The ‘European Union-Union for the Mediterranean-African Development Bank Conference on Water Finance and Investments: Applying a Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems (WEFE) Nexus Approach to Water Finance and Investments’ is being held within the Cairo Water Week from 30th to 31st October 2023 under a hybrid format. The 2023 edition of the EU-UfM Conference on Water Finance and Investments will expand this year the geographical scope through collaboration with the African Development Bank (AfDB). The EU-UfM water finance and investment conference comes as part of a series of qualitative fora jointly organized by the EU delegation in Cairo and the UfM since 2019 with the objective to raise the profile of water investment and finance issues on the Mediterranean political agenda and to continue supporting UfM countries to improve their water investment and finance policies.

The European Union and the African Development Bank co-organized in 2021 and 2022, also in the framework of Cairo Water Week, the first two editions of the European Union-African Development Bank Water Investment Forum. Given the similarities in objectives and the partial overlap in target countries, the EU and the UfM are looking to integrating the European Union-African Development Bank and European Union-Union for the Mediterranean events into a single event that would cover the Mediterranean region and the whole African continent.

The previous editions of the EU-UfM water and investment fora had special focus on desalination and climate change in 2021 and 2022, respectively. This year’s edition will have a special focus on WEFE Nexus. The choice of this theme comes in response to the UfM member states and stakeholders, upon the 1st Regional WEFE Nexus Roundtable in the Mediterranean and the 13th Meeting of the UfM Water Expert Group (WEG13) meeting held back-to back in Rabat in June 2023, who stated that advancing the WEFE Nexus integrated policy- making requires financing.