Transport Multilateralism 

Shaping the UN Decade of Sustainable Transport

The first-ever United Nations Decade of Sustainable Transport 2026-2035 is a critical opportunity to foster inclusive, coordinated and transformative progress to strengthen transport systems and services that are socially inclusive, economically viable, environmentally responsible, and resilient. It should serve as a global call to action, encouraging and supporting governments, businesses, users, financiers, civil society, and academia worldwide to accelerate both individual and collaborative efforts in advancing sustainable transport. 

As momentum towards the launch of the Decade accelerated in 2025, SLOCAT continued playing an active role in mobilising engagement, aligning narratives, and building consensus across diverse actors. Throughout the year, we supported the United Nations in shaping the Decade’s Implementation Plan and encouraged multi-actor commitments to ensure delivery from the outset.

Building on our series of multi-actor convenings initiated in early 2024, we continued to create platforms for collective input into the United Nations-led process. In March, SLOCAT co-organised a Think Tank Session with the World Resources Institute (WRI), on the margins of the Transforming Transportation conference, bringing together experts to inform priorities for the Decade.

In April 2025, we co-organised a two-day Multi-Actor Workshop with the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), in collaboration with the FIA Foundation, Kühne Climate Center (KCC), and WRI. The workshop convened transport professional associations, governments, NGOs, think tanks, academia, development partners, and multilateral organisations from a wide range of regions and transport contexts to identify priority opportunities and implementation pathways for a decade of transformative impact.

These discussions directly informed our Paper Seizing the Decade: Reinforcing Sustainable Transport’s Central Role in Thriving Communities and Economies, published in May with the support of IDRC and KCC. The paper outlined priority areas and key levers for action during the United Nations Decade, offering transport actors a strategic reference for their engagement in the United Nations consultations.         

SLOCAT also contributed actively to the United Nations consultation process. In July and September, we submitted inputs to public consultations on the draft Implementation Plan by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). In October, we partnered with UNDESA to convene a stakeholder briefing on the final Implementation Plan, supporting awareness-raising and encouraging participation in UNDESA’s call for voluntary commitments. In November, we co-organised dedicated discussion sessions at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP30, with UNDESA and partners, and in December, we contributed to the official launch of the Decade at the United Nations offices in New York.

Looking ahead, SLOCAT has publicly committed to supporting progress monitoring and accountability throughout the United Nations Decade in four key ways: contributing our Global Status Report on Transport, Climate and Sustainability (GSR) to collective monitoring efforts; expanding our open-access database TraKB and integrating it into the Transport Data Commons; convening a multi-actor Transport Stocktake stream towards the second Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement; and enabling collective decision-making on a coherent monitoring and tracking framework for the Decade

Delivery on these commitments is already underway. In December, we co-organised with IDRC, in collaboration with Asian Development Bank (ADB), Climate Compatible Growth (CCG), and Institute for Transportation & Development Policy (ITDP), a Think-Tank Session on the operationalisation of the Decade’s Implementation Plan. The session addressed practical delivery needs on data and research, technical capacity building, and finance, with a particular focus on low- and middle-income countries. 

We also announced a technical workshop scheduled for February 2026 at the United Nations in Geneva, co-organised with CCG, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), in collaboration with ADB, IDRC, Transport Data Commons, UK FCDO, and WRI, alongside the 88th session of the Inland Transport Committee (ITC).

As the United Nations Decade of Sustainable Transport begins, the moment for alignment is over and the moment for delivery has arrived. The foundations are in place – shared priorities, growing commitments, and clear pathways to action. SLOCAT will continue to convene, equip, and challenge the transport community to turn ambition into implementation, and collectively ensure the Decade delivers measurable progress from day one.