The World Economic Forum, in collaboration with McKinsey recently published a report on “Water Futures: mobilizing multi-stakeholder action for resilience”.
This report calls for a transformative approach to water resilience, where “resilience” refers to a “system’s ability to anticipate, reduce, accommodate, and recover from disruptions in a timely, efficient, and fair manner”. The paper emphasizes the vital role of public-private collaboration and cross-sector partnerships to meet emerging challenges and seeks to mobilize a freshwater multi-stakeholder community convened by the World Economic Forum.
This white paper comes in preparation for the UN Water Conference 2026, where the World Economic Forum aims to mobilize its community for multi-stakeholder action on water.
It focuses on two areas for water resilience: 1) Mainstream circular water and 2) Rethink water use and restore ecosystems, and presents 5 pathways for adopting a systems approach to water and bringing stability back to the water cycle:
- Holistic water valuation
- Fit-for-purpose finance
- Sustained basin-level partnerships
- Adaptive water governance
- Collaborative policy-innovation nexus
The white paper highlights existing tools and frameworks supporting the 5 presented pathways. Further, it brings forward key data on water usage, investment needs and sectoral data:
– Total water withdrawal per capita has increased by more than 650% globally in the past three decades, and 40% of global water demand will be unmet by 2030, according to the World Bank
– 60% of global GDP – equivalent to $58 trillion a year in economic use – depends on water and freshwater ecosystems and the GDP of high-income countries could fall 8% by 2050and 10-15% for lower-income countries
– The investment gap– compounded by a capacity and absorption gap – is estimated by the World Bank to an annual budget execution rate of about 72%, with global sustainable water management estimated to cost approximately $1.04 trillion annually up to 2030
– $77 billion is at stake from water-related supply chain risks, particularly affecting manufacturing, materials and food and beverage industries
– By 2030, clean energy measures alone could require a total of approximately 900 cubic kilometres (km3) of water annually
With a call to action for water systems, this report provides policy frameworks to move towards a water-resilient society.
