Finance under the Water Action Agenda, towards the UN 2023 Water Conference: 9th meeting of the Roundtable on Financing Water

The UN 2023 Water Conference was a unique opportunity to set a transformative agenda for water finance, in line with the sustainable development agenda and related global commitments (in particular on climate, biodiversity, or disaster risk reduction). As the world came together to focus on solving the water and sanitation crises, financing water was essential for translating the political ambition of the Conference into action on the ground in its follow-up. The outcome of the Conference was the Water Action Agenda, which includes transformative commitments from across sectors and actors.

In this context, the ninth meeting of the Roundtable on Financing Water – co-convened by the OECD and UN-Water – was a stepping-stone towards the UN 2023 Water Conference and helped define the role of financing for the Water Action Agenda. It brought together the finance and water communities to share information on recent and future developments of common interest.

The Roundtable meeting was also the first societal dialogue of the Global Commission on the Economics of water. The Global Commission ambitions to anchor equity in water economics and define the hydrological cycle as a global common good.

Sessions of the Roundtable meeting focused on:

• The hydrological cycle as a global common good. What does this mean for finance?
  How to define development, in relation to the planetary boundary on freshwater
  
• Equity in financing water: Enhancing access to finance for water
  
• Changing finance for water: the role of development finance
  
• Changing finance for water: driving the behaviour of corporates and financiers
  
• Towards a transformative agenda on financing water
  

Day  1

Day 2

Day 3