US$126 Million Investment Announced to Power AI-Enabled Evidence Synthesis for Accelerated SDG Achievement
The announcement was made following the release of the Evidence Synthesis Infrastructure Collaborative (ESIC) Roadmap and the Cape Town Consensus Charter, the result of a six-month, Global South-led planning process involving 200+ contributors. The collaboration between the UN system and ESIC reflects growing consensus on the need for faster, more coordinated learning mechanisms to support national and global SDG efforts.
Evidence synthesis, particularly when powered by AI, offers a breakthrough in how national governments, civil society, UN agencies and professional bodies can learn from others faster and more rigorously. It helps convert fragmented global and local knowledge into localized, actionable insights—critical for solving complex development challenges.
“One government department, one UN agency, or one implementing partner cannot do this alone,” said Tariq Khokhar, Head of Data for Science and Health at the Wellcome Trust. “We are putting in place new governance, coordination and funding arrangements that reflect the collective nature of this effort—and the need to center the Global South in both design and delivery.”
US$126 Million Funding Commitment and Five Foundational Investments
The Wellcome Trust, alongside fellow members of the ESIC Funders Interest Group (FIG)—UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Health Research Board (HRB), Jacobs Foundation and National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR)—announced a near doubling of financial commitments to the ESIC, bringing the total to US$126 million.
This funding will support five foundational investments that align with the ESIC roadmap’s priority solutions: sectoral hubs to enable timely and affordable evidence synthesis in key SDG areas; regional hubs to enhance impact at the country level; an open data system for sharing and reusing synthesis data; and an agile monitoring, evaluation and learning infrastructure to continuously track progress and drive improvements.
“National governments, citizen-led and citizen-serving NGOs, professional bodies, and multilateral agencies need to find better ways to learn from others if we are going to achieve the SDGs,” added Mr. Khokhar. “Evidence synthesis gives us rigour in learning from scientific studies and UN evaluations; AI gives us speed. AI-enabled living evidence synthesis can deliver localized, actionable insights with both rigour and speed.”
New Global Partnership to drive AI Innovation
Building on this, the United Nations Office for Partnerships (UN Partnerships) and ESIC also announced a new partnership to launch AI Commons—a global, open-source repository showcasing AI applications for sustainable development. Leveraging ESIC’s expertise in evidence hubs and open data systems, AI Commons will provide freely accessible case studies illustrating how AI is utilized by a wide range of development stakeholders. Each case study will profile any available data about the AI application’s performance and evidence about whether the application is addressing an approach that the evidence has found supports SDG achievement. The platform will also include collaboration tools designed for developers, researchers and policymakers, ensuring that the benefits of AI advancements reach everyone, everywhere, simultaneously.
“By investing in these foundational hubs and open systems like AI Commons,” said Annemarie Hou, Executive Director of UN Partnerships, “we are unlocking the power of AI and evidence synthesis to drive impactful, data-driven solutions for sustainable development—ensuring no-one is left behind.”
Unlocking AI’s Potential for a Sustainable Future
As AI and digital tools reshape global development, this next phase of ESIC aims to harness these innovations to save money, improve lives and enable faster, more coordinated learning across sectors and geographies. Evidence synthesis complements—not replaces—local data, Indigenous knowledge, behavioral science, and national evaluations.
About the UN Office for Partnerships
The UN Office for Partnerships serves as a gateway for collaboration between the United Nations and non-UN actors. It works to mobilize partnerships and resources in support of the Sustainable Development Goals and the UN system.
About the Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation that supports science to solve urgent health challenges. Wellcome supports discovery research and science-based solutions across global health, mental health and infectious diseases.
About Evidence Synthesis Infrastructure Collaborative
The Evidence Synthesis Collaborative is a community of communities committed to a collective impact approach to learning from others to improve lives. It provides an enabling infrastructure for AI-enabled living evidence synthesis so localized, actionable insights can be delivered with both rigour and speed.
Media Contacts:
Francyne Harrigan, UN Partnerships | E: harriganf@un.org | M: +1 917-209-6320
Solmy Lee, UN Office for Partnerships | E: solmy.lee@un.org | M: +1 646-660-0623
Tariq Khokhar, Wellcome Trust | E: t.khokhar@wellcome.org | M: +44 791-874-2107