The issue moved higher on the global investment agenda this week as about 50 chief executives, investors and philanthropy leaders met at the UAE’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York to examine how viable water projects can be moved from concept to financial close.
The private roundtable, titled “Unlocking Water Investments, Unlocks Growth”, was convened by Badr Jafar, Special Envoy of the UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs for Business and Philanthropy, and Abdulla Balalaa, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for Energy and Sustainability. It was held ahead of the 2026 UN Water Conference, which the UAE and Senegal will co-host in Abu Dhabi from December 8 to 10.
Balalaa told the meeting that water was becoming a defining factor for growth, competitiveness and resilience, linking it directly to artificial intelligence, the energy transition, food security and urban development. He said expanding technology and energy systems would depend increasingly on reliable water resources and supporting infrastructure.
Jafar focused on the financing challenge, saying water was “the infrastructure beneath every other infrastructure”, including food, energy, cities and data centres. He said proven solutions were available, but weak project preparation, risk allocation and a shortage of patient capital continued to prevent many projects from becoming financeable.
World Bank data underline the scale of the gap. Developing countries spend about $164.6 billion a year on water, equal to roughly 0.5 per cent of their combined gross domestic product. About 91 per cent of that spending comes from governments and state-owned enterprises, while less than 2 per cent comes from private sources.
The World Bank estimates that annual spending on water supply and sanitation in developing countries needs to rise by between $131.4 billion and $140.8 billion to meet universal access targets. That would require spending to approach three times current levels in the countries covered by its assessment, with the largest shortfalls concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
The financing deficit is becoming more consequential as demand rises across industries. Data centres supporting artificial intelligence require large volumes of water directly for cooling in many facilities and indirectly through electricity generation. Power systems also depend on water for thermal generation, hydropower, cooling, fuel production and parts of the renewable-energy supply chain.
Agriculture remains the largest user of freshwater globally, making water availability central to food security, while rapid urban growth is increasing pressure on storage, treatment, distribution and wastewater systems. Climate change is intensifying those stresses by altering rainfall patterns, worsening drought in some regions and increasing flood risks in others.
United Nations data show that 2.2 billion people lacked safely managed drinking water in 2024 and 3.4 billion lacked safely managed sanitation. The UN says global progress remains too slow to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6, which calls for universal access to safe water and sanitation and sustainable management of water resources by 2030.
Financing constraints are only part of the problem. Water projects can be difficult to structure for commercial investors because tariffs often fail to recover costs, revenue streams can be uncertain and regulatory frameworks differ sharply across markets. Currency risk, long payback periods and weak utility balance sheets can further limit access to private capital.
Participants at the New York meeting examined ways to address those obstacles through stronger project preparation, clearer offtake arrangements, guarantees, local-currency financing and blended structures involving public, private and philanthropic capital. They also discussed where first-loss and catalytic funding could help make projects bankable before they are able to attract fully commercial investment.
The roundtable also considered water reuse, leakage reduction, storage, desalination and digital monitoring as areas where established technologies could deliver measurable gains when combined with sound governance and capable local operators.
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