H.E. Abdulla Balalaa in The National: the global water conversation is changing

H.E. Abdulla Balalaa, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for Energy and Sustainability, has written in The National on how the global conversation on water is changing, and on what the 2026 UN Water Conference in Abu Dhabi must do to turn that shift into action.

Writing after the high-level week of the 81st UN General Assembly in New York, H.E. Balalaa describes how conversations with technology leaders, investors, policymakers and researchers kept returning to the same subject: water. Food, energy, economic strength and thriving communities, he argues, all depend on it.

Many of the solutions already exist, H.E. Balalaa writes; the task is to take them beyond the pilot stage, connecting capital to projects and innovation to communities. The 2026 UN Water Conference, co-hosted by the UAE and Senegal from 8 to 10 December, is the first to be co-hosted by two countries from the Global South, and the first UN conference focused on accelerating the implementation of SDG 6.