The OECD and the Islamic Development Bank will co-convene the 12th Roundtable on Financing Water, a thematic meeting on “Strengthening the Sustainability of Water Investments: Alternative Financing Approaches and Models.” The meeting will take place on 16–17 April 2025 at the Islamic Development Bank Headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (and in hybrid format), in collaboration with the Government of the Netherlands, the World Water Council, and the World Bank. The 12th meeting of the Roundtable on Financing Water aims to explore funding and financing models that can foster greater sustainability and resilience of water-related investments, including financing models that share some or all of the following characteristics:
- Take a balanced approach to risk-sharing between providers and recipients of capital;
- Adopt a strong focus on asset maintenance, including through ensuring that sufficient flows of working capital are funded so that asset maintenance can be implemented where and when it is needed to support sustainability;
- Incentivise delivery of results in line with customer needs and desirable outcomes, measured not only in financial terms but based on other dimensions of performance, including social and environmental indicators.
The Roundtable meeting will also explore how Islamic Finance principles and instruments (notably a focus on risk- and profit-sharing, as well as asset-backed finance, etc.) can be leveraged to support more sustainable water investments. The meeting will aim at informing the finance agendas of the UN 2026 Water Conference and the 11th World Water Forum.
