Water and sanitation: ten years of Goal 6 and the United Nations Conference of December 2026

In July 2026 the United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) carried out the in-depth review of Goal 6 of the 2030 Agenda, devoted to water and sanitation. The United Nations system synthesis report, the global monitoring data and the Conference scheduled for December in the United Arab Emirates set the frame of reference.

The United Nations synthesis report on Goal 6

The Sustainable Development Goal 6 Synthesis Report on Water and Sanitation 2026, a flagship publication coordinated by UN-Water and prepared by its Members and Partners, is themed «Ten years of SDG 6 and the path to 2030+». The report’s landing page, dated 12 June 2026, sets out its function: to serve as the United Nations system’s collective input to the in-depth review of Goal 6 conducted by the High-level Political Forum in July 2026.

The report continues a series that began in 2018 and was taken up in 2023 with the edition entitled Blueprint for Acceleration, prepared in response to the 2023 United Nations Water Conference. The 2026 edition gathers the latest data on Goal 6, documents how its implementation has shaped national reforms and public policies, and sets out operational recommendations. Institutionally it is an output of Priority Collaborative Action 1.2 of the Collaborative Implementation Plan 2025-2028 of the United Nations System-wide Strategy for Water and Sanitation, which asks the UN system to provide evidence also in view of negotiations on a possible post-2030 agenda.

The launch took place on 7 July 2026 at United Nations Headquarters in New York, during the sixth annual special event dedicated to Goal 6, co-hosted by the UN-Water Chair and the Under-Secretary-General of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA). Among the key messages issued with the report: after ten years countries are delivering measurable progress; acceleration is under way but remains too slow and uneven; a dedicated global water goal has proved its value; water is increasingly seen as a connector across different goals; a shift from incremental to transformative progress is needed, together with a stronger multilateral approach beyond 2030.

The national acceleration case studies

The same event saw the launch of the fifth edition of the SDG 6 Country Acceleration Case Studies, which document replicable practices. The 2026 edition covers China, on rural drinking water (target 6.1), São Tomé and Príncipe, on drinking water and sanitation (targets 6.1 and 6.2), and Uzbekistan, on water use efficiency (target 6.4).

Global data on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene

The statistical baseline is provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (JMP). The report Progress on household drinking water, sanitation and hygiene 2000-2024, released on 26 August 2025 with a special focus on inequalities, records that 2.1 billion people, one in four, lack safely managed drinking water, and that 106 million draw directly from untreated surface sources.

On sanitation, 3.4 billion people lack safely managed services and 354 million practise open defecation; 1.7 billion lack basic hygiene services at home, of whom 611 million have no facility at all. In least developed countries the likelihood of lacking basic services is more than twice that of other countries, and in fragile contexts safely managed drinking water coverage is 38 percentage points lower. In rural areas safely managed drinking water coverage rose from 50% to 60% between 2015 and 2024 and basic hygiene coverage from 52% to 71%, while in urban areas both indicators are stagnant. In most countries with available data water collection falls mainly on women and girls, taking more than thirty minutes a day in many areas of sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia.

The situation in the European Union

On 3 June 2026 Eurostat published its annual monitoring of European Union progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, based on 102 indicators. In the short-term assessment the Union made significant progress towards five goals and moderate progress towards nine others, while it moved away from the targets of Goal 15 and Goal 6: in the case of water, as a result of water scarcity and deteriorating water quality.

On the policy side, on 4 June 2025 the European Commission adopted the European Water Resilience Strategy, which brings together more than thirty actions and is accompanied by a recommendation on water efficiency. The recommendation sets the objective of improving water efficiency in the Union by at least 10% by 2030 and invites Member States to set their own national targets according to their territorial circumstances. Among the figures cited by the Commission, national network leakage levels range from 8% to 57%.

The 2026 United Nations Water Conference

The 2026 United Nations Water Conference will be held from 8 to 10 December 2026 in the United Arab Emirates, co-hosted by the United Arab Emirates and Senegal, with the stated aim of accelerating the implementation of Goal 6 and strengthening global water governance.

On 9 July 2025 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the six themes of the Conference’s interactive dialogues, identified in decision A/79/L.101 submitted by Senegal and the United Arab Emirates: water for people, water for prosperity, water for planet, water for cooperation, water in multilateral processes and investments for water. At the same session Senegal announced a high-level preparatory meeting, held in Dakar on 26 and 27 January 2026. The co-chairs of the six dialogues, presented at the event of 7 July 2026, are pairs of States including Ghana and Switzerland, Egypt and Japan, France and South Africa.

Outlook

The in-depth review of Goal 6 closed with the High-level Political Forum of July 2026 and the next negotiating milestone is the December Conference in the United Arab Emirates, whose interactive dialogues already have themes and co-chairs in place. The operational outcomes of that process remain to be defined: the shape of the multilateral arrangement for water and sanitation after 2030, which the synthesis report identifies as necessary but which is not yet the subject of a negotiating mandate, and, on the European side, the national water efficiency targets that the 2025 recommendation leaves to individual Member States. Subsequent rounds of Joint Monitoring Programme and Eurostat data will provide the first elements for measuring the effect of the measures adopted.

In dialogue with the 2030 Agenda

Goal 6 (Clean water and sanitation). The target directly under review, from access to drinking water to sustainable management of the resource.
Goal 3 (Good health and well-being). Access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene affects disease burden and prevention.
Goal 10 (Reduced inequalities). The data show gaps between rural and urban areas, least developed countries and fragile contexts.
Goal 11 (Sustainable cities and communities). Water networks, leakage and urban services shape the quality of living.
Goal 13 (Climate action). Water scarcity and seasonal variability are among the main pressures recorded.