New economic opportunities are compelling millions of people to migrate from rural areas to cities both within their home countries and abroad. This track will examine the search for opportunity, the resulting acceleration of urbanization and ways to meet the jobs challenge in cities and back home.

While the creation of migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) is not a new problem, it is an acute one and has quickly become one of the greatest humanitarian, social, economic and political challenges of our time. This track will explore the root causes — from state failure and political violence, to extreme weather and resource scarcity — and the immediate and long-term consequences of displacement for individuals and states.

While the search for both safety and opportunity has prompted migration and urbanization, the search for meaning can be a fact of life for even those who stay in place, but remain un-anchored, unsure that their values, their culture and their very being belongs. That search for belonging is particularly notable among restless young men, but it is not limited to them. Some find affinity in networks that extend their reach and appear to value their role. Those networks can be benign or malign — the source of inspiration to create and contribute, or the motivation to destroy. Their individual journey can be a global concern. This track will examine issues of individual identity and choice, in addition to social integration, acculturation and cohesion.

The roles of all institutions and their leaders are changing in the digital age as a function of the decentralization of decision-making and authority, new expectations of transparency and accountability, the rise of networks and the entry of new actors who are both willing and able to effect broad-based social change. Philanthropists are finding new tools and new partners able to effect positive change. GPF members will explore the dynamic environment in which they and their grantees work and the “intangible assets” each brings to bear in this setting.