Bangkok, 24-27 February 2026: GIZ jointly participated in the 13th Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development, hosted by ESCAP. This event brought together governments, development partners, civil society and innovators at the UN Conference Centre – united under one call to action: ‘Transformative, equitable, innovative and coordinated actions for the 2030 Agenda’.
Implementing projects across Thailand and Malaysia, GIZ is coordinating with 31 government ministries and local authorities, 18 UN and development partners, 16 private sector actors, and 21 academic and knowledge institutions. GIZ does not work in parallel, but connects stakeholders towards shared goals.
At the SDG in Action Exhibition, we presented ongoing projects on five interconnected topics: Sustainable Cities, Energy Transition, Transport & Infrastructure, Circular Economy, and Regional Cooperation & Innovation. The exhibition attracted more than 200 participants from across different sectors that united for this forum.
Beyond the SDG in Action Exhibition, projects implemented by GIZ Thailand and Malaysia also participated in various panel discussions at the 13th APFSD as follows:
- The MA-RE-DESIGN project, through its implementation consortium partner UNEP COBSEA, organised the forum: From Plastic Waste to Circular Solutions in Southeast Asia on 27 February bringing together networks relevant to plastic management systems under the circular economy – from policy agencies and academic institutions to private sector actors involved in recycling.
- As part of a collaboration between UN Women and the Thai-German Energy Dialogue (TGED), Insa Illgen, TGC EMC Programme Director, joined the panel for ‘Powering Peoples, Protecting Rights: Human Rights and Gender-Responsive Data for a Just Energy Transition’, highlighting the human rights dimensions in the global efforts towards energy transition. During the discussion, she argued that without gender-disaggregated data and deeper analysis of energy demand patterns, the transition risks repeating past mistakes, as seen in previous transport planning that overlooked women’s safety and mobility realities. Rather than focusing narrowly on workforce representation in the supply side alone, the energy transition must be strengthened by data-driven approaches on the demand side to ensure future infrastructure is equitable, inclusive and responsive to long-term societal needs.
- At a high-level side event entitled ‘Enabling Environment for Climate-Resilient Cities in Asia-Pacific’, held under the framework of the Urban-Act project, partners led by GIZ in collaboration with NIUA India, UCLG ASPAC and ESCAP addressed the urgent need for climate-resilient urban governance. Drawing on critical lessons from India and Indonesia, the session emphasised how multi-level policy coordination and institutional transparency could serve as the ‘secret sauce’ to achieve SDG 11 in rapidly growing cities. By showcasing best practices such as Voluntary Local Reviews (VLRs), the event bridged the gap between national strategy and local action, fostering partnerships to ensure that urban transitions are both green and equitable for the region’s most vulnerable populations.
- Last but not least, GIZ, through the Urban-Act project, contributed to the SDG 11 Round Table during the 13th APFSD. Key highlights from the session included:
- Multilevel Governance: Experts, including Dr Debolina Kundu from NIUA India, emphasised strengthening inclusive governance and urban planning to protect vulnerable populations.
- Financing & Innovation: Through the Urban-Act project, GIZ representatives joined the University of Melbourne in leading discussions on scaling up urban finance and strengthening local capacities to access funding mechanisms.
- Digital Transformation: Participants explored building people-centred data ecosystems to better manage the environmental impacts of rapid urbanisation.
- Regional Cooperation: Organisations such as UCLG ASPAC and UN-Habitat advocated for deeper global partnerships to accelerate the rollout of effective, scalable urban solutions.
The outcomes of these discussions were reported to the APFSD Plenary on 26 February 2026, directly informing regional policy recommendations for the 2030 Agenda.
What makes this work real is not any single programme; it is the quality of the partnerships behind them – governments that trust, private sectors that invest, academia that translates, and communities that act.
- Last but not least, GIZ, through the Urban-Act project, contributed to the SDG 11 Round Table during the 13th APFSD. Key highlights from the session included:
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