UNC Hosts Largest Global Event on Water and Health

November 7, 2023

The UNC Water and Health Conference has become the world’s largest annual international conference dedicated exclusively to water and health. The Conference is hosted by the Water Institute, part of the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.

This year’s Conference hosted more than 700 people in-person and over 2,000 on-line from over 140 countries. Over 50% of the Conference registrants were from lower and middle-income countries.

The goal of the Conference is to review and discuss the latest science and evidence from across the sector to inform and improve policy and practice. This year’s Conference featured nearly 90 technical presentations, over 50 side events and workshops and more than 100 poster presentations.

Discussions focused on critical challenges within the sector including accelerating drinking water and sanitation (WASH) services in fragile environments, addressing power dynamics in the design and implementation of WASH programming and whether and how science and evidence are informing commitments made at the 2023 UN Water Conference.

Participants included senior government decision-makers, workers and system/utility operators, researchers, and international, nongovernmental and civil society organizations working on WASH.

The Conference is also a recognized platform for following up on the commitments made at the 2023 UN Water Conference related to Water and Health.

Recordings of the Conference sessions can be found at UNC Water and Health Conference. Interested sponsors can contact the Water Institute at waterinstitute@unc.edu.

Contact the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health communications team at sphcomm@unc.edu.