The 81st UN General Assembly runs through September in New York, and alongside the General Debate, there are side events that touch on data, AI, climate and health, agriculture, and the SDGs. Below is a first pass at what's worth knowing. For the wider picture across UNGA, the UN Foundation keeps a hub. If you're part of the network and will be at any of these, or doing something of your own during this year's UNGA, tag the Global Partnership on social media or share it through the Listserv and we'll add it here.

Wednesday, September 17

Executive roundtable, AI governance and institutional readiness
8am to 11am, hosted by DS Consortium
A dialogue reviewing national AI strategies across Africa and the Gulf, mapping where governance, talent, and infrastructure priorities line up across the two regions.
Register

Saturday, September 19 through Sunday, September 27

Global Goals Week
Hosted by the UN Foundation, Project Everyone, and UNDP
The annual week of action on the SDGs that runs through most of UNGA's high-level week, with more than 100 partner organizations contributing events across it. Individual events under the umbrella register separately.
Learn more

Sunday, September 20 through Sunday, September 27

Climate Week NYC
Hosted by Climate Group
The parallel umbrella week for climate programming, including several of the sessions below. Same as Global Goals Week, individual sessions register on their own.
Learn more

Monday, September 21

UN Digital Cooperation Day
9am to 4:30pm, followed by a reception, at Ease, 605 3rd Avenue
Organized by the UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies, marking one year since the Global Digital Compact was adopted. A handful of sessions from the day are invite-only, so these are the open ones most relevant to data work.

  • Introducing the AI Strategy Blueprint: Turning National Ambition into Action, 9:45am to 11am, with ministers from Lesotho and Senegal alongside GIZ, G42, and Microsoft
  • What is Open Source AI? Applications, Strategies and Global Cooperation, 11am to noon

  • Panel of Panels: Building a Global AI Evidence Base, 3pm to 4pm, drawing on the Global South Network for Trustworthy AI

    A live broadcast is available for some sessions, worth checking for anyone joining remotely.
    Express interest here

Global Flagship Initiative for Food Security, First Annual Members' Meeting
8am to 5:15pm, at CURE, 345 Park Avenue South
Reviewing the Initiative's first year KPI framework and the links between food systems, land degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate.
Register

Digital@UNGA
5pm to 8pm, UN Headquarters
Convened by ITU and UNDP, this year's anchor event covers digital solutions, AI, quantum, and space technologies, with the Digital@UNGA Awards presented on the night. Access details for the anchor event itself hadn't been published as of this writing.
Details and updates

Smarter Investment, Greater Impact: Harnessing AI to Accelerate Disease Elimination
9am to 11am, venue still to come
Global Institute for Disease Elimination and RBM Partnership to End Malaria. On using AI to stretch shrinking donor budgets further against malaria, polio, and neglected tropical diseases.
Register, expression of interest

Stories that Move: Where story, data, and place converge to build narrative power
11am to 9pm, hosted by the Environmental Justice Oral History Project
A day of journalism, documentary, and oral history built around environmental justice, leaning more toward narrative and lived experience than data systems.
Register

Tuesday, September 22

6th UNGA Digital Health Symposium
9am to 5pm, at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey
Maynooth University and Seton Hall University. On shifting health systems toward proactive, digital-first models, with AI as a 2026 focus. Worth noting this one is outside Manhattan, and there's no registration link published yet, only a learn more page.
Learn more

Wednesday, September 23

From Investment to Impact: Delivering Results for Food Security at Scale
4pm to 6pm, at Morgan Stanley's Midtown North branch
Action Against Hunger, the Global Flagship Initiative for Food Security, and GAFSP. On how financing mechanisms and country-led pipelines are turning into results on the ground.
Register

Upstream Prevention: From Global Commitments to National Action
8am to 9:45am, at UNDP headquarters
UNDP, World Conservation Society, Preventing Pandemics at the Source, FOUR PAWS, and the Planetary Health Alliance. Ahead of the UN high-level meeting on pandemic prevention, on addressing the conditions that let diseases like Ebola jump from animals to people in the first place.
Register

Interoperable Practice, Policy and Investment: Building an international and independent evaluation ecosystem
6pm to 8:30pm, at Copinette
Hosted by Humane Intelligence, UNICEF, and the UN Human Rights Office, launching an effort to build a sustainable global ecosystem for evaluating AI in the public interest, including a child rights-specific evaluation agenda.
Register

Thursday, September 24

Open Development Data for Trust, Accountability and Effective Global Governance
1:15pm to 2:30pm, at UNDP headquarters
The CAF-IATI Transparency Forum, on how open development data can strengthen accountability and governance, following the Sevilla Commitment from FfD4. Places are limited.
Register