Ministry of Foreign Affairs Participates at International Conference to Ensure Sustained Leadership of Water Crisis

His Excellency Abdulla Balalaa, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for Energy and Sustainability, participated in a ministerial meeting, convened by the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, on ‘Tackling water security across the climate-nature-development nexus’, to underscore the need for urgent collective action and sustained leadership on the global water crisis.

H.E. Balalaa also attended a reception ceremony hosted at Buckingham Palace by His Majesty King Charles III, on ‘Water and Climate’, in collaboration with WaterAid.

The Ministerial meeting, held a few days prior to World Water Day (22 March), was chaired by Her Excellency Baroness Chapman, the United Kingdom’s Minister of State for International Development, Latin America and the Caribbean. It also brought together Ministers from Morocco, Senegal, Nigeria, Nepal and Bangladesh, as well as senior leaders from the European Union and key multilateral institutions and international organizations – including the European Commission, the World Bank, UNICEF, UN Water, Water Aid, and the Global Commission on the Economics of Water. The meeting aims to identify priority areas of collaboration over the next year for a systemic and responsible shift in addressing water security across the climate-nature-development nexus.

During the session, H.E. Balalaa highlighted the UAE’s preparations for the 2026 UN Water Conference, and emphasized that the event will focus on accelerating the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 6, stating “This Goal is the catalyst and enabler of all our global societal, environmental and economic goals.”

Building on the discussion of the Ministerial discussions, participants agreed to leverage key moments in the year ahead to build and sustain work in providing clean water to enable the delivery of all SDGs; work in multi-stakeholder partnerships to drive scalable, innovative and inclusive solutions to the water crisis; and cooperate with existing UN processes to strengthen the integration of water within the multilateral international agenda.  

The Ministerial meeting convened following the Organizational Session of the 2026 UN Water Conference, which took place on March 3rd, 2025, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, where over 70 participants – including both Member States and stakeholders – shared their recommendations for the themes of the interactive dialogues of the Conference. The themes will be decided in a preparatory meeting convened by the President of the General Assembly on July 9th, 2025.