Every September, New York becomes the centre of global conversations on health, development, and equity. The 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly brought together world leaders, scientists, funders, and advocates, and we had the opportunity to join them. Across sessions on social and behaviour change, artificial intelligence, the future of the World Health Organization, and more, we were inspired by the people driving meaningful change. 

Here’s what we heard, what stayed with us, and how these learnings connect to the work we do every day.

Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) belongs in health systems all the time, not just in emergencies.

The Sidebar hosted a lively, intimate conversation about how Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) is essential to health outcomes. SBC plays a critical role in addressing the spread and treatment of infectious and chronic diseases by shifting attitudes and cultural norms and promoting best practices for health and community resilience. 

SBC gets a lot of attention in emergencies. When a pandemic or outbreak hits, it’s a core tool for acute prevention. What funders and ministries fail to understand is that SBC is essential to health outcomes and needs to be a constant for meaningful change, not just used for emergency response. 

There are frameworks to gather data and to cost out the return on investment of engaging with communities, community health workers, and ensuring ongoing cycles of communication. The difficulty lies in making this matter to the politicians in charge. Political leaders are not typically well-versed in how behaviour change science impacts the health system, and each politician has a different type of political currency. We need to translate the impact of this field into political capital to start integrating it into the system.

Public health institution representatives, government representatives, behaviour scientists, and funders came together at the Sidebar event to tackle the practical financing question behind SBC institutionalization. Treating SBC as a core health system function is integral to our pandemic preparedness and overall strengthening of health systems. 

The conversation reinforced something we already knew: knowledge alone doesn’t change behaviour. Trust, cultural respect, and consistency over time do. 

Our Under the Influence campaign is a key example of SBC in action. To get people to reconsider their alcohol habits and reduce their consumption, we first had to understand what motivates people to drink in the first place. By identifying all the invisible influences that motivate alcohol consumption, we were able to get people to stop, reflect, and consider making a positive change. 

AI is moving ahead, but we can’t leave anyone behind.

Artificial intelligence (AI) was at the forefront of discussions throughout this year’s General Assembly, with leaders across sectors bringing to light the benefits, challenges, and risks of the rapidly evolving technology. 

In his farewell address, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “AI is indeed a game changer with enormous promise to advance medicine, accelerate scientific discovery, expand opportunity, and improve lives”. We heard a concrete example of this in Dr. Chelsea Clinton’s keynote address at Unitaid’s “Shaping the Future of Global Health Innovation and Access” session. She described how Unitaid and the Clinton Health Access Initiative were able to reduce the cost of AI screening software, making tuberculosis screening accessible to communities without radiologists. 

At the same time, the advancement of AI has the potential to further widen the technology gap for some countries and create larger gaps of inequity. This was the focus of Semafor’s “The Next 3 Billion” event, in which the discussion explored one question: will the innovations reshaping global power expand opportunity or concentrate it? 

Three billion people remain offline, completely disconnected from the digital world. Government and tech leaders are taking different approaches to closing this gap.

Dr. ‘Bosun Tijani, the Nigerian Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, is taking active steps to ensure Nigeria isn’t left behind. He acknowledged that only the countries with absorptive capacity will be able to use AI to deliver better health care, agriculture, and education. Over the next five years, he will be implementing 90,000 km of fibre optic cables to bring connectivity to every Nigerian state and territory. He emphasized that meaningful connectivity is essential for Nigerians to benefit from AI, and that digitization is essential to inclusion. 

Beyond infrastructure, affordability is also limiting access to the digital economy. In some countries where mobile coverage exists, people still can’t use it because they can’t afford a mobile phone. Vivek Badrinath, Director-General at GSMA, called on memory chip producers to make supply available for entry-level phones so more people can connect to the Internet. 

Any discussion of AI also has to acknowledge its risks. Secretary-General Guterres flagged the risks of AI to human life and said unequivocally: “Let us resolve that life-and-death decisions must never be surrendered to machines.” On September 21, 2026, 22 country leaders came together to sign a declaration stating that “AI must remain under human direction, oversight, and control.” The potential AI brings is real, but we must proceed with equity and safety in mind and be intentional about bringing people along as the technology develops. 

The data tells us what to do. It’s time to listen.

Throughout UNGA 81, speakers also emphasized the importance of data and evidence. 

At the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (PMNCH) Accountability Breakfast, we heard from Dr. Austin Demby, Minister of Health for Sierra Leone. Reinforcing his commitment to the health of mothers and children in Sierra Leone, he said, “It’s our obligation to not only ensure every child survives, but thrives.” 

That commitment is backed by action. Dr. Demby has implemented an initiative to collect better data on pregnancy, and make sure that data is informing interventions. The results? “Over the last 205 days of our 300-day intervention, we’ve been able to reduce maternal mortality by over 30% compared to last year.” It’s passionate and accountable individuals such as himself that are driving progress towards reducing maternal, newborn, and child mortality.  

Lars Hartenstein, Director of Healthy Longevity at McKinsey Health Institute, made a similar point about ensuring evidence informs action at Foreign Policy’s Global Health Forum. He spoke about the modifiable factors of health and ecosystems that positively influence the social determinants of health (SDOH). 

He explained that health systems don’t have a lot of touchpoints or interventions with individuals until later in life, even though healthy living habits need to start much earlier. The evidence in support of creating healthy conditions for all individuals is clear; the SDOH have a major influence on a person’s overall health outcomes and life expectancy.  

Lars stressed the importance of taking an evidence-based approach to health and explored how we can make the case for investing in systems that enable healthy decision-making and create healthy conditions. He called on governments worldwide to take action, stating plainly: “the cost of inaction is huge.”

The importance of data and evidence is something we know well in our own work. Every campaign we create is grounded in research and real insights, which shape how we help our clients reach the communities they serve. When we redesigned Foundry’s website, we built the experience around what we learned from 119 youth and caregivers, engaged through discovery sessions, focus groups, surveys, and polls. That research guided us at every step of the process. By understanding the needs and characteristics of Foundry’s community, we created a website that drove a 321.9% increase in traffic. 

Health has no borders.

One session that stood out to us in particular was World Health Organization (WHO) President Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s session “The Road Ahead for WHO.” 

The United States’ departure from WHO loomed over the conversation, and Tedros addressed it head-on. “It’s actually a lose-lose because it’s in the best interest of the US to stay in WHO,” Tedros said. It’s not just about the money, but about solidarity and cooperation. 

Health impacts all of us, and health has no borders. Tedros cited the example of the Hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship this past spring, and how the affected passengers were primarily American or British. WHO didn’t discriminate, despite the US terminating their membership and funding. The people at risk received the help and support they needed. 

 “The key for the WHO is to serve humanity,” Tedros said. “For us, the safety of the American people is central. And also the rest of the world.” 

This mindset is guiding WHO going forward: not discriminating or taking sides, just focusing on how to support and protect the global community. 

One way the WHO is doing that is by fostering trust. In a recent poll carried out by Rockefeller and Reuters, WHO scored highest in terms of trust out of all the international organizations. 

Tedros encouraged others to follow suit. In a world inundated with misinformation and competing political agendas, he called on political leaders to trust science and technical experts. He cited COVID-19 as an example of political leaders weaponizing a health crisis and dividing the global community. More recently, he has watched country leaders raise defence spending instead of investing in health security, a sign of countries viewing each other as threats. That approach is not conducive to global health. 

As for future pandemics, Tedros said, “It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.” So what will happen when the next pandemic hits and threatens all of us? He called on governments to keep prioritizing health security. Disease is an enemy common to all humanity, and our best protection is to come together, guided by trust and equity. 

When women thrive, everyone wins.

We loved Foreign Policy’s “Her Power” forum so much last year that we knew we had to attend again. With key speakers from government, international organizations, philanthropy, civil society, and the private sector, we dove deeper into the challenges shaping the next phase of the global gender agenda. We were amazed by the progressive work being done by the women leading the way. 

In the “Rights and Livelihoods” session, we were captivated by Laleh Ispahani’s talk. One statement from Laleh that stuck with us was that women are the shock absorbers of society, doing three times as much labour as men but being the first to lose bodily autonomy and economic rights in times of societal disruption. For example, the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 ended nearly 50 years of a federal constitutional right to abortion. Our key takeaway is that economic opportunity must be shared with women; we cannot progress if the shock absorbers of society are getting left behind. 

The “Menopause Matters” session featured a panel consisting of Hon. Lori Urso, Rt. Hon. Carolyn Harris MP, Prof. Gabriella Conti, and Christine Roth. The discussion focused on their work towards developing government policy to support women experiencing menopause in the workplace and getting private companies on board. When we support women’s health in the workplace, it benefits workers, employers, and the economy as a whole. 

As a women-owned business, we make space for the needs of women at every stage of life, whether that’s motherhood, parental leave, returning to work, or experiencing symptoms related to the female reproductive tract. 

Closing thoughts

Our time as UNGA 81 served as a reminder that lasting change starts with listening, whether that means grounding decisions in evidence, building trust, or making sure no one is left behind. We’re grateful to the people and partners who carry that commitment into their work every day.