The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs convened a new Water Finance Leaders Forum at its headquarters in Abu Dhabi, a step in the country’s institutional preparations to co-host the 2026 UN Water Conference alongside Senegal. The conference itself will run in Abu Dhabi from 8 to 10 December 2026. The Forum is designed to feed directly into one of its most significant elements: the ‘Investments for Water’ Interactive Dialogue, agreed unanimously by UN Member States and the first dialogue of its kind to be included in the conference.
The mandate behind the Forum was set out by His Excellency Abdulla Balalaa, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for Energy and Sustainability, who opened the proceedings. He framed the UAE’s objective in explicitly institutional terms, saying the country is committed to making the 2026 UN Water Conference a platform for implementation and investment. Closing the water-finance gap, he argued, requires more than capital. It requires making water more investable by strengthening project pipelines, improving bankability, and creating the conditions to mobilize private and institutional investment. He placed particular emphasis on the private sector, saying the UAE wants to see it at the heart of the effort, bringing capital, expertise, innovation, and scale to the water economy and working with governments and development partners to turn investable opportunities into actual investment. The stated aim, he added, is to help close the investability gap and build partnerships that can unlock investment in water at scale, well beyond the 2026 conference itself.
The Forum’s discussions were organized around three areas where greater collaboration across the financial ecosystem could unlock investment at scale. The first is strengthening project pipelines through improved preparation and technical support. The second is expanding the use of blended finance, co-financing, guarantees, and other risk-sharing mechanisms to improve the bankability of projects. The third is creating stronger pathways for commercial and institutional capital, including greater visibility of opportunities and more attractive investment conditions.
The gathering reflected the breadth of the UAE’s own institutional apparatus engaged in water and finance policy. Alongside H.E. Younis Haji AlKhoori, Undersecretary at the Ministry of Finance, and H.E. Mohamed al Suwaidi, Director General of the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, participants included leaders from the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, UAE Water Aid, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the Emirates Investment Authority, First Abu Dhabi Bank, HSBC UAE, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Emirates NBD, Masdar, and Mubadala, as well as other stakeholders.
International participation was equally weighted toward multilateral and development finance institutions. The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, the Green Climate Fund, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the OPEC Fund for International Development, the African Development Bank, and Water.org were among the partners from across the global water-finance ecosystem in attendance.
The rationale for placing finance at the center of the diplomatic agenda, according to the ministry, rests on the foundational role water plays across policy domains. Water underpins food and energy security, public health, industrial development, and economic resilience, and it is recognized as a fundamental human right. As demand for water solutions grows, so does the opportunity to mobilize investment across resilient infrastructure, desalination, water efficiency, reuse, digital technologies, and sustainable agriculture.
The broader framing of the 2026 conference positions it as an implementation-focused event. Dedicated to accelerating progress on Sustainable Development Goal 6, the UN Water Conference is intended to bring together governments, businesses, financial institutions, development organizations, innovators, civil society, and youth to advance practical solutions, mobilize investment, and strengthen partnerships for water. The UAE’s ambition, as articulated by its senior officials, is to connect policy with finance, innovation with deployment, and water challenges with investable solutions, making the Abu Dhabi conference a working platform rather than a purely declarative one. The unanimous agreement by UN Member States on the Investments for Water Interactive Dialogue underscores, in the ministry’s view, the importance of capital in unlocking solutions across the water sector. Whether the Forum’s work can translate into binding commitments by December 2026 remains the open question.