On the road to the UN 2026 Water Conference: Consultation on the themes of the interactive dialogues

With only six years left to fulfill the vision of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, an urgent, ambitious, and coordinated response from the international community is needed more than ever.

The UN 2026 Water Conference presents a unique opportunity to realize this vision, aiming to unite the world for accelerated action on water. As mandated by the modalities resolution (A/78/L.110), recently adopted in September 2024, the Conference, co-hosted by the United Arab Emirates and Senegal, will convene in December 2026 in the UAE, with the overarching objective to accelerate progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) – ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. With this goal in mind, the Conference will aim to position water as a critical lever for sustainable development and bring forward impact-oriented solutions to accelerate global water action.

As mandated by the modalities resolution, the UN 2026 Water Conference will consist of six interactive dialogues. The thematic focus areas of the interactive dialogues will be identified through extensive consultations. As per the modalities resolution, the process for selecting and finalizing the themes includes a one-day organizational session that will be held in New York in 2025 to make updated recommendations to the General Assembly on the themes of the interactive dialogues, with a view to adopting them at a later date during a one-day meeting to be convened by the President of the General Assembly in 2025.

The session at COP29 will act as one of the early targeted consultations on the themes of the interactive dialogues, where the co-hosts will engage with the Water for Climate Pavilion community and other actors from beyond the water sector on suggestions for the themes, building on of the themes of the five interactive dialogues of the UN 2023 Water Conference.

For Reference, UN 2023 Water Conference themes of the five interactive dialogues:

• Water for Health: Access to WASH, including the Human Rights to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation;
• Water for Sustainable Development: Valuing Water, Water-Energy-Food Nexus, and Sustainable Economic and Urban Development;
• Water for Climate, Resilience, and Environment: Source to Sea, Biodiversity, Climate, Resilience, and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR);
• Water for Cooperation: Transboundary and International Water Cooperation, Cross Sectoral Cooperation, including Scientific Cooperation, and Water Across the 2030 Agenda; and
• Water Action Decade: Accelerating the Implementation of the Objectives of the Decade, including through the UN Secretary-General’s Action Plan.