UN General Assembly adopts resolution on modalities of 2026 Water Conference

On the 6th of September, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) approved – without a vote - resolution A/78/L110 on the modalities of the 2026 United Nations Water Conference. In terms of the resolution, the aim of the conference is to support the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 6. The conference will be hosted by Senegal and the United Arab Emirates and will be held in the United Arab Emirates from 2 to 4 December 2026. The resolution sets out the modalities for the 2026 conference, providing details - amongst other things - on its coordination, outputs, and financing.

Resolution A/78/L110 follows from resolution 77/334 which was adopted by the UNGA in September 2023.  In the latter resolution, the UNGA had formally taken the decision to convene the 2026 conference and had announced that the decision on the modalities of the conference would be taken before the end of the seventy-eighth session of the UNGA from the 5-19th of September 2024. In this decision, the UNGA also decided to approve a further UN conference dedicated to water which is to take place in 2028 and which will be dedicated to a final review of the implementation of the objectives of the International Decade for Action, “Water for Sustainable Development”, 2018–2028, which the government of Tajikistan has offered to host in Dushanbe.  

These developments build amongst other things on the UN 2023 Water Conference, which was held in New York from 22-24 March 2023 and hosted by the governments of the Netherlands and Tajikistan. The UN 2023 Water Conference was the first such conference on water at UN level to take place in 46 years and resulted in the adoption of the Water Action Agenda which contains more than 830 voluntary commitments  to accomplish the sustainable development goals and targets related to water.

The focus of the 2026 Water Conference will be on actions to accelerate the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 6, but it the resolution recognises interlinkages with a number of other themes and processes. It notes that water is  critical for the achievement of the sustainable goals in a broad sense: for instance, it states that water is important for the eradication of poverty and hunger, that water, ecosystems, energy, food security and nutrition are linked and that water is indispensable for health, well-being and human development, including the empowerment of women.

It also notes the synergies between progress on SDG 6 and questions around financing for development which have led to the  Addis Ababa Action Agenda, the relationship between water and climate change and the decisions in the Paris Agreement, and the relationship between water and disaster risk reduction in the context of the Sendai Agreement.

Taken together with the outcomes of the UN 2023 Water Conference, the appointment of a UN Special Envoy on Water, the adoption of a UN System Wide Strategy on Water, this decision further embeds water issues in the global agenda after a prolonged period in which it did not feature so prominently.