Abu Dhabi,23 October 2026: First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), the UAE’s global bank and one of the world’s largest and safest financial institutions, in partnership with Soma Mater Management Consultancies, convened the Water Resilience and Innovation Roundtable in Abu Dhabi on 19 October 2026. Held under the FAB SME Sustainability Programme, the closed, facilitated session brought together around 20 representatives from UAE-based water-innovation startups, research institutions, and ecosystem partners to explore how finance and collaboration can help advance water-resilience solutions in the UAE.
Participants examined water innovation across policy, finance, innovation infrastructure and education, reflecting the UAE’s focus on water security, including Dubai’s target to achieve 100% utilisation of treated sewage effluent (TSE) by 2030. Discussions focused on water efficiency and reuse, climate adaptation, financing gaps, and the pilot, procurement and commercialisation barriers that can limit wider deployment. They also considered how these approaches can help reduce reliance on energy-intensive desalination, lowering emissions and exposure to climate-driven supply disruption.
The event also explored how stronger collaboration across finance, research and industry can support the wider deployment of water-resilience solutions. Insights from the discussion will inform an outcome paper ahead of the 2026 UN Water Conference, which the UAE and Senegal will co-host in Abu Dhabi from 8 to 10 December 2026. The paper will identify key financing and commercialisation barriers facing water innovators and outline opportunities for banks, businesses and policymakers to help bring promising solutions to market.
The roundtable builds on FAB’s broader blue-finance commitments, including its AED 100 billion target to support water and blue economy-related financing between 2026 and 2035. FAB is also the first bank in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to sign the UN Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Principles and has facilitated approximately AED 20 billion in water-related financing. By engaging directly with water innovators, FAB aims to identify where finance can best support the SMEs developing the next generation of water solutions.