New global partnerships initiated at HSC 2024 will focus on advancing discussions and finding solutions for financing sustainable development, governance reforms, and key global challenges like debt sustainability, taxation, and access to finance.

HSC 2025 will continue the discussions on the International Financial Architecture that began with earlier conferences. It will bring together governments, multilateral development banks, the private sector, and civil society to address crucial topics such as improving the efficiency and impact of the International Financial Architecture, achieving fair taxation, exploring the debt-climate nexus, enhancing rating systems, and optimizing the use of special drawing rights.

As HSC 2025 will take place only a few weeks ahead of the fourth Financing for Development Conference in Spain, it will aim at paving the ground for a successful outcome of this conference.

To achieve the SDGs alongside climate and biodiversity goals, it is essential to implement impactful solutions and investments that adhere to high social and environmental standards globally. For these investments to be effective, collaboration between the private and public sectors is necessary. Long-term sustainability in development efforts hinges on mobilizing private investments in quality infrastructure and similar projects, making joint initiatives like Global Gateway vital to this mission.

Despite significant progress in advancing sustainable finance, a substantial funding gap remains, particularly in developing and emerging countries, where private investment is urgently needed. De-risking mechanisms are crucial for addressing risk perceptions and encouraging private sector involvement, with blended finance showing promising results in recent years. HSC 2025 will focus on identifying successful practices from previous initiatives launched at the HSC 2024, such as the Hamburg Sustainability Platform, and introducing new ideas to standardize and scale effective solutions. Moreover, enhancing sustainable finance frameworks and implementing international sustainability disclosures will help reduce information asymmetries and stimulate investments in sustainable activities.

Future Cities

Cities are the key players in the global race to achieve the SDGs. By 2025, 60% of the global population will live in cities, making them vital for achieving SDG 11: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.” Cities are economic powerhouses: by 2040, the top 100 global cities will double their spending power, while the rest of the cities are expected to more than triple theirs.  Cities combine the challenges of today with the opportunities of tomorrow.  

Sustainable and circular economies, climate-friendly and resilient urban infrastructure as well as data-based intelligence serve as powerful drivers of this transformation. Whether it’s education for sustainable development, green and inclusive planning or circular economy, future-ready cities leverage technology and innovation to enhance the quality of life for all. Social cohesion must always be considered as a fundamental aspect of this progress.

By fostering collaboration among policymakers, businesses, academia, and civil society, and embracing useful tools and financing, we will explore the pivotal role of urban areas in achieving the Agenda 2030.  Join us to discover innovative solutions that make cities more sustainable, resilient, and inclusive, driving global progress towards a sustainable future for generations to come.

 

Green Logistics & Mobility

Efficient logistics are essential for international trade and economic growth. As global needs change, proactive economic policies must promote green mobility options—like public transit, electric vehicles, and sustainable shipping—to reduce air pollution and fossil fuel reliance. Inclusive mobility ensures accessibility for all, including those with disabilities, while encouraging biking and walking fosters equitable urban transport systems that enhance public health and community connectivity. Innovations in logistics contribute to sustainable infrastructure, lowering carbon emissions and improving resource efficiency. Prioritizing green skills development through targeted training programs helps cultivate a workforce equipped to implement sustainable logistics. Utilizing global data enhances planning and decision-making, ensuring resilient and cost-effective systems that support economic prosperity while minimizing environmental impacts.

The HSC seeks conference contributions on sustainable logistics solutions and on how global trade, climate, and infrastructure development as well as common frameworks (including at the (multilateral) policy level) that can enhance the sustainable and inclusive transportation of people and goods and trade of goods and services.

 

Retaining Biodiversity

Responsible land use practices, such as preserving natural habitats and adopting sustainable agriculture, are essential for ecosystem protection. Safeguarding biodiversity is vital for the stability of ecosystems, which provide essential services like pollination, water purification, and climate regulation. Diverse and well-managed ecosystems are better equipped to withstand environmental changes and offer more sustainable livelihoods for communities. Therefore, economic models should align with sustainable land use and biodiversity initiatives to promote long-term well-being for both people and the planet.

The HSC seeks conference contributions on how changing land use practices and business models can retain, sustainably manage, maintain and restore biodiversity.

 

Responsible AI and Digitalization

As AI technology continues to rise, ensuring justice and accountability in its implementation becomes critical. While global digital adoption expands, uneven AI integration is exacerbating inequalities in infrastructure, technology, and education. To sustainably and responsibly transform the AI sector, three key opportunities must be addressed: First, the gap between those with and without access to AI is widening, with high-skilled, high-income workers likely to reap the benefits of increased productivity in the short term. Implementing policies to enhance AI literacy and distribute productivity gains more equitably can help widen access to its economic advantages. Second, the nature of work is evolving, reshaping how people perform tasks and interact in a globalized, technology-driven environment. Lastly, the digital divide is intensifying the gender gap, with men globally being 21% more likely to be online than women, a disparity that rises to 52% in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs).

The HSC seeks conference contributions on topics such as universal access to mobility data, AI and food systems, cryptocurrencies in sustainable development and regulation.

 

Sustainability in times of crisis and fragility

The good news is that 2024 marks the first time since the COVID pandemic that we see a rebound in the global Human Development Index (HDI) – a summary measure reflecting a country’s Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, education, and life expectancy. The troubling news is that the rebound has been partial, incomplete, and unequal across countries and societies.  At the same time, in development terms, we live in a world of possibilities. In 2023, the growth of global renewable energy capacity increased by 50%. A nature-positive economy could generate up to $10 trillion in annual business value and create 400 million jobs by 2030. Moreover, 1.45 billion young people – the largest generation of young people in history – have the potential to drive growth and progress.

The world is currently in a state of significant upheaval, facing multiple and interconnected crises, often referred to as a "polycrisis" or "permacrisis." Approximately two billion people now live in conflict-affected areas, which include three-quarters of those in extreme poverty. Additionally, in 2023, there were 363 weather-related disasters, impacting at least 93.1 million people. The effects of climate change are expected to further increase fragility and displacement.

The roots of this condition can be traced to structural transitions that are unfolding at the same time across the world – geopolitical, economic, social, technological, environmental and demographic - with endpoints that are unknown.  Transitions of this nature unleash greater and more complex risks, accompanied by heightened uncertainty and volatility, rooted in complex systems.  

Shortcomings in dealings with the consequences of these transitions are giving rise to societal discontent and a lack of trust in governments, driven by a lack of tangible solutions to conflicts, the climate crisis, misuse of digital technologies, and economic shocks. Coupled with a sense of powerlessness and fear of an uncertain future, this discontent is paving the way for populist politics.

Conflicts, risks, uncertainty, and fragility are not new. But what we are seeing now is qualitatively vastly different in terms of scale, scope, speed, and consequences. In a world of geopolitical fragmentation, existing tools for conflict prevention, management, and peacebuilding therefore need to be re-imagined.

Threats to international peace and security require integrated solutions. Investments in international diplomacy, fair and equal development opportunities, and risk management for pandemics, economic shocks, and climate change are critical to peace and stability. Sufficient short-term relief needs to be smartly coupled with longer-term investments in self-sufficiency, stabilization, resilience, prevention, and risk reduction to address the root causes of crisis and conflict.

The ‘Pact for the Future’, adopted by 193 United Nations Member States in September 2024, describes a way forward to adapt international institutions to the current global landscape, ensuring they can effectively meet these challenges. The Pact offers clear commitments to improve financing for development, invest in international peace and security, foster digital cooperation and youth engagement, and transform global governance. Development is recognized as a critical piece of the new architecture of global problem-solving.

The hub on “sustainability in times of crisis and fragility” offers a unique and inclusive platform to workshop solutions with governments, civil society, and the private sector. It aims to achieve breakthroughs and identify innovative pathways for turning these interconnected crises and risks, amid growing uncertainty, into opportunities for a peaceful and sustainable future for people and the planet.

 

Transforming Global Health

Conflicts, climate change and other global ecological crises have a massive adverse impact on progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 that aims at health and wellbeing for all. Therefore, ensuring universal access to essential health services, particularly for people affected by conflict, crises, and environmental degradation, is more urgent than ever.

Concepts such as One Health or Planetary Health that emphasize the interconnectedness of human, animal and environmental health hold keys for galvanizing transformative change towards sustainable and peaceful development at local, national and global levels. At the same time, health delivery needs to adapt to conflict situations that severely weaken institutional and physical infrastructures.

Opportunities include harvesting co-benefits by connecting health with the sectors that determine health outcomes. This holistic approach reaches from increasing the resilience of health systems against the threats of conflict, climate change and anti-microbial resistance to connecting health with ecological sustainability, e.g. for healthy and sustainable diets or fostering active non-polluting mobility.

Innovative approaches to financing health that simultaneously change fiscal incentives and setting conducive market conditions are entry points for enabling these changes. Current developments such as digitalisation and private sector initiatives for more resilient supply chains of essential medicines and health products hold great potential for improving access and quality of health services for disadvantaged populations.

The HSC seeks conference contributions towards the implementation of scalable solutions in health that correspond to one or several of the aspects highlighted above.