Photo Credit: U.S. Agency for International Development

Global Water 2020 is a three-year advocacy and facilitation initiative designed to accelerate progress toward water access and security for all people in developing countries. Nonpartisan and fully funded, we are a catalyst working behind the scenes to increase U.S. and global public and private responses to a limited number of critical, under-resourced international water challenges. 

Global Water 2020 consists of a small team that has worked on global water issues utilizing a variety of tools including advocacy, financing, research, monitoring, innovation, policy, and communications. Its principals have worked extensively with the U.S. Congress and federal agencies, corporations, foundations, civic organizations, faith-based institutions, universities, and governments and implementing non-governmental organizations across the developing world.


Global Water 2020 neither implements nor funds projects, and we do not seek publicity or branding opportunities for our group. We work to accelerate progress on important, under-recognized but solvable challenges, concentrating on areas where needs are severe, where opportunities to succeed are great, and where additional attention is warranted.

Among other areas, we focus on the lack of safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) in health-care facilities worldwide; and global and regional water diplomacy in the Middle East and beyond. To advance our goals, we place particular emphasis on advocacy for water security at global, regional, and country levels; innovative, leveraged finance in the global water sector; and broad communication about the urgency and the capacity to resolve these challenges. We design our efforts both to help address gaps in the global water sector, and to prevent water imbalances from causing or magnifying security threats including conflict, famines, and infectious disease pandemics.

Our ambition at Global Water 2020 is to quietly complement, not compete with, ongoing activities by other entities. Wherever possible we highlight the leadership of organizations already working on behalf of solutions to critical water issues.  We encourage public and private stakeholders across the globe to prioritize water security as never before, and to increase the amount and effectiveness of human, financial and technical resources invested in the global water sector.