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The Geneva Water Hub has played a pivotal role in establishing the Group of Friends on Water and Peace, comprising approximately forty countries represented by their Permanent Missions to the United Nations in Geneva. This active group convenes on a regular basis to deliberate on the issue and strategize ways to advance this critical topic on the global agenda, with the Geneva Water Hub serving as its Secretariat. The Group serves as an open and informal platform, providing representatives from interested countries with a space for dialogue, outreach, engagement, and dissemination among the broader international community. Membership in the Group of Friends on Water and Peace is open-ended, welcoming all Permanent Missions to the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG). If you are interested in joining, please use the Contact form to inform us of your interest. -

Meaningful partnerships are key to effectively advancing our mission. As a Geneva-based organization, we have cultivated strong relationships within the Geneva ‘ecosystem’ and worldwide.-

The Geneva Water Hub spearheads forward-thinking initiatives on how water will shape future development, peacebuilding, and humanitarian agendas. Our Water Futures programme convened some of the world's most innovative thinkers at a workshop in October 2023. The objectives were threefold: to inspire and influence future generations, to document and share our ideas and insights, and to connect experienced individuals committed to pursuing pathways for water. The ideas generated are currently being developed in collaboration with the UN Futures Lab for integration into existing processes through a series of Water Foresighting workshops. From April 2024 to April 2025, the "strategic foresighting" method will ensure the mainstreaming of water for peace initiatives.-

The Global High-Level Panel on Water and Peace was inaugurated on 16 November 2015 in Geneva with the mission of developing proposals to strengthen the global framework for preventing and resolving water-related conflicts. -

The Global High-Level Panel on Water and Peace developed the "A Matter of Survival" Report, which underscores that the global water challenge encompasses not only development and human rights but also peace and security.-

One of the primary recommendations of the Global High-Level Panel on Water for Peace was to establish the Global Observatory for Water and Peace (GOWP) to ensure that partners engaged in water cooperation address critical gaps within the global water architecture.-

At the Geneva Water Hub, we are committed to fostering youth engagement and empowerment on the theme of water for peace. We participate in events and platforms that advance youth perspectives on water for peace and strive to include youth representatives and in our own events and actions. By involving young people, we not only learn from their creativity and energy but also ensure that their voices are heard and valued in shaping the future of water in humanitarian, peacebuilding and development arenas.-

The Geneva Water Hub and its Platform for International Water Law promote the dissemination and a better understanding of the legal frameworks protecting water resources and water-related infrastructure during and after armed conflicts. Through our research and trainings, we aim at contributing to the implementation and enforcement of International Humanitarian Law, Human Rights Law as well as other areas of international law which are relevant for the protection of water in in fragile and post-conflict settings.-

The Global Alliance to Spare Water from Armed Conflicts galvanises efforts to protect the human dignity of the population affected from armed conflicts. The alliance will disseminate existing legal and technical tools for the protection of freshwater and related installations from armed conflicts.-

Urban and rural water services are defined by an interdependency of people, hardware and consumables. These three components are reliant on each other for the proper functioning of the system. In addition, water services are complex and interconnected systems. The cumulative degradation of the system over time adds to its complexity, presenting challenges and incurring significant costs for rehabilitation efforts. -

The Geneva Water Hub has been facilitating a dialogue on “Water as Driver of Peace in the Sahel” since 2018, with actors from development, humanitarian, peacebuilding and security communities. By applying the framework from the Global High-Level Panel on Water and Peace to the multifaceted crisis impacting the Sahel region, the Geneva Water Hub and its strategic partners have spearheaded a reflexion on how to use water as entry point to prevent and resolve conflicts at the local, intersectoral and transboundary levels.-

The vision of the Geneva Water Hub extends to Western Asia and North Africa (WANA), a region which unfortunately faces protracted humanitarian crises, political uncertainty, civil unrest, and the impacts of climate change. The definitions of WANA vary widely, but we adopt the definition provided by the WANA Institute, which aligns with our commitment to human geography over political geography, our people-centred diplomacy, our basin-level approach, and our human rights convictions. By embracing this approach, we aim to offer innovative solutions to address current and potential conflict situations in the region, working with actors from humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding communities. -