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 Forum said.
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. Discussions took place amid fast-evolving economic, technological and geopolitical dynamics, as well as wider environmental challenges, with a focus 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."
The Forum'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.
The 20th edition of the Global Gender Gap Report found that 69.2% of the global gender gap is closed across 145 economies, but 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.
A framework for strengthening workforce resilience to extreme heat and a playbook on investing in place-based resilience addressed 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 the 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.
"As environmental pressures mount, sustainability is increasingly central to competitiveness, resilience, security and well-being. But progress remains uneven," 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."
On AI, a report on 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 report on New Economy Skills called for hybrid training, expanded apprenticeships and portable credentials, as 63% of employers identified skills gaps as a key barrier to transformation.
"The outlook for the global economy has improved, but resilience remains fragile," 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 InvestFrontier Leadership Group, part of an initiative launched by the World Economic Forum and the European Commission, met to advance catalytic finance and locally led, commercially viable solutions in fragile and frontier markets. The Urban Risk and Resilience community brought together 30 leaders to address the estimated $800 billion annual urban resilience investment gap through 2030.
"Public finance cannot meet the scale of development challenges alone," said Sheba Crocker, Managing Director, World Economic Forum. "Mobilizing private investment and philanthropy, alongside locally led solutions, will be essential to strengthen resilience and drive growth in fragile and frontier markets."