The Global SDG Synthesis Coalition took part in the UN General Assembly’s SDG Goals Lounge side event, “Accelerating Progress: Achieving the SDGs with AI and Evidence,” held on 21 September 2025. The session provided a timely platform to spotlight how AI-enabled evidence synthesis—championed through the Evidence Synthesis Infrastructure Collaborative (ESIC)—is transforming the way we learn from evidence by making synthesis more timely, relevant, and affordable. We were especially encouraged by the diversity of stakeholders who came together with a shared focus on closing evidence gaps, strengthening advocacy for evidence-informed action, and translating evaluative insights into impact on the ground.
The Coalition’s workplan is closely aligned with the objectives of ESIC’s proposed foundational investments, announced at the side event. These investments include:
- Sectoral hubs, which will bring together expertise across key domains to generate timely, policy-relevant syntheses. Coalition pillar management groups anticipate engaging with these hubs in demand prioritization and uptake discussions, while our evaluation staff may also contribute as subject matter and synthesis experts in their own right, helping ensure that evaluative evidence is fully represented;
- Regional hubs, which will connect global evidence resources to country and regional needs, helping ensure that insights are relevant and actionable in local contexts. The Coalition expects to play a facilitative role in encouraging collaboration between these hubs and regional and national UN structures;
- An open data system, to make synthesis data easier to share, reuse, and build upon. While the ESIC investment emphasizes re-use of synthesis-ready data, the Coalition will also encourage efforts to make all evaluation reports openly available, so that they can feed into synthesis work from the outset and expand the evidence base for future analyses;
- A living inventory of AI-enabled tools, to help decision-makers and practitioners choose and apply the best digital tools responsibly. From the Coalition’s perspective, it will be important to ensure that such tools work effectively for evaluative evidence as well as research evidence, and that they are developed in equitable, inclusive, and context-adaptable ways to ensure that no one is left behind; and
- An agile monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) infrastructure, to ensure accountability, strengthen equity, and promote continuous learning and improvement across the system. The Coalition anticipates contributing insights and lessons learned from its own work to this shared MEL effort.
By aggregating and harmonizing evaluative evidence across the UN system, the Coalition seeks to strengthen a more open, connected evidence ecosystem that supports sharing, reuse, and collective learning. In the coming months, we expect to deepen engagement with UN country teams and regional hubs, with a view to helping ensure that evaluative insights are better positioned to inform action at the country level, and further exploration of what cooperation may be possible across the broader multilateral system, beyond UN agencies.
As ESIC’s transitional arrangements advance and funding decisions are finalized, the Coalition looks forward to continuing its engagement in shaping collective governance and coordination. The UNGA side event was a valuable reminder of what becomes possible when AI, evidence, and partnership converge to accelerate progress towards the SDGs.
For those who missed the live session, the recording is available on UN WebTV.