It will feature significant contributions from Indigenous Peoples, peasant communities, people living in informal human settlements in the periphery of large cities, and people facing discrimination by descent, race, gender, or age and those who are most impoverished and marginalized, with emphasis on the perspectives that women and youth offer.
• Plenary (3:00 PM ET)
  • Statements will be made by Member States and the European Union, as well as intergovernmental organizations, associate members of regional commissions, specialized agencies, interested United Nations Organs, and representatives of accredited NGOs and other stakeholders.
• Interactive Dialogue: Water for Cooperation: Transboundary and International Water Cooperation, Cross Sectoral Cooperation, including Scientific Cooperation, and Water Across the 2030 Agenda (3:00 PM ET)
  • This dialogue will raise questions concerning accelerating arrangements and joint bodies for water cooperation for all transboundary rivers, lakes, and aquifers by 2030, implementing inclusive and cross-sectoral governance in support of integrated water resources management, and addressing the gap in the funding and financing of water cooperation.
• Informal Special Event: The Economics of Water: transforming governance to secure a sustainable, just and prosperous future (3:00 PM ET)
  • This event will discuss the importance of the Water Action Agenda, highlight the need to manage and safeguard the global water cycle as a global common good, and illustrate the governance conditions that are necessary for a more efficient, just, and sustainable use of water from the local to the global level to achieve water security. The Global Commission on the Economics of Water (GCEW) will also present its key findings, which will be discussed with stakeholders.

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Notable Events

• Plenary Opening (9:30 AM ET) 
  • At the Plenary Opening, consideration will be given to all procedural and organizational matters, including the adoption of the rules of procedure and the agenda, the election of the two Presidents of the Conference, and arrangements for the preparation of the Report of the Conference. Statements will be made by the Presidents of the Conference, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the President of the General Assembly, the President of the Economic and Social Council, the Secretary-General of the Conference and the Chair of U.N.-Water.
• Interactive Dialogue: Water for Health: Access to WASH, including the Human Rights to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation (10:00 AM ET)
  • This dialogue will raise questions concerning the gaps that hinder progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, accelerating national and local government action towards water, sanitation, hygiene and wastewater treatment issues, and determining the best way to track action over the next eight years.
• Plenary (3:00 PM ET)
  • Statements will be made by Member States and the European Union, as well as intergovernmental organizations, associate members of regional commissions, specialized agencies, interested United Nations Organs, and representatives of accredited NGOs and other stakeholders.
• Interactive Dialogue: Water for Sustainable Development: Valuing Water, Water-Energy-Food Nexus and Sustainable Economic and Urban Development (3:00 PM ET)  
  • This dialogue will raise questions concerning mechanism development for stakeholder engagement across the water nexus, resolving the existing impasse between a rights-based and a valuation-based approach to water management, achieving greater efficiency in the agrifood chain in support of water management across food and energy sectors, and creating incentives for innovation in water governance and finance.
• Informal Special Event: Radical Collaboration for Water Resilience: Action with our greatest Allies in the Climate Crisis (3:00 PM ET)
  • This event will explore the need to rethink the climate and water crisis through the key principles of inspiring change by examining water and its values, exploring the conditions that drive new models of collaboration, and showcasing elements that enable impact. The session will conclude with concrete commitments to action from key stakeholder groups as contributions to the Water Action Agenda.

IMAGE: The Murchison Falls, one of the natural sites in Africa where the government has a plan to build a hydroelectric dam on the Victoria Nile at Murchison Falls National Park, northwest Uganda. (Photo by YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images)

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