Africa’s water moment: how the 2026 African Union priority could reshape investment and delivery
At its 39th Ordinary Session, held on 14–15 February 2026 in Addis Ababa, the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union adopted the 2026 Theme of the Year, “Ensuring sustainable water availability and safe sanitation systems to achieve the goals of Agenda 2063”. The decision elevates water and sanitation from a sectoral concern to a continent-wide political priority, explicitly linking them to economic transformation, climate resilience, regional integration and peace.
Water as a strategic political priority
Senior African Union leaders framed access to water as a collective good and a prerequisite for development and stability. The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, H.E. Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, situated the 2026 theme within a context of geopolitical turbulence, declining external financing and rising expectations from African citizens, calling for stronger political leadership and domestic resource mobilisation.
Outgoing AU Chair H.E. João Lourenço, President of Angola, described water access as a political, moral and strategic priority essential to public health, food security and stability, while urging measurable commitments rather than. The Summit also saw the election of H.E. Évariste Ndayishimiye, President of Burundi, as Chairperson of the African Union for 2026, anchoring the water agenda at the highest level of continental leadership.
By designating water and sanitation as the Theme of the Year for 2026, the African Union has placed water security at the highest political level
From political priority to a continental framework
What is new is not the diagnosis of Africa’s water challenges, but the way the Vision reframes water as a strategic economic asset rather than a social service alone. The 2026 Theme of the Year set the stage for the launch of the Africa Water Vision 2063 & Policy, published on the occasion of the Summit. The Vision and Policy define a long-term continental roadmap for securing sustainable water availability and safe sanitation in pursuit of Agenda 2063.
What is new is not the diagnosis of Africa’s water challenges, but the way the Vision reframes water as a strategic economic asset rather than a social service alone. It explicitly links water security to industrialisation, energy production, agriculture and climate adaptation, while calling for paradigm shifts such as valuing water economically, strengthening basin-level cooperation and institutionalising credible data systems. Endorsed by Heads of State, the Vision is intended to function both as a continental implementation framework for Agenda 2063 and as Africa’s common position ahead of the 2026 UN Water Conference.
Financing water: signals to the private sector
Alongside the political and policy announcements, discussions at the Summit highlighted what this shift may mean for investment. On the margins of the AU Assembly, the Africa Investment Programme (AIP) presented a pipeline of 80 investment-ready water projects, with an estimated combined value of US$32 billion, spanning water supply, sanitation, irrigation, hydropower, ecosystem management and climate-resilient infrastructure.
What is new is not the diagnosis of Africa’s water challenges, but the way the Vision reframes water as a strategic economic asset rather than a social service alone
According to Alex Simalwambi, CEO of the Global Water Partnership Organisation, the AIP was designed to address a long-standing constraint, namely the absence of bankable, well-prepared water projects that can attract finance at scale. Development finance institutions referenced multi-billion-dollar water portfolios, including pipelines from the World Bank and the African Development Bank, while commercial lenders and climate finance institutions indicated available capital, conditional on reforms in governance, tariffs and institutional capacity.
The financing discussion at the Summit also intersected with broader debates on Africa’s financial architecture. In his first address to the AU Assembly, the President of the African Development Bank Group, Dr Sidi Ould Tah, presented the concept of a New African Financial Architecture, arguing that Africa’s constraint is less a lack of capital than an architecture of risk and capital that prevents resources from being mobilised and deployed at scale. While this agenda is not water-specific, its emphasis on mobilising African capital, reducing fragmentation and financing high-value infrastructure aligns with the conditions identified in the water sector for scaling investment, particularly the need to de-risk projects, improve coordination and move from isolated transactions to systemic delivery.
What may change and what remains uncertain
As the African Union’s specialised policy body for water and sanitation, the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) provides political leadership, policy direction and advocacy, and has stated its readiness to support Member States in translating the 2026 priority into implementation.
For the first time, Africa’s water agenda is being advanced simultaneously at three levels. These are sustained political visibility through the Theme of the Year, strategic clarity through the Africa Water Vision 2063 and Policy, and a clearer financing logic through project pipelines and debates on risk and capital. This convergence does not guarantee delivery. Its impact will depend on political follow-through beyond 2026, domestic reforms to improve investment readiness, and the ability to convert frameworks and pipelines into operating infrastructure. The opportunity is clearer than before. The decisive test now lies in execution and in whether alignment at the continental level translates into sustained public and private investment and measurable improvements in water and sanitation outcomes across Africa.