Joint session between ECES and Club de Madrid

The growing pressure on water resources, exacerbated by climate change, biodiversity loss, and rising inequalities, demonstrates that water security can no longer be addressed solely from a national perspective. While access to water is ensured locally, the conditions that enable safe, equitable, and resilient water systems increasingly depend on global public goods, institutions, and cooperation mechanisms. In this context, water must be understood as a hybrid global public good, whose governance requires connecting local, national, regional, and international levels.

This session will explore how to advance towards democratic water governance based on transboundary cooperation, transparency, accountability, and participation, as well as through new mechanisms of global public investment. The dialogue will also address the challenges arising from fragmented global governance, the so- called “sovereignty trap,” and the need to build cooperation mechanisms that ensure a more equitable distribution of the benefits, costs, and risks associated with water. A living example of the problem lies in ongoing disputes between Egypt and Ethiopia. The session will also further explore how to integrate the water agenda into other multilateral processes related to climate change, biodiversity, sustainable development, and international finance.