iplomatic Courier’s staff are “gone sledding” for the rest of 2025 to recharge and reconnect with friends and family. It’s been a year of great disruption for all of us involved in global affairs. But disruption is opportunity, and we are poised for what looks to be our most momentous year so far as Diplomatic Courier celebrates its 20th year of existence! We are deeply grateful to you for taking this journey with us for all these years.
For those of you who observe the upcoming holiday season, we wish you the happiest of holidays. And for all of you, we wish you a new year full of possibility and joy.
Until we return to regular publishing, here are some reads that you may have missed from the past several months. Organized by our World in 2050 megatrends, each of these essays illustrates an emerging signal we observed over the year about what is to come in 2026 and beyond. We hope you enjoy!
Institutions Under Pressure
Signal: Institutions need to do more than reform to meet our current set of crises. To remain relevant into the future, they must evolve to be forward–looking and anticipatory with an eye toward building resilience rather than reacting.
Rewiring resilience for an unstable age
Security and resilience are no longer about weathering a storm, they are about building anticipatory, adaptive, and inclusive resilience mechanisms. Rewiring resilience requires a new approach to and conception of diplomacy, writes Rui Duarte.
Why AI governance needs intergenerational justice
Exponential technologies promise to reshape our economies, but AI remains fundamentally extractive. Ensuring AI works for more than just a privileged few requires an approach to AI diplomacy which focuses on intergenerational justice, writes Namrata Bhandari.
Coordinating innovation for smarter humanitarian action
Global crises are growing in scale and complexity. Yet systems–level innovation is helping the humanitarian to evolve, anticipating and responding faster, smarter, and more efficiently, writes World Food Programme’s Bernhard Kowatsch.
Multilateral development banks at a crossroads
Multilateral development banks were the global economy’s workhorses for decades, but their golden era has passed. To remain relevant, they must not simply reform but reinvent themselves to meet today’s challenges, writes Daniel Wagner.
Our Digital Future
Signal: The most crucial emerging questions around our digital future focus on agency and ownership. As AI explodes and the digital world gets ever more complex, it will take concerted effort to ensure a healthy digital ecosystem.
Reimagining AI data ownership models for prosperity
Every time a user interacts with AI systems, it generates valuable training data that remains locked within corporate silos. Nikos Acuña explores policy levers for addressing this apparent market failure and democratic deficit.
Empowering workers through sovereign professional intelligence
Innovation is sending the global labor market into its most profound transition since the Industrial Revolution. To harness innovation for empowerment rather than extraction, we must redesign the infrastructure of work around human sovereignty, writes Tarja Stephens.
The case for more open–source AI
As emerging technologies continue to reshape our economies and societies, open–source AI is emerging as one way to mitigate many potential ills associated with the future of AI, writes Louisa Tomar.
Privacy and data in a borderless, interconnected digital world
Because the internet doesn't have any inherent data privacy guardrails, our personal data is increasingly controlled and monetized by digital infrastructure and service providers. This threatens our wellbeing in ways we would treat as an emergency in the analog world, writes Amit Sharma.
Individual, Societal Wellbeing
Signal: As technology gets better we are living longer, but that same technology introduces other wellbeing risks. How we envision wellbeing must now account for populations that are living longer and facing a new and evolving set of wellbeing challenges.
Designing an urban future for the “longevity society”
As we shift from an “aging society” to a “longevity society,” our focus is shifting from decline to the possibilities of extended, healthier life stages. Systems and service design to empower individuals throughout life can extend into our city and urban planning, writes Sheng–Hung Lee.
Use harm reduction to support Africa’s longevity future
In Africa, the “over–60” demographic is expected to triple by 2050. Traditional approaches to supporting aging populations aren’t as effective in Africa, where aging is shaped more by cultural and community factors than access to high–tech care, writes Imane Kendili.
The future of humanitarian aid is local
To make humanitarian aid more effective in this time of heightened crisis and shrinking budgets, the global humanitarian enterprise needs restructuring. Doing so requires we make good on long–standing commitments to put local actors at the center of aid, write Julienne Lusenge and Armine Afeyan.
The world’s invisible majority is internally displaced
Internally displaced persons account for around 60% of the world’s displaced population, but the world continues to concentrate on cross–border movement. Yet this is a global problem rather than a local one, and must be addressed as such, writes Diana Roy.
Rebalancing Education & Work
Signal: Not only is consensus coalescing around education as core to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, but there is a growing sense of what transformed education systems should look like to prepare young people for a complex, disrupted future.
Stop tinkering, start transforming
At the UN this year, there was consensus that education is the foundation beneath every global goal. That we are failing to transform education systems despite knowing what that transformation should look like is perhaps the greatest injustice of our time, says NCEE CEO Vicki Phillips.
To thrive in Intelligent Age, make education beyond utility
In the Intelligent Age, education can no longer be driven solely by economic and civic concerns. Instead, education must prepare learners to remain fully human in an increasingly post–human world, writes Leonor Diaz Alcantara.
Education for a future we can’t predict
In the face of world–redefining global shocks, education is our most strategic investment in the future. Successful investment requires we redefine the purpose of education and what we consider core knowledge, writes Elyas Felfoul.
Reimagining education for a complex global future
Our education systems are facing a reckoning of purpose. For education to remain our “passport to opportunity” we must ensure classrooms not only help students build knowledge and understanding, but also find purpose, agency, and community, writes Rod Smith.
Climate Change & Energy
Signal: With climate diplomacy disrupted and climate impacts becoming more discernible, our priorities on how to address climate change and the energy transition are shifting. Adaptation—both to a warming climate and to the need for more regionally responsive governance—is increasingly in focus.
The arithmetic of a warming world
As we consider climate and energy futures, we must accept that the world cannot decarbonize by force. With fossil fuels set to persist for decades, the real contest is between precision and waste—with verifiable, standardized measures—until renewables can scale, writes Duane Dickson.
Rebalancing adaptation, mitigation, and the new energy diplomacy
At climate gatherings in the past, mitigation has carried the moral weight of ambition while adaptation has been relegated to the margins. Progress we bring these strands together and treat adaptation not as an afterthought but as an equal pillar of the global response, writes Namrata Bhandari.
From global governance of nature to local governance by nature
Attempts at concerted global action are failing—for now—to effectively tackle climate change. The path forward requires flipping the script and taking lessons from nature’s own systems, writes Andrea Bonime–Blanc.
Climate diplomacy must adapt to a multi–polar world
The last climate summit in Brazil marked the start of three decades of consensus on climate action. With negotiators convening in Brazil once again, that consensus appears endangered as climate diplomacy vies to pivot to a multipolar world, writes Bhaskar Vira.
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Diplomatic Courier is “gone sledding!” Here’s your 2025 holiday reading list.
Image via Adobe Stock.
December 17, 2025
Diplomatic Courier's staff has "gone sledding!" We're taking some time away to recharge over the holiday season and prepare for a very busy 2026, but we're leaving you with this curated reading list which highlights emerging trends that will matter in 2026 and beyond. Happy holidays! –The Editors
D
iplomatic Courier’s staff are “gone sledding” for the rest of 2025 to recharge and reconnect with friends and family. It’s been a year of great disruption for all of us involved in global affairs. But disruption is opportunity, and we are poised for what looks to be our most momentous year so far as Diplomatic Courier celebrates its 20th year of existence! We are deeply grateful to you for taking this journey with us for all these years.
For those of you who observe the upcoming holiday season, we wish you the happiest of holidays. And for all of you, we wish you a new year full of possibility and joy.
Until we return to regular publishing, here are some reads that you may have missed from the past several months. Organized by our World in 2050 megatrends, each of these essays illustrates an emerging signal we observed over the year about what is to come in 2026 and beyond. We hope you enjoy!
Institutions Under Pressure
Signal: Institutions need to do more than reform to meet our current set of crises. To remain relevant into the future, they must evolve to be forward–looking and anticipatory with an eye toward building resilience rather than reacting.
Rewiring resilience for an unstable age
Security and resilience are no longer about weathering a storm, they are about building anticipatory, adaptive, and inclusive resilience mechanisms. Rewiring resilience requires a new approach to and conception of diplomacy, writes Rui Duarte.
Why AI governance needs intergenerational justice
Exponential technologies promise to reshape our economies, but AI remains fundamentally extractive. Ensuring AI works for more than just a privileged few requires an approach to AI diplomacy which focuses on intergenerational justice, writes Namrata Bhandari.
Coordinating innovation for smarter humanitarian action
Global crises are growing in scale and complexity. Yet systems–level innovation is helping the humanitarian to evolve, anticipating and responding faster, smarter, and more efficiently, writes World Food Programme’s Bernhard Kowatsch.
Multilateral development banks at a crossroads
Multilateral development banks were the global economy’s workhorses for decades, but their golden era has passed. To remain relevant, they must not simply reform but reinvent themselves to meet today’s challenges, writes Daniel Wagner.
Our Digital Future
Signal: The most crucial emerging questions around our digital future focus on agency and ownership. As AI explodes and the digital world gets ever more complex, it will take concerted effort to ensure a healthy digital ecosystem.
Reimagining AI data ownership models for prosperity
Every time a user interacts with AI systems, it generates valuable training data that remains locked within corporate silos. Nikos Acuña explores policy levers for addressing this apparent market failure and democratic deficit.
Empowering workers through sovereign professional intelligence
Innovation is sending the global labor market into its most profound transition since the Industrial Revolution. To harness innovation for empowerment rather than extraction, we must redesign the infrastructure of work around human sovereignty, writes Tarja Stephens.
The case for more open–source AI
As emerging technologies continue to reshape our economies and societies, open–source AI is emerging as one way to mitigate many potential ills associated with the future of AI, writes Louisa Tomar.
Privacy and data in a borderless, interconnected digital world
Because the internet doesn't have any inherent data privacy guardrails, our personal data is increasingly controlled and monetized by digital infrastructure and service providers. This threatens our wellbeing in ways we would treat as an emergency in the analog world, writes Amit Sharma.
Individual, Societal Wellbeing
Signal: As technology gets better we are living longer, but that same technology introduces other wellbeing risks. How we envision wellbeing must now account for populations that are living longer and facing a new and evolving set of wellbeing challenges.
Designing an urban future for the “longevity society”
As we shift from an “aging society” to a “longevity society,” our focus is shifting from decline to the possibilities of extended, healthier life stages. Systems and service design to empower individuals throughout life can extend into our city and urban planning, writes Sheng–Hung Lee.
Use harm reduction to support Africa’s longevity future
In Africa, the “over–60” demographic is expected to triple by 2050. Traditional approaches to supporting aging populations aren’t as effective in Africa, where aging is shaped more by cultural and community factors than access to high–tech care, writes Imane Kendili.
The future of humanitarian aid is local
To make humanitarian aid more effective in this time of heightened crisis and shrinking budgets, the global humanitarian enterprise needs restructuring. Doing so requires we make good on long–standing commitments to put local actors at the center of aid, write Julienne Lusenge and Armine Afeyan.
The world’s invisible majority is internally displaced
Internally displaced persons account for around 60% of the world’s displaced population, but the world continues to concentrate on cross–border movement. Yet this is a global problem rather than a local one, and must be addressed as such, writes Diana Roy.
Rebalancing Education & Work
Signal: Not only is consensus coalescing around education as core to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, but there is a growing sense of what transformed education systems should look like to prepare young people for a complex, disrupted future.
Stop tinkering, start transforming
At the UN this year, there was consensus that education is the foundation beneath every global goal. That we are failing to transform education systems despite knowing what that transformation should look like is perhaps the greatest injustice of our time, says NCEE CEO Vicki Phillips.
To thrive in Intelligent Age, make education beyond utility
In the Intelligent Age, education can no longer be driven solely by economic and civic concerns. Instead, education must prepare learners to remain fully human in an increasingly post–human world, writes Leonor Diaz Alcantara.
Education for a future we can’t predict
In the face of world–redefining global shocks, education is our most strategic investment in the future. Successful investment requires we redefine the purpose of education and what we consider core knowledge, writes Elyas Felfoul.
Reimagining education for a complex global future
Our education systems are facing a reckoning of purpose. For education to remain our “passport to opportunity” we must ensure classrooms not only help students build knowledge and understanding, but also find purpose, agency, and community, writes Rod Smith.
Climate Change & Energy
Signal: With climate diplomacy disrupted and climate impacts becoming more discernible, our priorities on how to address climate change and the energy transition are shifting. Adaptation—both to a warming climate and to the need for more regionally responsive governance—is increasingly in focus.
The arithmetic of a warming world
As we consider climate and energy futures, we must accept that the world cannot decarbonize by force. With fossil fuels set to persist for decades, the real contest is between precision and waste—with verifiable, standardized measures—until renewables can scale, writes Duane Dickson.
Rebalancing adaptation, mitigation, and the new energy diplomacy
At climate gatherings in the past, mitigation has carried the moral weight of ambition while adaptation has been relegated to the margins. Progress we bring these strands together and treat adaptation not as an afterthought but as an equal pillar of the global response, writes Namrata Bhandari.
From global governance of nature to local governance by nature
Attempts at concerted global action are failing—for now—to effectively tackle climate change. The path forward requires flipping the script and taking lessons from nature’s own systems, writes Andrea Bonime–Blanc.
Climate diplomacy must adapt to a multi–polar world
The last climate summit in Brazil marked the start of three decades of consensus on climate action. With negotiators convening in Brazil once again, that consensus appears endangered as climate diplomacy vies to pivot to a multipolar world, writes Bhaskar Vira.
