A Model for Sustainable Development: the UN & IFs

Frederick S. Pardee Institute for International Futures. (2026). A Model for Sustainable Development: the UN & IFs. University of Denver.

In an era defined by intersecting crises—where climate volatility, geopolitical turmoil, and authoritarian backsliding trends intersect—the need for rigorous, long-term analysis has never been more acute. The Frederick S. Pardee Institute for International Futures, at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs, serves this role in partnership with the United Nations system in pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). By providing forecasting infrastructure we enable policymakers around the world to understand development trade-offs and set long term sustainable development strategies.

The Institute’s collaboration with the UN is both deep and broad, bringing academic methods to global governance decision-making and advocacy. The reports appended below highlight work for the UN Secretary General, various UNDP offices, UNICEF, UNEP, and more, including 10 substantive UN reports that demonstrate a constellation of impact on global thinking and action in pursuit of sustainable development.

By providing computational tools that multilateral organizations often lack internally, the Pardee Institute helps expand access to large open-source quantitative modeling tools. This partnership is exemplified by the integration of Pardee’s data into the UNDP Data Futures Platform, where our long-term projections are publicly accessible and interactive for researchers worldwide. Through this and other initiatives, the Institute’s International Futures (IFs) platform has become a foundational tool for strategic planning, helping the world’s largest development agencies analyze post-pandemic recovery, the climate-poverty nexus, and the invisible economy of unpaid care.