Theme Special

Sustainable Urban Development

Urban October focuses on sustainable and liveable cities. Our special collection, “Sustainable Urban Development,” brings together IDOS analyses, research findings, and policy recommendations on urbanisation, climate adaptation, mobility, housing, and social inclusion. Explore current perspectives on shaping the cities of tomorrow.

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Dekorationselement
At IDOS, we aspire to co-shape a collaborative multipolar world for sustainable futures. We do so by conducting high-quality research, offering independent policy advice, and learning across borders and regions while seeking to align development and sustainability.
AI and Development Cooperation
Theme special

AI and Development Cooperation

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems can now decide and act autonomously. Research at IDOS focuses on their development in three key areas.

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Theme Image Sustainable Urban Development
Publication

Flagship Report Disruption & Reform

New IDOS publication identifies pathways to rebuild international cooperation in times of disruption and to advance sustainable futures.

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Opinion pieces and media contributions

The Current Column

What can development partners do to help national development banks?

Sommer, Christoph / Priscilla Toto / Yabibal M. Walle

Successful partnerships should be measured by both the banks’ financial and institutional capacity to invest in sustainable development at scale.

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The World

The global pullback from foreign aid

Orla Barry

Global foreign aid is shrinking at a historic rate, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). German political scientiest Stephan Klingebiel says it may not just be concerns about defence or public spending that is driving these cutbacks: "I think this kind of rise of pupulism in European countries is the main driver".

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Events

Current publications

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Three stops, three regimes: Reflections on a summer in global environmental governance

Wagner, Niklas
Externe Publikationen (2026)

published on blogs.idos-research.de, 22.09.2026

Volltext/Full text

This summer took me across three very different spaces of global environmental governance. I started in Nairobi, attending the meetings of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) for the first time after almost eight years of following the UN climate negotiations. From there, I travelled to Ulaanbaatar for the seventeenth Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), before continuing to Beijing and Shanghai for conversations with researchers and practitioners about China’s role in global environmental governance. Moving between these settings offered an unusual opportunity to compare not only three Rio Conventions, but also three very different political and institutional contexts.

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