New York, United States, 24th September, 2026
The
World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact
Meetings 2026 convened leaders in New York for high-level
working sessions to advance solutions that no single actor
or sector can deliver alone.
The
discussions took place amid fast-evolving economic,
technological and geopolitical dynamics, as well as wider
environmental challenges. Participants explored how to
advance resilient economic growth and sustainable
development, build responsible artificial intelligence (AI)
and frontier technologies that create economic and societal
value, and mobilize capital for greater
impact.
The meetings, held alongside the
81st United Nations General Assembly High-Level Week,
brought together 600 business executives, 100 top officials
from government and international organizations, more than
100 civil society leaders, and representatives from academia
and the next generation. The meetings focused on long-term
impact and building momentum towards the World Economic
Forum Annual Meeting 2027 in Davos,
Switzerland.
“As prolonged conflicts and
geopolitical tensions put energy, economic and diplomatic
systems under strain, business leaders can play a critical
role in shaping what comes next,” said Mirek Dušek,
Managing Director, World Economic Forum. “By investing
boldly, building resilience before crisis hits and working
across borders when cooperation is hardest, they can help
economies and societies navigate change with speed and
purpose.”
Economic growth and
sustainable development
Economic
growth and sustainable development cannot be seen as
competing objectives; instead, economies that invest in
climate and nature are better positioned for long-term
resilience and prosperity. Amid escalating geopolitical
risks, new approaches to investment, productivity,
resilience and development are urgently needed to create
resilient growth that can endure future
shocks.
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As part of a longstanding tradition,
the meetings convened a high-level luncheon of the Informal
Gathering of World Economic Leaders (IGWEL), bringing
together 70 leaders from business, government, international
organizations, civil society and academia to explore
international cooperation amid geopolitical, geoeconomic and
technological change, with a particular focus on economic
growth and the implications of AI and other frontier
technologies.
The WEF’s latest Chief
Economists’ Outlook found the global economy
stabilizing, though living costs are expected to rise faster
than incomes across most regions. The inaugural Chief
Sustainability Officers’ Outlook showed
sustainability progress holding steady or accelerating,
despite uneven progress across sectors and regions and
persistent concerns around compliance and AI’s
environmental footprint.
Broadening economic
opportunity also requires closing persistent gender gaps.
The 20th edition of the Global
Gender Gap Report found that 69.2% of the
global gender gap is closed across 145 economies, but
progress remains fragile: at the current pace, full parity
is still 120 years away. Champions
of the Global Gender Parity Sprint convened to
advance pathways towards parity by 2030 across senior
leadership, technology and financial
markets.
Strengthening resilience to climate
risks was another key focus. A framework
for strengthening workforce resilience to extreme
heat and a playbook
on investing in place-based resilience offered
practical approaches to address the $2.4 trillion in
productivity at risk from extreme heat and growing insurance
pressures. New partnerships with the Mohamed bin Zayed Water
Initiative and United Nations Development Programme will
accelerate water innovation and country-level action on
plastic pollution, with the latter formalized through an MoU
signed at SDIM26. Beyond climate-related risks, Risk
Management, Reimagined outlined four shifts
chief risk officers are making as uncertainty becomes
structural rather than episodic, from predicting disruptions
to preparing for them.
Forum initiatives
including Circular Economy Transformation, Alliance of CEO
Climate Leaders, UpLink and First Movers Coalition advanced
low-carbon and circular solutions, with UpLink announcing
innovation cohorts on restoration, low-carbon and circular
systems, and carbon dioxide removal. The New
Global Stakeholders initiative also highlighted
how public-private cooperation can address emerging security
risks and strengthen stability.
On industry,
the Resilience-to-Growth
Circularity Playbook outlined a three-step
approach to turn circularity into a driver of resilience and
growth. Meanwhile, the Future
of Space Community explored how defence-driven
investment in Earth intelligence can support climate
action.
“As environmental pressures mount,
sustainability is increasingly central to competitiveness,
resilience, security and well-being. But progress remains
uneven: solutions that are commercially compelling in one
market can remain constrained by financing costs,
infrastructure or policy in another, and the costs and
benefits of the transition are not always shared evenly,”
said Sebastian Buckup, Managing Director, World Economic
Forum. “In a more fragmented world, the task is to connect
capital, technology and markets so that solutions can scale
and deliver for people. SDIM showed why practical
cooperation around these real-economy challenges remains an
urgent priority.”
“The outlook for the global
economy has improved, but resilience remains fragile. The
Forum’s community of chief economists is concerned about
geopolitical disruption, asset-price corrections and
readiness for the next shock, and headline growth masks
living costs rising faster than incomes across most
regions,” said Saadia Zahidi, Managing Director, World
Economic Forum. “A new economy demands a new approach to
investing in jobs, developing talent and accelerating
economic mobility.”
The next phase of
AI and technology
AI and frontier
technologies are being deployed across economies and
societies, unlocking opportunities to boost productivity,
accelerate scientific discovery and expand access to
healthcare, education and climate solutions. Ensuring that
these benefits are broadly shared requires collaboration to
close gaps in access, governance, skills and
trust.
Communities, including the AI Global
Alliance, convened around a shared question: how to harness
AI for economic growth without forcing a trade-off between
sovereignty and access to capabilities. UpLink announced the
winners of its Powering Tomorrow: Electricity Systems and AI
in Supply Chains challenges, supporting solutions to
strengthen energy systems and supply-chain resilience. A
report on more
sustainable and resilient data-centre
development highlighted efficiency measures
that could reduce energy use by 6.5–11%, while analysis of
more
than 600 AI start-up solutions identified ways
to strengthen supply-chain resilience. A further report
outlined four
shifts needed to manage structural uncertainty,
while new research
on the Mediterranean examined the region’s
potential as a production, energy and innovation corridor
supporting resilient European value chains.
A report
on New
Economy Skills called for hybrid training,
expanded apprenticeships and portable credentials as demand
for trade and manufacturing workers rises. Leaders from the
Future of Jobs Initiative, Future Skills Alliance, Education
4.0 and Chief Learning Officers communities examined how AI
is reshaping career pathways, highlighting the need to
better connect education and employment as 63% of employers
identified skills gaps as a key barrier to
transformation.
The Global Coalition for Digital
Safety advanced a life-cycle approach to child-safe AI,
while a session on AI for Social Innovation laid the
groundwork for a coalition set to launch in January 2027,
with a goal of mobilizing $500 million by
2030.
“AI advancement is becoming a
capital-intensive race set to reward the economies and
corporations that can meet rising demands for compute,
energy, infrastructure and talent. New approaches from
public and private sector leaders are needed to develop the
right skills, access and guardrails to help ensure the
benefits of AI and frontier technologies are shared
broadly,” said Matthew Blake, Managing Director, World
Economic Forum.
Directing capital where
it can deliver the greatest
impact
Many of the communities facing
the greatest development and climate challenges are also
those where investment is hardest to mobilize. Public
finance remains essential, particularly during times of
crisis, but fiscal pressures and high sovereign debt limit
what it can achieve alone. The meetings explored how public
finance, private investment and philanthropy can work
together to unlock capital and support locally led,
commercially viable solutions, particularly in fragile and
frontier markets.
The InvestFrontier Leadership
Group, part of an initiative launched by the World Economic
Forum and the European Commission, also met to advance
catalytic finance and locally led, commercially viable
solutions in fragile and frontier markets.
The
Resilience
Consortium identified critical infrastructure
needs, barriers to private investment and priorities for
public-private action. These findings will inform its
forthcoming Business Readiness and Resilience Briefing
Paper. In addition, the Urban Risk and Resilience
community brought together 30 leaders to address the
estimated $800 billion annual urban resilience investment
gap through 2030.
More than 20 Schwab
Foundation social innovators and entrepreneurs contributed
to discussions on development, climate adaptation and
financing solutions, while roundtables on water, longevity
and mining explored innovation, finance, procurement and
partnerships to close the pilot-to-scale
gap.
The Faith
in Action Community convened investment, policy
and faith leaders to explore how faith-based principles can
inform decisions on capital, technology, work and long-term
value, while supporting more inclusive and resilient
economies.
“Public finance cannot meet the
scale of development challenges alone. Mobilizing private
investment and philanthropy, alongside locally led
solutions, will be essential to strengthen resilience and
drive growth in fragile and frontier markets,” said Sheba
Crocker, Managing Director, World Economic
Forum.
About the Sustainable
Development Impact Meetings 2026
The Sustainable
Development Impact Meetings 2026 (SDIM26) took place in New
York, USA on 21-24 September and brought together senior
leaders from across sectors and regions to advance solutions
to shared opportunities and challenges, with a particular
focus on long-term impact and building momentum before the
World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
2027.
