On the World Water Day, which falls tomorrow, March 22, Italy reaffirms that water as a lever for sustainable development and cooperation is at the heart of its action in the Mediterranean. Bearing this in mind, and at the initiative of Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, Rome will host two high-level events in 2026 to relaunch the dialogue on water as a resource for peace and growth in the Mediterranean: the Second Ministerial Meeting on Water of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) and the first Euro-Mediterranean Water Forum, which will take place at the end of September.
The Ministerial Meeting will aim to combine political dialogue with operational and effective water cooperation among the UfM members. In turn, the Euro-Mediterranean Forum, strongly in line with the Ministerial Meeting in terms of goals and topics, organized by the One Water Committee with the support of CIHEAM Bari, and in collaboration with the UfM and the Mediterranean Water Institute of Marseille (IME), will provide an operational platform that will engage multiple stakeholders to turn political commitments into concrete actions. Over 40 delegations, including UfM Member States and non-Member States, observers, and international organisations, will participate. The Forum will be divided into 10 high-level segments and over 70 workshops, following a multidisciplinary approach. The aim is to identify shared solutions to the challenges of water resource management, adopting a concrete and proactive approach, inspired by trust in human action and new technologies, and the peaceful and sustainable sharing of water resources.
The World Water Day was established by the United Nations to raise awareness among the international community about water resources: according to the United Nations, over 2.1 billion people worldwide lack safe access to drinking water and basic sanitation.
