The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015 and includes seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that aim to guide global action on the achievement of a common set of development objectives for the coming fifteen years. The SDGs are the outcome of a highly consultative process that engaged governments and civil society in global, regional and country-level dialogues on their development priorities. The SDGs replace the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were formulated based on the declaration emanating from the Millennium Summit in September 2000.

The SDGs seek to overcome a wide range of sustainable development challenges that affect developed and developing countries alike.  In doing so, they set forth an ambitious universal, integrated, human rights based agenda that aims at the eradication of poverty (SDG-1), the achievement of food security (SDG-2), access to sustainable and modern energy for all (SDG-7), and the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all (SDG-6), as well as other pressing goals. The seventeen SDGs are elaborated through 169 targets.  As such, water is not only embedded in the SDG-6 targets, but also in targets related to a number of other sustainable development goals, such as those focused on health (SDG-3), human settlements (SDG-11), sustainable consumption and production (SDG-12) and ecosystems (SDG-15).

The objective of the Expert Group Meeting on the Water-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to formulate a set of expert recommendations on how the Arab Region should pursue monitoring and reporting on the water-related Sustainable Development Goals over the coming fifteen years. The recommendations will be submitted to the subsidiary bodies of the Arab Ministerial Water Council for consideration as part of the activities designated for follow-up on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with respect to water, as elaborated in Item II of the Arab Ministerial Water Council Executive Bureau resolutions adopted in January 2016.

Specifically, the expert group will examine the water-related sustainable development goals and targets presented in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the associated indicators put forth by the United Nations Statistical Commission. The deliberations will be informed by global, regional and national experience related to monitoring water-related goals and indicators in the Arab region, including lessons learned from the MDG+ Initiative.