Public Private Partnerships and the Financial Sustainability of the Mediterranean Water Sector – Report of the 1st UfM Annual Conference on Water Investment and Financing

We are proud to present the report of the First UfM Annual Conference on Water Investment and Financing. In the process of developing the UfM Financial Strategy for Water, we heard from our partners that a regional platform was very much needed to facilitate dialogue and peer learning on this crucial topic among all stakeholders. We promptly reacted to that demand, with an ambitious vision, and launched what we hoped could soon become an important feature in the calendar of the water and financing sectors in our region. The first Annual Conference did not disappoint. We were fortunate to enjoy high political support from our kind host, the Government of Italy, and excellent organisation from our partner ISPI. Governments, financiers, service providers and civil society organisations responded to our call. Countries reported on their recent efforts and identified priorities, financiers told water people how they can improve, ministers highlighted the political importance of the UfM Water Agenda, water service providers and regulators discussed the benefits and limitations of public private partnerships…

The quality of those exchanges has prompted us to publish this Conference report. We hope it will be useful to all those that care about ensuring universal access to water and sanitation and sustainable management of water resources in the Mediterranean. We organised the Conference in December 2019, in a world that was different. The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to pause, and reflect. Given the social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 health crisis, we find that the UfM work on promoting water investments and ensuring the financial sustainability of water services is more important than ever. We will be back soon, better.

December 2019