NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Climate Week NYC returns: September 20–27, 2026
Every year, we bring together heads of state, global business leaders, philanthropic leaders, and civil society to accelerate climate action at scale.

2025 marked our biggest year yet: More than 100,000 participants, 5,500 leaders from business and government and civil society on-site, and 1,000+ events tackling the toughest questions in energy, industry, finance, food, transport, and nature.

Relive the highlights:

Explore the 2025 report
Catch up on 2025’s biggest moments
Watch exclusive interviews with changemakers
Together, we’ll build the next chapter of global climate leadership.

Africa has staked its position as the cornerstone of the world’s future. The continent is now positioned to be the most important driver of global business with a $3 trillion market opportunity.

The Global Africa Business Initiative puts the private sector at the center of the discussions and the solutions. GABI is a platform that places Africa in its rightful place in the global economy and positions the continent as the premier destination for business, trade and investment.

Themed ‘Unstoppable Africa 2026: Powering Business, Scaling Economies, Shaping the Future’, this year’s edition of GABI is deal-focused and execution-driven. Heads of state, CEOs, investors, and innovators convene not to discuss Africa’s potential, but to close transactions, launch investment vehicles, and build the infrastructure that keeps value on the continent.

Submit for Consideration to Attend Unstoppable Africa 2026: https://events.unglobalcompact.org/unstoppableafrica26/rta

About The Event
The Climate Implementation Forum is a strategic platform at Climate Week NYC focusing on the Global Climate Action Agenda, the central catalyst turning climate ambition into real-world delivery. Taking place on Monday 21 September, the Forum will unite decision-makers from governments, companies, investors, cities and civil society to showcase proof of progress, successful projects underway, capital deployed and measurable results. While identifying where expertise, technology, investment and operational capacity are urgently needed to scale implementation.

Held just seven weeks before COP31, the COP of Implementation and aligned with the six axes of the Action Agenda, the Forum will amplify the global focus on delivery and spotlight the organisations achieving real results.

Overview
Join Spring Impact and Lively Minds at UNGA81 for a session exploring how funders can best support government-led scale.

Working with governments is one of the most credible routes to exponential impact, but it only works when funders play an active role in making it possible.

What funding strategies and models enable government-led scale, and which ones hold it back?

Spring Impact and Lively Minds will bring together a panel of funders and NGO practitioners to explore the role funders play in supporting nonprofits to scale with government, and what needs to change in how capital is deployed.

Drawing on Spring Impact’s recent Scaling with Government study (developed in partnership with LGT Venture Philanthropy and Instiglio), which includes perspectives from governments themselves, alongside the panel’s experience, we’ll cover:

What this work demands in practice, from those pioneering new approaches to scaling with government
The real costs of NGO support to governments, and where current funding models fall short
What more adaptive funding could look like, including harmonising support across NGOs, so it’s conducive to long-term government-led scale
Co-hosts

Lively Minds
Spring Impact
Moderator

Tyler Spencer, Director of Partnerships and Growth, Spring Impact
Panellists

Alex Storey, Spring Impact
Alia Karim, Teaching at the Right Level Africa
Alison Naftalin, Founder & CEO, Lively Minds
Mohini Bhavsar, Grand Challenges Canada
Dr Natnael Yamnew, Africa Centre for ECD, Ethiopia
Tressa Johnson, Elma Philanthropies

Time: 3 PM – 4:30 PM

​About the session

​Every year, the same conversation happens.

​There is not enough capital flowing to climate and development solutions. The pipeline of investment-ready companies is too thin. Founders in emerging markets cannot access the support they need to reach scale.

​The conversation rarely asks the next question:

​Who is responsible for building the pipeline everyone says is missing?

​Venture studios, company builders, accelerators, and startup ecosystems are among the least discussed but potentially most consequential pieces of climate and development infrastructure.

​Across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, these organizations are doing more than finding promising companies. Some are identifying problems, testing business models, developing talent, matching founders with ideas, and creating companies from scratch.

​That distinction matters.

​An accelerator typically starts with an existing company and helps it grow. A venture studio can begin much earlier: with a problem worth solving, a hypothesis to test, or a market that does not yet have the company it needs. It can build the initial team, validate the model, provide shared infrastructure, and eventually spin the venture out as an independent company.

​In ecosystems where capital, experienced founders, specialist talent, and business infrastructure are harder to access, creating a company can require building some of the conditions around it too.

​But who funds that work?

​Company building requires patient capital, tolerance for failure and iteration, and funders willing to finance the infrastructure around entrepreneurship rather than simply selecting individual ventures once they become investable.

​Accelerators and incubators face their own questions. What distinguishes programs that create durable companies from those that create impressive Demo Day pitches? How should climate-focused accelerators navigate the tension between moving quickly and building deeply? What support do founders actually need after a cohort ends?

​And underneath all of this sits another question: what are we building the pipeline for?

​As philanthropic and investment capital flows into venture-building ecosystems, success cannot simply mean producing more companies that investors want to fund. The companies being created also need to solve meaningful problems for the communities and markets they were supposedly built to serve.

​This session will move the conversation beyond the financing gap to the infrastructure that comes before it.

​Who creates entrepreneurs? Who builds companies before they are investable? And what would happen if climate and development funders took company creation as seriously as company funding?

​Discussion Group Leaders

• ​Linus Mueller is Director at Enviu Foundation, building sustainable ventures and entrepreneurial ecosystems that address systemic challenges across agrifood, finance, textiles, and waste.

• ​Rebecca McAtee is Director of Development at Halcyon, mobilizing philanthropic capital to support entrepreneurs developing innovative solutions across climate, health, and equity.

• ​Yaquta Fatehi is Program Manager at William Davidson Institute at U of Michigan, advancing evidence-based approaches that help businesses and enterprise support organizations measure and scale inclusive impact.

• ​CJ Fonzi is Co-Founder and COO at Africa Climate Ventures, accelerating climate-positive businesses across Africa through investment, venture building, and portfolio support.

​What to expect

​A practitioner-led conversation grounded in experience building ventures, running accelerators and incubators, and investing in early-stage companies across emerging markets.

​Participants will compare what venture studios, accelerators, incubators, investors, and other ecosystem builders actually contribute at different stages of a company’s development, including where each model works and where it does not.

​The discussion will also interrogate what capital these organizations themselves need, how long company creation really takes, and whether current funding structures reward the patient ecosystem-building required to produce stronger ventures.

​This is not a pitch for one model. It is an opportunity to get more precise about the infrastructure required before there is an investment-ready company to finance.

​Who this is for

​This session is for venture studio founders and operators, accelerator and incubator leaders, entrepreneurs, impact investors, climate and development funders, ecosystem builders, and anyone trying to strengthen the pipeline of companies in emerging markets.

​

What you will get out of it

• ​A clearer framework for understanding the different roles of venture studios, accelerators, incubators, and investors

• ​Ground-level insight into what it takes to create companies in emerging-market ecosystems

• ​Perspectives on the patient, fit-for-purpose capital required to fund company-building infrastructure

• ​Practical insight into what early-stage entrepreneurs actually need before conventional investors are ready to back them

• ​A sharper way to evaluate whether an entrepreneurial ecosystem is simply producing more ventures or building companies capable of creating meaningful value for the communities they serve

Description
Across Asia and the Pacific, countries are making significant investments in social infrastructure, enhancing service delivery, and improving quality of life for all citizens across all age groups and social needs. As climate change, urbanization, and fiscal constraints intensify, the need for multi-functional, resilient, sustainable and inclusive social infrastructure continues to grow. By social infrastructure we refer to public spaces used for education, skills development in formal and non-formal setting, health services including hospitals and community centers, care centers for short and long term care, social protection and inclusion spaces, sport facilities, cultural spaces as well as spatial design for community engagement and services in times of emergency.

In the context of the ADB Business Opportunities Fair, the session will spotlight investments in social infrastructure in Asia and the Pacific, creating an opportunity for exchange and dialogue between ADB and contractors specialized in social infrastructure projects, sustainable material and technology.

Among topics that will be explored:

Climate-Resilient and Disaster-Ready Infrastructure: Designs for extreme climate conditions, multiple-use facilities for emergencies, adaptive and resilient construction approaches, reviving traditional construction practices
Multi-Functional and Community Infrastructure: Multi-functional public facilities integrated into existing community or private spaces with flexible and inclusive design for all community members
Smart and Digital Solutions: Smart building systems, digital tools in construction or operation or energy efficiency, parametric design for passive cooling or heating like bio-mimicry
Innovative Materials and Methods: Prefabrication and modular construction, alternative materials, cost-efficient and scalable solutions appropriate for different climatology and topography
Sustainable and Low-Carbon Construction: Use of green or recycled materials, energy-efficient design, lifecycle cost optimization
Objectives
The session provides a platform for direct engagement between ADB and contractors, focusing on innovation, implementation, and financing opportunities in future-ready social infrastructure. Participants will gain insights into ADB’s project pipeline, showcase innovative solutions, engage with ADB project teams and governments, and position themselves as leaders in sustainable infrastructure.

After an introduction to the topic, a panel discussion will outline key issues and innovations, followed by a PechaKucha session to open the interaction between contractors, ADB officers and country stakeholders for an interactive and engaging exchange.

Target participants
ADB invites contractors, developers, and industry leaders to participate in a high-level session focused on innovations in social infrastructure across Asia and the Pacific. Companies will be responsible to organize travel and stay at their own cost.

Resource speakers
Panel Discussion:

Up to two companies or contractors to be selected from the EoI
Country stakeholder from Asia Pacific
ADB officer
PechaKucha: Up to 10 companies will be selected to pitch their ideas and interact with each other and ADB officers

How to register
Fill out the form accessible at the button on this page. Deadline for the companies wanting to participate in the panel or PechaKucha is on 15 July 2026.

Submitted EOIs will be reviewed based on the following criteria:

Relevance to social infrastructure sectors (education, health, social services, cultural and non-formal learning and social spaces)
Innovation of the approach
Demonstrated impact and scalability

Time: 12:45 – 1:45 PM (GMT+8)

​Join Rest of World and Chemonics for a live event during UNGA Week to explore how AI is transforming the global economy and the ways we can balance rapid innovation with equitable growth and opportunity.

​AI is quickly reshaping the global balance of power, with the U.S. and China dominating the computing power, talent, investment, and infrastructure that underpin the technology. Yet only a handful of other countries are positioned to capture significant economic gains.

​This event brings industry leaders, policymakers, and innovators from across sectors to explore how AI is changing the relationship between labor and capital, what fair compensation looks like in an AI economy, and which policies and business models are needed to ensure workers and communities share in the wealth AI creates rather than paying the price for its disruption.