BLG at the 81st U.N. General Assembly
In September 2026, Anil Wasif, Aditi Zahir, Mathira Kawser and Nusaiba Masnurah spent high-level week of the 81st UN General Assembly and Climate Week NYC representing BacharLorai Global in New York. What follows is a record of where we were, what we heard, and what we took forward.
What we moved forward
Fourteen new relationships. Fourteen people we met during the week expressed interest in working with BacharLorai through our programs: as speakers for the Global Impact Fellowship and our Impact Socials, as nominators for Impact 25, as voices for ImpactInk, as partners in our humanitarian work, and as panelists at our event during the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
A seat at a high-level meeting. The full delegation attended the General Assembly's High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response, our first high-level meeting as an organization associated with the UN Department of Global Communications.
Recognition for our research. At the Journalists and Writers Foundation's SDGs Conference, BacharLorai was recognized for advancing gender equity through policy research.
BLG with the United Nations
Two convenings alongside the UN and one inside it, on AI capacity, women's leadership and pandemic preparedness. We took forward our first seat at a high-level meeting as an organization associated with the Department of Global Communications, and three positions stated consistently all week: Security Council reform, a woman as the next Secretary-General, and more accessible accreditation for civil society from the Global South.
UN High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention
On the last day of high-level week the full delegation sat in the General Assembly's High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response, our first high-level meeting as an organization associated with the UN Department of Global Communications. Chaired by the President of the General Assembly, Khalilur Rahman of Bangladesh, the meeting adopted a political declaration by consensus, reviewing progress under the WHO Pandemic Agreement and the amended International Health Regulations. BacharLorai was seated among the civil society organizations accredited to the meeting.
UN Digital Cooperation Day 2026
Convened by the UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies under the theme “Shaping a Global AI Future Through Science, Policy, and Capacity.” Anil and Nusaiba attended the morning sessions: an opening with Estonia's President Alar Karis and Yoshua Bengio, the launch of the UN's Blueprint for National AI Strategies with Lesotho as the first country to apply it, and a session with the Slovak Republic and the OECD on skills and workforce readiness as the core of AI capacity.
UN Women's Leadership Network
Aditi closed her week at a UN Women session on women's leadership. The closing keynote offered a definition of mentorship the delegation has adopted: not recounting one's own experience, but making room for others at the table.
Remaking the UN
Anil attended an invitation-only gathering hosted by Project Syndicate and the Ford Foundation, with Susana Malcorra, Comfort Ero, Anne-Marie Slaughter and Jayati Ghosh on what a reimagined UN would look like.
BLG with Journalists & Writers Foundation
Our partner for four consecutive General Assemblies, and the rooms where most of the week's follow-up began. JWF recognized BacharLorai for its policy research on gender equity, and nine of our fourteen engagement agreements were signed across its reception, roundtable and conference.
UNGA81 High-Level Reception
JWF opened its programme with its annual reception on the Penthouse45 rooftop: more than 150 delegates and global partners from over 30 countries, including ministers, UN diplomats, journalists, academics and youth advocates. Anil and Nusaiba represented BLG.
SDGs Roundtable Discussion
Mathira and Nusaiba joined the second round, “Global Youth Voices on AI, Democracy, and Human-Rights Based Digitalization,” where young leaders from five countries spoke on AI for social good, youth in governance, AI's effect on elections, and digital tools for peacebuilding. JWF closed the day with a cruise past the Statue of Liberty for its global partners.
SDGs Conference: High-Level Panel
The whole delegation attended the opening of the 11th SDGs Conference and its first panel, “Renewing Multilateral Systems for a New Global Framework,” on UN 2.0 reform, transparency in selecting the next Secretary-General, and the shrinking of civic space. BacharLorai was recognized at the conference for advancing gender equity through policy research in 2025-2026.
BLG with Foreign Policy
Four convenings on gender, technology and health, with the sharpest view of where development and technology money is moving. No agreements were signed in these rooms; we took forward a format for our CSW71 panel and a second year of relationship with Foreign Policy and FP Analytics.
Her Power @ UNGA81
Nusaiba attended Foreign Policy's gender forum, held as funding for women and girls shrinks. Thirteen short sessions ran from leadership and democracy with European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, through financing women's economic opportunity and economies that keep women safe, to menopause as a global priority and Bulgaria's foreign minister on women's leadership in an era of geopolitical change.
Tech & AI Forum @ UNGA81
Anil and Aditi attended both sessions: the social and economic impacts of AI, with Singapore's digital minister and Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, now co-chair of the UN's scientific panel on AI; and trust, security and the global tech order, with Finland's foreign minister, Rwanda's ICT minister and leaders from the GSMA, Microsoft and the McGovern Foundation.
Health Forum @ UNGA81
Nusaiba, Mathira and Aditi attended the forum held the day before the UN's pandemic meeting, with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Gavi CEO Sania Nishtar, WHO Foundation CEO Anil Soni and Nicholas Kristof, on financing health systems as donor money retreats.
#AlwaysInnovating Reception
The full delegation attended the reception opening Foreign Policy's Health Forum, with a fireside conversation with the World Bank's Vice President for People, Mamta Murthi, and remarks from IFPMA Director General David Reddy.
BLG with Private Sector
Seven convenings hosted by companies, foundations and media, on data centers, women in climate and the next three billion people online. Four engagement agreements were signed, for fellowship speakers, an ImpactInk interview, and conversations with two foundations about our programs.
Stories Beyond the Shift
Mathira, Aditi and Anil heard Points of Light's Jennifer Sirangelo and Crisis Text Line's Dena Trujillo on new evidence that the skills volunteers build in crisis work carry into their families and workplaces long after a shift ends. Mathira attended the session presented with Equimundo and Crisis Text Line, where digital creators spoke about using their platforms to redefine masculinity through empathy and openness about mental health.
Partnerships for the Future
Anil attended Denmark's summit on cooling and scaling data centers, hosted by Grundfos, the Consulate General of Denmark in New York, Danish Industry and the Danish Chamber of Commerce, where Grundfos, Veolia and the iMasons Climate Accord argued that water, not electricity, is becoming the binding constraint on the AI build-out.
The Earth Has a Song, NYC Climate Week
Aditi, Mathira and Nusaiba began Tuesday at the Diane von Furstenberg studio in the Meatpacking District, where Daughters for Earth's Zainab Salbi and editors from national climate desks spoke about the women funding, leading and reporting climate work, and why they remain underfunded relative to the work they carry.
Confronting the Data Center Energy Crisis, The Nest Campus
At The Nest Campus, Climate Week's gathering of corporate leaders, investors and policymakers at the Javits Center, Aditi and Anil attended a Main Stage conversation with NVIDIA's head of sustainability, Phaidra's CEO and the hosts of the Energy Empire Podcast on what it will take to power AI's data centers without breaking the grid or the climate targets behind it.
Women Woven Into Climate Action
Anil, Adit and Mathira attended an invitation-only evening at Another Tomorrow's SoHo flagship, hosted with the Valerian Fund, the Godley Family Foundation and Metli, with Seed Global Health's Vanessa Kerry and Grand Challenges Canada on how climate reaches women through the clothes they make, the communities they live in and the health systems they rely on.
Semafor's The Next 3 Billion
Anil spent Tuesday at Semafor's summit on the three billion people still offline, where Kenya's President William Ruto, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman and IRC's David Miliband spoke in sequence on whether the innovations reshaping global power will expand opportunity or concentrate it.
BLG with Government
A conversation with Spain's foreign minister on migration and multilateralism and a community evening in Jackson Heights with the head of Bangladesh's investment promotion.
Spain’s Foreign Minister at Altantic Council UNGA81 Forum
Anil heard José Manuel Albares, Spain's Minister of Foreign Affairs, on European security and the transatlantic alliance, and on migration as an economic fact rather than a political problem: without migrants, he argued, most of the restaurants in Europe's cities would close.
BLG at Thikana Television
The delegation ended Thursday at Thikana Community Hub in Jackson Heights, where Ashik Chowdhury, who leads Bangladesh's investment promotion at State Minister rank, took questions from New York's Bangladeshi community on investing in Bangladesh and the diaspora's role in the country's development, urging a move from charitable projects toward partnerships among equals.
What we heard
Khalilur Rahman, President of the 81st General Assembly, opening the pandemic meeting: "We have the knowledge, we have the tools, we have the science and expertise, and we have the hard lessons of COVID-19. Let us use them for ourselves, our families and our loved ones."
Samuel Matekane, Prime Minister of Lesotho, at Digital Cooperation Day: "Infrastructure should follow demand, not precedent. Digital infrastructure must never become a monument to technological ambition. It must become a condition of capability."
Maria Ressa, Nobel laureate, at the Tech & AI Forum: "If you don't sit at the table to help regulate, control, keep your citizens safe, then you will not be able to govern."
Mark Suzman, CEO of the Gates Foundation, at The Next 3 Billion: "Where you're born should not define whether you live or die and what opportunities you have."
José Manuel Albares, Spain's foreign minister, at the Atlantic Council: "Without migrants, without all those people that have come, we wouldn't be able to run our economies."
Ashik Chowdhury, at Thikana in Jackson Heights, urging the diaspora to move from charitable projects to partnerships among equals.
What we took forward
Aid is retreating and the organizations asked to fill the gap are local, faith-based and diaspora-led. That is the category BacharLorai is in.
AI will be shaped by the countries that can plan and build, not only by those that sign agreements. Lesotho's costed strategy is a reference point for Bangladesh's draft.
The most useful rooms seated funders beside frontline organizations. Our CSW71 panel in March follows that format.
Preparedness has to stay a priority between emergencies, which is the case for sustained community health research in Bangladesh.
Partnerships compound. Four years with the Journalists and Writers Foundation produced most of the week's new relationships.
Global Advocacy at BLG
UNGA81 was BacharLorai Global's fourth consecutive UN General Assembly. Since 2023 our Global Advocacy program has taken the organization to four General Assemblies, three sessions of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, and the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings. Across those, we have spoken on or convened eleven panels reaching 677 participants, presented our policy research at the UN, and, in 2025, became an organization associated with the UN Department of Global Communications.
Each year the delegation has grown, from two people on the margins of UNGA78 to four this September with a seat at a high-level meeting. The purpose has stayed the same: to bring the questions of a Bangladeshi diaspora community into rooms where they are rarely asked, and to bring what we hear there back to our nine programs.
Our next engagement is Built by Immigrants, our panel at the Commission on the Status of Women in New York on March 12, 2027.
If you would like to be part of it, or to work with us, see how to work with us or write to info@bacharlorai.com.
