The European Union urged faster progress on Sustainable Development Goal 6 (clean water and sanitation) at the UN High Level Political Forum on 7 July 2026, calling for integrated water management, increased financing, and stronger transboundary cooperation. Speaking on behalf of the EU and its Member States, First Secretary Roderick Harte of the EU Delegation to the UN said water is a powerful connector across the SDGs but that progress remains off track. The statement, delivered during the official meeting on SDG 6 and its interlinkages with other goals, emphasised that accelerating implementation requires greater ambition and more cooperative action across sectors and borders.
The EU’s position is anchored in its Water Resilience Strategy, which recognises the interdependence of water, food, energy and ecosystems. The strategy promotes water efficiency, ecosystem restoration, and preparedness for droughts, floods and water scarcity, as well as reinforced governance based on river basin management, data, innovation and stakeholder participation. Harte noted that financing remains a critical challenge, calling for more public and private capital for resilient water and sanitation services, ecosystem restoration, water-efficient technologies and climate adaptation. He stressed that financing must be matched by enabling policy frameworks, stronger institutions, workforce capacity, and better project pipelines, and that efforts to strengthen water governance, improve transparency and accountability, and promote inclusive, risk-informed investment models aligned with long-term sustainability should be supported.
Transboundary water cooperation was highlighted as indispensable, with Harte pointing out that more than 60 per cent of the world’s freshwater flows through shared basins. Effective cooperation across borders, he said, is essential for resilience, peace, stability and sustainable development. The EU also looked ahead to the 2026 UN Water Conference, describing it as a critical milestone to maintain political momentum and strengthen accountability for implementation. The Conference should help translate commitments into measurable action, promote scalable solutions, and reinforce coherence between the water agenda and the wider 2030 Agenda, and should be inclusive of all stakeholders. The EU and its Member States reaffirmed their commitment to working with partners to accelerate progress on SDG 6 through integrated water management, stronger resilience, inclusive governance and enhanced transboundary water cooperation, recognising water not only as a sectoral priority but as a strategic enabler of sustainable development, climate resilience and security.
The statement was also aligned with by candidate countries North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Armenia, Monaco and San Marino.