Women, Water, and Diplomacy

From Stockholm to Dakar – and Onward to Abu Dhabi

In August 2025, at the Stockholm World Water Week, Skat Foundation formalized its partnership with the Women Water Diplomacy Network (WWDN) through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding. What that signature represented was more than an institutional agreement: it was a commitment to a long-term effort to ensure that women’s voices, expertise, and leadership are meaningfully embedded in global water governance – including at the highest levels of international diplomacy. 

This article traces the partnership from its formal beginning to where it stands today, with two sessions of the Global Water Dialogue Series behind us and the 2026 UN Water Conference in Abu Dhabi on the horizon.

About the Women in Water Diplomacy Network

The Women in Water Diplomacy Network is a global community of practice comprising both formal and informal women water diplomats, decision-makers, and experts. Originally rooted in the Nile Basin, where it was founded in 2017, the Network has grown into a truly global movement with member communities spanning the Nile, Central Asia and Afghanistan, Southern Africa, North America, the South Caucasus, and beyond. 

The Network is guided by its 2022-2027 Global Strategy, A Path Forward for Women, Water, Peace and Security, and operates through a Global Leadership Council supported by a Process Support Team and a coalition of partner organizations. Its mission is direct: to strengthen women’s leadership in transboundary water decision-making – the spaces where decisions about shared rivers, aquifers, and basins are made, and where women have historically been underrepresented. 

Skat Foundation also supports the Stronger Together! Coalition, a broader network of organizations aligned around gender equality as a cross-cutting priority in global water governance, of which the Women in Water Diplomacy Network is a part. 

Dakar, January 2026: Co-Organizing the Women in Water Diplomacy Symposium

The first major milestone of the partnership came just months after the MOU signing, when Skat Foundation co-organized the Women in Water Diplomacy Symposium in Dakar in January 2026. The event was convened ahead of the Dakar High-Level Preparatory Meeting for the 2026 UN Water Conference, positioning it at a critical juncture in the global water policy calendar. 

Valérie Bertschy and Dr. Aline Saraiva Okello, both members of the Process Support Team for the Women in Water Diplomacy Network, represented Skat Foundation on the ground in Dakar. Batima Tleulinova facilitated online participation, ensuring that participants joining remotely were equally integrated into the dialogue. 

The Symposium brought together formal and informal women water diplomats and male champions to exchange knowledge and collectively identify priorities at the intersection of women, water, peace, and security – with a particular focus on African water diplomacy experience and practice. It was one of several preparatory events feeding into what will be only the third UN Water Conference since 1977.

Participants of the Symposium in Dakar in January 2026.

The Global Water Dialogue Series 2026

At the heart of Skat Foundation’s implementing partnership is the 2026 Global Water Dialogue Series – a four-part online series designed to accelerate gender equality and women’s leadership in water diplomacy, funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) with support from GIZ, and implemented by Skat Foundation together with Bridging Waters Advisory on behalf of the Network.

Each 90-minute session brings together Network members and invited partners around a subject at the forefront of water diplomacy. Sessions feature live interpretation multiple languages, AI-generated multilingual captioning, and After Action Reports – ensuring accessibility across a diverse global community. 

Two sessions have taken place so far. Session 1 (Our Shared Water Visions, March 10) convened 184 unique participants from 63 countries and 3 Indigenous nations, exploring how shared visions – both formal policy frameworks and informal collaborative processes – can guide more inclusive water diplomacy, with contributions from IHE Delft and the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW). Session 2 (Leadership, Knowledge Systems, and Indigenous Approaches to Cooperation, June 24) was convened to mark Women in Diplomacy Day 2026 and brought together 151 unique participants from 57 countries across all regions, with 303 total registrants from 78 countries. Two further sessions are planned for September and November 2026, ahead of the UN Water Conference in Abu Dhabi. 

The themes running through the series reflect the Network’s broader strategic priorities: the importance of inclusive processes over purely technical solutions, the need to move from dialogue to implementation, and the recognition that water diplomacy draws legitimacy – and effectiveness – from the diversity of knowledge systems and leadership perspectives on water stewardship and data sovereignty alongside formal diplomatic frameworks, and drawing a clear distinction between engaging Indigenous peoples as rights-holders rather than as stakeholders invited to comment on decisions already made. 

Looking Ahead: Abu Dhabi 2026

The 2026 UN Water Conference in Abu Dhabi will only be the third UN Water Conference since 1977. It represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape global commitments on freshwater governance, and the preparatory process – through events like the Dakar Symposium, the Global Water Dialogue, and a Women in Water Diplomacy Symposium planned for Abu Dhabi on December 7 – is where the foundations for that outcome are bing built. 

Skat Foundation’s role in this process reflects a deliberate strategic choice: the belief that supporting women’s leadership in water diplomacy is not a parallel track to the main work of water governance, but integral to it. Research consistently shows that water interventions are more effective and more equitably distributed when women hold decision-making roles – not only as beneficiaries, but as architects. 

Skat Foundation will continue to support the Network’s Process Support Team and contribute to the preparatory process in the months ahead. 

About the Partnership

The 2026 Global Water Dialogue Series is implemented by Skat Foundation and Bridging Waters Advisory on behalf of the Women in Water Diplomacy Network, with targeted support from Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development  (BMZ) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). Resources from all sessions – including After Action Reports, recordings, and related materials – are available on the Women in Water Diplomacy Network’s Public Resource Folder.