Will the private sector be at the table or on the menu at the UN?

I have been in Dakar this week for the preparatory meeting of the 2026 UN Water Conference. After last week’s “rupture” in the rules-based order, I was worried that it might turn out to be a bleak theatrical, with everyone frantically pretending that it was business as usual while their world fell apart around them. I needn’t have worried. 

The UN is certainly facing greater challenges than it has ever before. America no longer needs the velvet glove it offers to conceal iron-fisted power. It doesn’t have the income to support its extended cast of agencies and programmes. Its intricately negotiated communiques seem to have no place in a world of fat-fingered politicians tweeting directly at each other late at night from their bedrooms. 

Yet the organisation also has the most extraordinary vitality. It attracts phenomenally bright people to work for it. They grapple with the really big problems facing the world in a way that is both representative and intellectually astute. There is no other organisation which can match the UN system in terms of the credibility and impact of its thinking. This is why 2,000 people from all around the world took the trouble to travel to Dakar this week to contribute to the debate (or strictly speaking the debate on the debate) on the future of water.  

Canadian prime minister Mark Carney might talk about “taking the sign out of the window” in recognition of the fact that the rules-based international order is defunct. He is right that in the narrow world of trade and security, the UN is a charade designed to direct our attention away from the brutish nature of power politics. That doesn’t mean that all of the other issues that come in front of the UN are settled by aircraft carriers.

For example, the United States has taken the sign out of the window that declared its support for the World Health Organization. The move does not diminish the respect accorded to the WHO’s pronouncements on health matters. On the contrary, it diminishes the respect accorded to the US government on such matters.

What this says to me, and to the other 2,000 people in Dakar, is that the UN agenda around water actually matters, and it is still worth the trouble getting involved. This agenda is going to be shaped in two meetings: one in Abu Dhabi in December this year and another in 2028, with the World Water Forum in Riyadh in between. It will shape the way that the world approaches water’s multidimensional challenges.

My main interest in the Dakar meeting was to make the case for a global target for water reuse. I think that if the UN were to agree on this as an objective, then it would help reshape the way the public perceives the resource. Instead of being considered a fringe interest shaded by public health risk, UN support could help position reuse as the first choice for a sustainable water future.

I made some progress on this issue, but in doing so, another key issue jumped out. There is a strong sense among many of the member states that it is time to bring the private sector to the table. The process for the UN Water Conference gives a lot of space to stakeholders to shape the debate, but this space is largely occupied by NGOs and civil society organisations. The private sector is cut out, even though it is extraordinarily important in terms of providing finance, delivering innovation in water management, and as a major water user. This has to change.

On the finance side, all of the multilateral institutions are in agreement that the water challenge is too great to be solved by public debt on its own. Private capital must be brought in. Similarly with technology. Without innovation in the way that water services are delivered, we will never provide water security to 8 billion people. It makes no sense to exclude the people who shape the cutting edge of technology from the discussion of the future. Finally, industrial water users need to be included. Water is the lifeblood of the global economy, and if decisions are made which ignore this fact, it could be immensely damaging. Furthermore, there is a huge opportunity in collaborating with industrial water users to improve our shared water security.

Working with the UNDP and UNIDO, we have started to put together a plan for building a mechanism that will allow the engagement of the private sector (finance, innovation and corporate water users) in the UN process. It starts with this survey.

Otherwise, remember Mark Carney’s warning: if you are not at the table, you are on the menu.