25 August 2018: The 29th UN-Water Meeting discussed the outcome of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), the recommendations from the High Level Panel on Water, the “Global call to action for WASH in healthcare facilities” and “WASH4Work” initiatives, and ongoing monitoring initiatives, among other agenda items. Participants also discussed plans for upcoming events, including the themes for future celebrations of World Water Day and World Toilet Day.

The 29th UN-Water Meeting convened from 24-25 August 2018, in Stockholm, Sweden, immediately prior to the annual meeting of World Water Week. During the meeting, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) was welcomed as the newest UN-Water Member, and applications from CDP (formerly Carbon Disclosure Project) and Sanitation and Water for All were approved as the newest Partner and Partner with special status, respectively.

In preparation for the in-depth review of implementation of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 (clean water and sanitation) during the July 2018 meeting of the HLPF, UN-Water Members had coordinated their efforts to establish a baseline for the SDG 6 indicators in the SDG 6 Synthesis Report 2018, and the 29th UN-Water meeting discussed follow-up efforts related to this Report. Participants highlighted that the discussion at the HLPF revealed a high level of interest within the international community for addressing challenges related to SDG 6 implementation and also that the limited time allotted to discussing SDG 6 during the HLPF was not adequate to fully explore and move SDG 6 implementation forward. In this regard, discussions at the 29th UN-Water meeting focused on the recommendation by the High Level Panel on Water to convene high-level meetings on water and sanitation issues.

An important challenge that was raised in many of these discussions was how to ensure proper follow-up on high-level recommendations and awareness raising efforts, to translate the messages for change in water and sanitation policy and practices into actions at country-level. [SDG Knowledge Hub sources] [IISDRS meeting coverage][UN-Water website]