From Risk to Resource: How Water Is Becoming a Tool for Peace
At the High-Level Preparatory Meeting for the 2026 United Nations Water Conference in Dakar, the Geneva Water Hub convened a high-level side event on “Water and Peace Today: Reassessing Progress and Shaping the 2026 Agenda”, bringing together policy, diplomacy, and field experience around one clear shift: water is not just a risk factor, it’s a strategic asset for cooperation and peace.
The event featured contributions from H.E. Tanja Miškova (Republic of Slovenia), Dmitry Mariyasin (UNECE), Tanya Merceron (UNOWAS), and H.E. Mamadouba Max Bangoura (OMVS), and was moderated by Mark Zeitoun.
Several key messages emerged from the exchanges:
- H.E. Tamara Mona-Münger, Ambassador of Switzerland to Senegal.
- H.E. Tanja Miškova showed how water cooperation helped rebuild trust in the Western Balkans and highlighted the Global Alliance for Sparing Water from Armed Conflicts (co-launched by Slovenia, Switzerland and the Geneva Water Hub) to better protect water in armed conflicts.
- Dmitry Mariyasin underlined the UN Water Convention as a concrete multilateral tool for building and sustaining trust and cooperation in transboundary basins, now with 58 Parties and growing.
- Tanya Merceron brought field realities from West Africa, where water scarcity fuels tensions but can also strengthen social cohesion, with critical impacts on women and communities.
- H.E. Mamadouba Max Bangoura presented OMVS as a living model of preventive water diplomacy, built on shared infrastructure, benefit-sharing reflections, and long-term political cooperation.
In his synthesis, Mark Zeitoun recalled that the international community already has the legal frameworks, policy tools and alliances needed to advance water for peace. The central challenge now is to close the gap between norms and implementation, and to scale up approaches that have already proven effective.
In practical terms, the discussion pointed to four priorities: strengthening the use of water cooperation as a tool for preventive diplomacy; improving the protection of water systems in conflict settings; reinforcing coherence between law, policy and field action; and feeding clear, operational inputs into the political process leading to the 2026 UN Water Conference.
From evidence to policy, and from policy to action, this is where the Geneva Water Hub positions its work: helping turn water into a driver of cooperation, stability and peace, in partnership with Pôle Eau Dakar and TRENDS Research & Advisory.
