The Institutional Crowd Around SDG 6: Time for Coherence in the Global Water Agenda

 
Each September, world leaders converge at the United Nations in New York. In 2025, they gathered for the 80th UN General Assembly under the theme “Better together: 80 years and more for peace, development and human rights.” This high-level week came at a pivotal moment, calling for renewed commitment to multilateralism and shared action for people and planet, with a special focus on accelerating progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. The session featured eight major meetings, including a special discussion on Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis, requested by the Chief Adviser of Bangladesh, aiming to sustain global attention and propose a concrete plan for a sustainable solution. On September 22, the UN hosted its annual SDG Moment - a showcase of inspiring actions from communities driving change across sectors, from renewable energy to gender equality. Yet, as the world crosses two-thirds of the way to 2030, one goal remains critically off-track: SDG 6 - ensuring clean water and sanitation for all.

Water is life, yet the goal of universal access to safe water and sanitation remains elusive. At current rates, by 2030, 1.6 billion people will still lack access to safe drinking water, and 2.8 billion will live without safely managed sanitation. These numbers are not abstract; they represent families forced to drink from unsafe sources, children vulnerable to preventable diseases, and communities trapped in cycles of poverty and indignity. The urgency of this crisis is not in question - what is in question is how effectively the world’s complex web of institutions is responding.

Behind SDG 6 lies an elaborate network of agencies and platforms - a kind of “institutional crowd” - responsible for measuring, guiding, and inspiring action. Within the UN system, water monitoring has evolved into a sophisticated but sometimes fragmented structure. The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) has long tracked global access to drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene, providing the backbone for targets 6.1 and 6.2. Complementing it is the UN-Water GLAAS (Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water), managed by WHO, which examines financing, capacity, and governance - the systems that make services sustainable. Meanwhile, GEMI, or the Integrated Monitoring of Water and Sanitation Related SDG Targets, was launched in 2014 to fill remaining gaps, particularly in targets 6.3 to 6.6 - covering water quality, wastewater treatment, ecosystem health, and efficient water use. Together, these three mechanisms - JMP, GLAAS, and GEMI - form the backbone of SDG 6 monitoring, integrating data across the full water cycle and helping policymakers identify bottlenecks and priorities.

But coordination among these guardians of SDG 6 has not been seamless. While JMP and GLAAS benefit from decades of institutional experience, GEMI is still maturing, and coherence across agencies remains a work in progress. A 2017 global workshop in The Hague revealed a telling insight: civil society organizations often have rich, ground-level data on water access and quality, but this information rarely finds its way into official UN monitoring. CSOs, despite their proximity to reality, remain largely “consultative participants” rather than true data partners. The result is a system that, while technically robust, risks missing the human pulse of progress - the stories and struggles that numbers alone cannot capture.

Efforts to simplify this institutional crowd have emerged. A group of European nations once proposed establishing a UN intergovernmental body on water - a forum akin to the climate COPs, where countries could periodically review progress, share lessons, and agree on collective actions for SDG 6. The idea was to create a single platform that would hold governments accountable and reduce fragmentation. Yet political complexity stalled its realization. Meanwhile, the UN-World Bank High-Level Panel on Water, co-chaired by world leaders in 2016, produced valuable recommendations to “value water” and drive integrated action but dissolved after its term. Recognizing the leadership vacuum, the UN Secretary-General in 2024 appointed Indonesia’s former foreign minister, Retno Marsudi, as the first-ever Special Envoy on Water - a move that signaled renewed urgency to streamline advocacy and coordination in this crowded institutional landscape.

For countries like Bangladesh, this complexity is not academic; it directly affects national progress. Bangladesh has made remarkable strides in eradicating open defecation and expanding access to water, with 98% of its population now enjoying at least basic water service. Yet only 59% have safely managed drinking water, and 37% have safely managed sanitation. Climate threats - from rising seas to arsenic contamination - add further strain. For such nations, global mechanisms like JMP, GLAAS, and GEMI are not distant bureaucracies but crucial partners, offering data, frameworks, and advocacy platforms that help align domestic efforts with global commitments. But to truly serve countries on the frontlines, these systems must work not as silos but as parts of a single, responsive ecosystem.

Water and sanitation are not merely technical issues; they are deeply human concerns. They determine whether a child can attend school safely, whether a farmer can irrigate sustainably, whether a mother can trust the water she gives her child. When institutional crowding leads to duplication, slow response, or diluted accountability, it is these human lives that bear the cost. The challenge, therefore, is not to dismantle the existing mechanisms but to harmonize them - to ensure that data becomes action, that action becomes progress, and that progress reaches the most vulnerable.

As the world gathered for UNGA 80, the message was unmistakable: we have the tools, the institutions, and the frameworks - what we need now is coherence, urgency, and shared purpose. The guardians of SDG 6 must rise above bureaucratic fragmentation to form a collective front for humanity’s most basic right - clean water and dignified sanitation. For nations like Bangladesh, and for billions worldwide, the promise of the 2030 Agenda depends on it.

 

Mohammad Zobair Hasan is Deputy Executive Director, Development Organization of the Rural Poor (DORP).