The schedule for the 2026 Water and Health Conference at UNC is officially out, and it’s shaping up to be a landmark year for our members. With nearly 40 side events, verbal presentations, posters, and plenary sessions featuring Agenda for Change members, the conference floor will be filled with the latest thinking on WASH systems strengthening, sustainability, and sector learning.
A Week of Shared Learning
From Monday through Thursday, member organizations will be presenting across every format the conference offers — side events, verbal presentations, posters, and even a plenary session. Topics range widely: market-based sanitation in Zambia and Mozambique, rural water governance reforms in Uganda and Ethiopia, menstrual health and hygiene programming, climate-resilient WASH systems, and the financing and sustainability questions that cut across all of it.
Highlights to Watch
A few sessions stand out as particularly aligned with where the sector’s conversation is heading:
- “Who Decides? Agenda-Setting, Power, and Accountability in a Post-Aid WASH World” (Osprey Foundation) — a plenary session tackling one of the field’s most pressing structural questions.
- “Accelerating Progress towards National WASH Targets: The Power of Effective Government Leadership” — featuring Agenda for Change alongside Aguaconsult, Osprey Foundation, and Self Help Africa, directly reflecting our members’ ongoing work on government-led systems strengthening.
- “Beyond pilots: Strengthening Systems for Sustainable Sanitation Services” — another Agenda for Change collaboration, this time with WaterAid and WSUP, focused on moving sanitation programming from isolated pilots to sustained systems.
- “Designing for Scale from the Start: The Case of Market-Based Sanitation in Zambia” (CARE, iDE) — a Monday morning session that ties directly into the ongoing Lean Market-Based Sanitation partnership work many of our readers have been following.
Breadth Across the Membership
The schedule reflects just how many organizations are contributing: CARE, iDE, Helvetas, World Vision, WaterAid, WSUP, Water for People, Water for Good, CRS, Aguaconsult, Riva (formerly IRC), Living Water, Self-Help Africa, the Osprey Foundation, and more all have a presence across the week. Several sessions are co-presented across multiple member organizations, a reflection of the cross-collaboration that defines so much of this network’s work.
Plan Your Week
With sessions spread across Monday through Thursday (Friday has no member sessions), there’s a lot to plan around. The full schedule — including room locations, exact times, and the complete list of presenting organizations — is available here.
We’ll see you in the Dogwood, Sunflower, Redbud, Azalea, and Atrium rooms!