The 2026 UN Water Conference will take place from 2-4 December, 2026, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It is co-hosted by Senegal and the UAE. 

Since the UN 2023 Water Conference, which was the first such event in nearly half a century, the inaugural UN System-wide Strategy for Water and Sanitation has been launched and the first UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy on Water has been appointed.

Participation at the 2026 Conference will include governments, UN agencies, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, Indigenous Peoples, the private sector, and international financial institutions.  

The preparatory process for the 2026 Conference includes:

• A one-day organizational session held in March 2025 in New York, co-chaired by the Permanent Representatives of Senegal and the UAE, with Member States, UN entities and other stakeholders, to discuss the themes for six interactive dialogues for the Conference.
• A one-day meeting, on 9 July 2025, convened by the President of the General Assembly, to agree on the themes of the interactive dialogues.
• Regional and global preparatory meetings, involving relevant UN bodies, to identify challenges, best practices, and opportunities ahead of the Conference.  
• A high-level international meeting in Dakar, hosted by Senegal, to support the preparation for the Conference, to assess progress on SDG 6, identify implementation gaps, and explore strategies for accelerating action.  
• The preparatory process will also incorporate inputs from other major water-related events.  

More information

The description was extracted from unwater.org