By Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI)
World Water Week 2026 highlighted a growing need to treat water as a shared priority across government, industry and society. Held in August under the theme Water for People and Progress, the event identified six priorities for strengthening water governance, investment and resilience — from managing the full hydrological cycle to improving infrastructure finance and putting water considerations at the centre of economic and climate decisions. This is part one of a two-part series.
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Effective water governance depends not only on who participates, but on who can shape decisions and whose knowledge is recognized. World Water Week highlighted different dimensions of this challenge. Women need stronger pathways into the water workforce, leadership and decision-making. For young people, participation needs to translate into skills, employment, and lasting institutional roles. Indigenous Peoples bring knowledge and governance practices rooted in long relationships with water, land and ecosystems that remain too often marginal to formal decision-making.
Moving from representation to influence therefore requires sustained opportunities for leadership and employment, recognition of different knowledge systems, and meaningful involvement in setting priorities and implementation. These considerations cut across the policy challenges identified during the Week through six priorities:
- Govern the full hydrological cycle
Water governance does not yet adequately reflect how water moves through the full hydrological cycle.
Policy and institutions have traditionally focused on visible, or blue, water: rivers, lakes, wetlands and aquifers. Yet soil moisture, vegetation, and atmospheric moisture – green water – are fundamental parts of the same hydrological cycle. Changes in land use, forests and soils can affect rainfall and atmospheric moisture flows, water infiltration and availability for plant growth, groundwater recharge, and drought and flood risks — with impacts extending far beyond where those changes occur.
This exposes a fundamental governance mismatch. Water moves across landscapes, sectors, and borders, while responsibility is divided between ministries, agencies, municipalities, and countries. Agriculture, forestry, and land-use decisions can alter water availability without being treated as water decisions.
Governing these relationships also requires drawing on different forms of knowledge. Indigenous Peoples and local communities hold knowledge and experience of water, land and ecosystems that can contribute to understanding local conditions, managing risk and sustaining ecosystems. Recognizing this knowledge should be part of more inclusive and locally grounded water governance.
- Put water at the centre of climate and economic decision-making
Water policy cannot succeed if responsibility for water remains concentrated within water and environment institutions.
Agriculture, energy, industry, infrastructure, trade, cities and technology all depend on water and influence its availability and quality. Yet major decisions in these sectors can still be made without adequately accounting for water.
The consequences are increasingly economic and affect people’s livelihoods. Drought can constrain agriculture, technology use, and industrial production. Flooding can disrupt businesses and infrastructure. Water scarcity can affect energy generation, urban development, and investment. Poorly managed land and vegetation can weaken the water cycle on which economic activity depends.
The implication is not simply that other sectors should prioritize water. Water considerations need to become part of the information and incentives shaping their decisions.
The same applies to climate policy. Although many climate impacts are experienced through water, water-related risks are not consistently translated into climate planning, finance, and investment priorities.
The water community also needs to demonstrate how better water governance contributes to objectives governments already prioritize, including economic resilience, food and water security, health, employment and environmental protection.
- Fix the conditions that allow finance to flow
Closing the water financing gap requires more than mobilizing additional capital.
Investment in water remains difficult where regulatory frameworks are uncertain, institutions lack capacity, projects are poorly prepared, or credible mechanisms for recovering operating and maintenance costs are absent. New financing instruments cannot resolve these underlying constraints.
A basic distinction is therefore needed between financing water resources management and restoration of the hydrological cycle and paying for water services. Restoring the hydrological cycle is connected to investments in sustainable land management and landscape restoration at basin and watershed scale in collaboration with other sectors. Water services and infrastructure ultimately depend on sustainable funding through some combination of tariffs, taxation, and transfers. Without these foundations, attracting additional capital will remain difficult.
Public resources may also remain unused or inefficiently deployed because ministries, utilities and service providers lack implementation capacity. Meanwhile, repeatedly funding isolated projects can leave countries dependent on further external support when projects end.
The objective should be financing systems in which policy, institutions, revenue, project preparation, and different sources of capital reinforce one another.
Financing also needs to align more closely with regional priorities and data. Africa’s Water Vision 2063 provides a shared continental direction, yet an estimated USD 50 billion is needed annually for water and sanitation, compared with around USD 12–15 billion currently mobilized. In India, local water budgeting and water security planning show how data on water conditions and needs can be more closely connected to planning and spending decisions.
Financial sustainability and equity also need to be considered together. Water investments need to account for affordability and ensure that communities with fewer resources or less potential to generate financial returns are not systematically left behind.
Read the full article, including policy recommendations, here.
