UAE and Republic of Senegal Conclude High-Level Meeting with Collective Roadmap For 2026 UN Water Conference

The United Arab Emirates and the Republic of Senegal, co-hosts of the 2026 United Nations Water Conference, today concluded the High-Level Preparatory Meeting in Dakar, marking a major milestone in the lead-up to the Conference, which will be held in Abu Dhabi in late 2026.

The two-day meeting brought together more than 1,600 participants from over 120 countries, mobilizing governments and a wide range of stakeholders to advance the Conference’s substantive preparations and strengthen alignment across the international community around key global water priorities.

The programme featured six roundtable “kick-off” discussions for each of the Conference’s six Interactive Dialogues, which were adopted by consensus last July at the UN General Assembly.

Each roundtable opened with high-level statements from the recently appointed co-chair countries, followed by contributions from the UN system and interventions from ministers, government representatives, and stakeholders from international organizations, NGOs, the private sector, and multilateral development banks, civil society, youth, and indigenous peoples.

Stakeholder engagement was further strengthened through a dedicated multi-stakeholder meeting held on 25 January, co-convened by the UAE, Senegal, and UN DESA, in collaboration with the African Civil Society Network on Water and Sanitation (ANEW) and the German WASH Network.

The meeting gathered contributions from across stakeholder groups to inform the preparatory process and the substance of the Interactive Dialogues.

The meeting also featured more than 20 partner-led side events addressing key priorities, including financing, data, capacity building, and progress on Sustainable Development Goal 6.

The UAE delegation to the Preparatory Meeting in Dakar was led by His Excellency Abdulla Balalaa, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for Energy and Sustainability, and representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Mohamed bin Zayed Water Initiative, the International Affairs Office, Clean Rivers, the Global Climate Finance Centre, Salama Bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation, Khalifa University, and Emirates Water and Electricity Company.

On the margins of the event, bilateral meetings were held between senior government representatives, UN officials, and senior leadership from international organizations.

Concluding the meeting, H.E. Balalaa and H.E. Cheikh Tidiane Dieye, Senegal’s Minister of Hydraulics and Sanitation, convened a two reporting-back session with the participation of the co-chairs and rapporteurs to consolidate all inputs into a comprehensive summary document of the meeting, entitled ‘The Roadmap from Dakar to Abu Dhabi’.

In his closing remarks, H.E. Balalaa urged the international community to work towards a global framework on water, to guide coordinated international efforts on water-related goals, as well as calling for regular UN Conferences and meetings on water, and enhancing coordination, partnerships and cooperation mechanisms to unlock the means to accelerate the achievement of SDG 6.

The 2026 United Nations Water Conference in Abu Dhabi is expected to be a pivotal global moment to strengthen political will, scale up investment, innovation, capacity building, and accelerate implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 6 - positioning water as a catalyst for the 2030 Agenda and all global priorities.