The 39th UN-Water Meeting brought together representatives from UN-Water Members and Partners to advance progress on their collective efforts to address clean water and sanitation challenges. 

A particular focus of the 39th UN-Water Meeting was preparations for conferences on water for sustainable development to be convened in 2026 and 2028, as called for by a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2023. The same resolution called for the Secretary-General to present a UN system-wide water and sanitation strategy before September 2024. During the open session of the meeting, UN-Water Members, Partners with Special Status, Partners, and Observers engaged in a world café style brainstorming session on five issues related to the UN system-wide strategy for water and sanitation:

• Lead and inspire collective action for water and sanitation; 
• Leverage “whole of the UN system” support and mobilizing stakeholders and partnerships for water and sanitation;
• Align UN system support for integration across sectors and mainstreaming into intergovernmental processes; 
• Accelerate progress and transformational change by unifying UN system support to five Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6; clean water and sanitation) accelerators; and 
• Account through joint review and learning.

Additional agenda items included progress under the SDG 6 Global Acceleration Framework, including country level engagement and regional coordination, and the roadmap on human rights to water and sanitation. 

Participants were also briefed on preparations for upcoming events, including the 10th World Water Forum, the 3rd High-Level International Conference on the International Decade for Action “Water for Sustainable Development”, 2018-2028, the Summit of the Future, and the One Water Summit. Progress by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water was also discussed. 
 
The open session of the 39th UN-Water Meeting took place from 12-13 March 2024 in Rome, Italy, and on-line. 

UN-Water plays a coordinating role within the UN, to ensure the UN family “delivers as one” in response to water-related challenges. The overarching focus of UN-Water’s Members and Partners is to support UN Member States to sustainably manage water and sanitation.