[6] Founded in 2014, the Geneva Water Hub, with offices at the University of Geneva and the World Meteorological Organization, works to bridge the gap between water research, policy and practice on the ground - often at cross boundary and river basin scale.

From 2015 until 2017 it acted as the Secretariat to the Global High Level Panel on Water and Peace and now acts as the secretariat for the Group of Friends for Water and Peace,[7] about forty countries represented by their Permanent Missions to the United Nations in Geneva.

In 2015, the World Economic Forum ranked water scarcity as the largest global risk over the next decade.

[13] Already, 40% of the world's population is affected by water scarcity[14] on a planet where more than 260 international rivers cross many man-made boundaries.

In addition, more than half the planet's wetlands have disappeared[15] and climate change is impacting weather and water patterns around the world.