Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney delivers a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, 20 January 2026. (Keystone/Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP)

Davos prompts rare straight talk as Trump brushes multilateralism aside. As the World Economic Forum wound down one of its highest-level and arguably most raucous sessions yet, Geneva experts are welcoming straight-talking calls for a new global order.

🌧️WATER HUDDLE IN DAKAR. Governments and UN officials are meeting in Dakar today and tomorrow for the final preparations before December’s UN Water Conference in the United Arab Emirates, scrambling to rally momentum for Sustainable Development Goal 6 on clean water and sanitation for all.

Water bankruptcy. A UN university report published last week offers a stark diagnosis – the world is consuming – and polluting – water faster than nature can replenish it, with the whole system at risk of collapse.

What that looks like: ㅤ

75 per cent of the global population lives in countries considered water-insecure or critically water-insecure.

2 billion people live on sinking land as groundwater aquifers collapse.

2.2 billion people still lack access to safe and clean drinking water.

70 per cent of fresh water withdrawals go to agriculture.

4.5 million km2 of wetlands have disappeared over the past 50 years.

419 water-related conflicts were recorded in 2024, way up from just 20 in 2010.

Shared problems, shared fixes. Faced with the mounting pressure, countries are searching for ways to cooperate, and UNECE and the water convention are helping them. One recent example is Armenia and Georgia, which signed an agreement in December to jointly monitor the Khrami-Debeda River basin.

In West Africa, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Senegal and Benin are also negotiating a deal to jointly manage the Senegal-Mauritania aquifer basin, with the next round of talks scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, just after the conference.

Back in Geneva. Azerbaijan will convene a meeting on Friday on the Caspian Sea, together with the UN Environment Programme and the Geneva-hosted Tehran Convention, the regional treaty aimed at protecting the world’s largest inland body of water.

The move comes as Baku warns that the Caspian is rapidly shrinking, with “catastrophic” consequences for ports, oil infrastructure and logistics. The other riparian states – Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan – are also parties to the Convention, which covers pollution control, biodiversity protection and environmental impact assessments.

🧮BUDGET CRUNCH. Following Washington’s formal announcement last week that it will leave the World Health Organization, the agency’s budget and administration committee meets Thursday and Friday to run the numbers, ahead of the executive board next week.

Unpaid tab. Under WHO rules, the US must settle outstanding arrears before completing its withdrawal. For now, it appears it won’t.

Washington’s unpaid tab for 2024 and 2025 stands at roughly $260 million. Even after member states agreed in May to raise mandatory fees to curb reliance on major donors, the WHO still faces a projected funding gap of more than $1bn for 2026-2027.

— Michelle Langrand and Paula Dupraz-Dobias

UN Rights Council orders inquiry into Iran’s brutal crackdown on protests. Countries greenlighted on Friday a UN-backed investigation into Iran’s crackdown on protests that have left scores dead, despite Tehran’s objections.