Interview with Joan Borrell

"The Mediterranean is a laboratory for the world"
Ahead of the Euro-Mediterranean Water Forum in Rome (29 September–2 October), we spoke with Joan Borrell, Deputy Secretary General for Stability and Resilience at the Union for the Mediterranean, about what is at stake for the region and why Rome matters.

The Forum opens the day after the 2nd UfM Ministerial Meeting on Water. Why does that sequence matter? Because political ambition and technical expertise rarely sit in the same room. On 28 September, Ministers in charge of water from the UfM's 43 Member States meet in Rome. The following morning, the Forum opens its doors to utilities, regulators, basin authorities, researchers, financiers and companies. That back-to-back design is deliberate. A declaration adopted by governments is a starting point, not an outcome. What turns it into results is the constituency that gathers at the Forum. Rome gives us both in the same week, in the same city.

Water pressures in the Mediterranean keep making headlines. How would you describe the situation? The Mediterranean is warming roughly 20% faster than the global average, and the consequences are no longer projections. Droughts, wildfires and floods now strike our shores season after season, and more than 180 million people in the region already live under water scarcity. But I would resist a purely alarmist framing. The Mediterranean is also a laboratory for the world. Countries here have been managing scarcity, reusing water, desalinating and sharing rivers across borders for decades. What we test here holds lessons far beyond our basin. Few regions have as much practical experience to offer.

Ministers are expected to endorse a renewed set of priorities for 2026–2030. What are they? Five, and they are interlinked: strengthening water governance and inclusion, with youth and gender genuinely built in; operationalising the water-energy-food-ecosystems nexus and moving from nexus thinking to nexus doing; enhancing water finance and investment; advancing digitalisation and data-driven management; and building water and climate resilience. Behind them sit three strategies our Member States already approved in Barcelona last November, covering the nexus, water finance and digitalisation. So this is not a fresh start. It is the moment where an agreed framework converts into implementation all of it in pursuit of Sustainable Development Goal 6, clean water and sanitation for all, by 2030.

Is artificial intelligence a genuine game-changer for water? It is, and I would not hedge on that. But it comes with a risk we have to name: a digital divide. AI and data-driven tools deliver their biggest returns exactly where systems are weakest and those are often the systems least equipped to adopt them. Take non-revenue water, the water that is produced and then lost to leaks, theft or faulty billing. Non-revenue water exceeds 40% in several countries of the region, and in some cases tops 60%. Every one of those points is water already treated and paid for. Smart metering, sensors and predictive analytics can find those losses. Yet the persistent constraint across our region is not the technology, it is the digital skills gap. If AI advances only where capacity and financing already exist, the gap between the northern and southern shores widens rather than closes. That would be a failure, and it is avoidable.

Concretely, what is the UfM doing on digitalisation? Four things. First, we mapped the ground: our Strategic Framework for the Digitalisation of the Water Sector assessed the digital maturity of 24 Member States, from smart meters to AI analytics and digital twins, so countries can see what their neighbours are doing rather than start from scratch. Second, capacity building with a six-module regional webinar programme now under way, covering AI opportunities, digital governance and regulation, AI analytics and decision support, and still to come, emerging technologies, maintenance and cybersecurity. Third, a Community of Practice so that what one country learns does not stay in one country. Fourth, partnerships — with GWP-Med, PRIMA, the Institut Méditerranéen de l'Eau and others — to extend the reach. And the results are visible: Malta has reached 96% smart meter coverage, and Jordan is building a National Water Information System with SCADA and smart metering under its national strategy to 2040.

The Forum brings the private sector in alongside governments. What role do you see for companies? This is the shift I would most want your readers to notice. It is no longer a conversation among water utility companies. It now includes companies for which water has become existential and which have themselves become existential for water. Look at who is coming to Rome: beverages, cosmetics, fashion and textiles, insurance, energy, agriculture, technology. A textile manufacturer, a data centre operator, a food producer, an insurer pricing flood risk - each has a direct commercial stake in water security. Agriculture alone accounts for around 70% of water withdrawals globally, and considerably more in parts of our region. These sectors are not spectators to water policy; they are among its principal actors. The task is to bring public planning and private capital around projects that are financially realistic and genuinely bankable.

Rome is one milestone among several this autumn. What comes next? Cairo Water Week in October, COP31 in Antalya in November, the UN Water Conference in the United Arab Emirates in December, and the 11th World Water Forum in Riyadh in 2027 among others. Our aim is that the Mediterranean arrives at those tables with one coherent voice rather than 43 separate ones. Rome is where that voice is formed.

A final message to those coming to Rome? Come to build, not just to listen. The value of the Forum will be measured by the partnerships that leave it. And my thanks to Italy, host of both the Ministerial and the Forum, to the One Water Committee Italy, to the Institut Méditerranéen de l'Eau and to all our partners for making it possible.