S 2.1

Sustainable Financing for Water Infrastructure and Beyond: Tailor-made Models

Climate change, coupled with a growing population and shifts in production and consumption habits, is increasing water demand, deepening the risks of drought and flooding, increasing pressure on the quantity and quality of water resources, and making resilient and sustainable water management a strategic priority. Ensuring water resilience depends on implementing modern water investments in all areas, from storage and irrigation to drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, in line with the principles of efficiency and sustainability, supported by nature-based solutions and developed through a systems approach.

These investments require a strong financing structure in order to be realized. However, due to high capital requirements, long payback periods, and increasing investment needs, traditional public resources are often insufficient for developing modern water infrastructure systems. Globally, investments made to achieve SDG 6 and climate targets are well below what is needed. Public budgets and national funds alone are struggling to close this gap.

Therefore, in order to achieve water resilience in changing climate conditions, it is critical to develop and implement innovative and needs-specific financing models in which the public sector, private sector, and international organizations work together to realize the necessary investments.

This session will provide an important platform to address all these issues, offer innovative solutions to the challenges in financing water infrastructure, discuss what can be done to facilitate access to finance, especially in less developed and developing countries, share international experiences, and evaluate potential collaborations. Both Turkey's strong case studies and global expertise will contribute to the dissemination of new project approaches and sustainable financing models, and to facilitate access to finance. This session, to be held under the sub-theme “Finance Mobilization and Innovation for Climate-Resilient Water Management”, aims to generate concrete outputs that will contribute to the UNFCCC COP31, to be hosted by Türkiye, as well as the 2026 UN Water Conference.

Objectives and expected outcomes:

• Discussing ways to close the financing gap and innovative financing models for water resilience in changing climate conditions and achieving SDG 6 targets.

• Identifying national and international cooperation opportunities to facilitate the mobilization of finance and the use of innovative financing methods.

• Sharing best practice examples from Turkey and around the world.

• Providing suggestions on the considerations to be taken into account in shaping new project ideas and financing approaches.

• Developing recommendations on integrating resilience, efficiency, and sustainability priorities into international financing institutions' water investments through a holistic approach.

• Providing outputs that will contribute to UNFCCC COP31 and the 2026 UN Water Conference

Keywords: Water finance, innovative financing models, public-private partnership, water resilience, sustainability.