EESC Contribution to the UN Water Conference 2026: from the EU Blue Deal and Water Resilience Strategy to global water action

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• CCMI/254 – EESC Contribution to the UN Water Conference 2026: from the EU Blue Deal and Water Resilience Strategy to global water action

Key points

The EESC:

• underlines the importance of the UN Water Conference 2026 to make water resilience a global priority, and calls for a worldwide paradigm shift from linear water use to circular systems, recognising water as a public good with social, environmental and economic value;
• calls for a horizontal governance approach integrating water across sectors and levels of government at global level with the transversal involvement of civil society;
• calls for the international community to unequivocally condemn attacks against essential water infrastructure, which is indispensable to the survival of civilians, and recognise it as a war crime;
• recommends systematically applying a ‘Water Test’ in all relevant EU and global policy initiatives, to assess their impact on water resources, water efficiency and water resilience;
• considers water a public good and underlines that affordability of water for vulnerable groups is critical to ensure water justice worldwide;
• stresses that achieving water resilience requires a fundamental shift in behaviour across all sectors of society, including by adapting agricultural and industrial practises, reinforcing climate adaptation and conserving wetlands;
• considers nature-based solutions, including wetlands, to be critical infrastructure for water resilience and to be embedded in all thematic dialogues for the UN Water Conference 2026;
• calls for a mobilisation of public and private capital to support a robust pipeline of bankable SDG6 projects;
• calls for more support for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) through integrated climate-resilient approaches combining infrastructure development, governance and capacity building, paying particular attention to vulnerable and marginalised communities;
• considers that, in the event of conflicts over water use, priority should be given to the drinking water supply;
• calls for the transition towards a water-smart society to be accelerated globally;
• advocates the establishment of global targets to improve water efficiency by at least 10% by 2030 and to significantly increase water reuse levels across all sectors by the same year;
• recommends developing harmonised indicators, monitoring mechanisms and reporting frameworks, to track progress on water resilience and ensure accountability at global level.

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