Breakout Session: Water Resilience in a Changing Climate

When: 29 April 2026 | 14:00-15:30

Format: Roundtable discussion

Venue: UAE mission 

Water security is a critical dimension of the climate, peace and security agenda. As climate change intensifies hydrological variability — driving more frequent and severe droughts, floods and seasonal disruptions — the governance of shared river systems and transboundary water resources is becoming an ever more consequential arena for cooperation and conflict alike. From the Lake Chad Basin to the rivers of Central and South Asia, water stress is compounding existing fragilities, fuelling intercommunal tensions and undermining the foundations of sustainable peace.

With the UN Water Conference set to accelerate implementation of SDG 6 later this year, this session arrives at a pivotal moment. It examines how the climate, peace and security community can contribute to and shape that process — ensuring that conflict prevention, peacebuilding and sustaining peace perspectives are embedded within the global water governance agenda, rather than treated as secondary concerns.

Casting a wider lens, the session explores how the UN system can strengthen its engagement on transboundary water governance, identifying entry points for more integrated action that connects water security, conflict prevention and sustaining peace efforts. Drawing on experiences from some of the world's most water-stressed and conflict-affected contexts, and bringing together key stakeholders for the UN Water Conference alongside regional and practitioner voices, this session will aim to chart a course towards more coherent, inclusive and conflict-sensitive approaches to one of the defining resource challenges of our time.

Guiding questions:

• How can the climate, peace and security community most effectively engage with and contribute to the UN Water Conference to ensure that conflict prevention and peacebuilding perspectives are embedded within the global water governance agenda?
• What does effective transboundary water governance look like in highly water-stressed and conflict-affected contexts — and what institutional, political and financial conditions are needed to support it?
• Where are the most promising entry points for integrated action connecting water security, conflict prevention and sustaining peace efforts — and how can the UN system better coordinate across these domains?
   

Speakers:

• UAE representative
• Caroline Pellaton, Director of Operations, Geneva Water Hub
• Charity Watson, Climate, Peace and Security Advisor, UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) 
   

Moderated by Benjamin Pohl, Director, Climate Diplomacy and Security, adelphi  (tbc)

Return to the BCSC 2026 New York Agenda.