Welcome to the United Nations
Publications
Displaying 1 - 10 of 35
Policy Briefs |
INTRODUCTION
Shocks and crises have become more frequent, intense and widespread in an interconnected world, affecting more people across the globe. Crises that might have previously remained relatively contained within a well-defined geographic region, are now propagated rapidly through globally interconnected systems and networks in areas such as economics, finance, the environment and health. The 2008 Global Financial Crisis is an example of how financial shocks spread through the interconnected balance sheets of financial institutions, causing havoc around the world. The COVID-19 pandemic also shows how national health systems were unable to absorb the effects of the virus, which…
Policy Briefs |
Understanding how population trends are likely to unfold in the short, medium and long terms is critical for achieving a more inclusive, prosperous and sustainable future as recognized in the Declaration on Future Generations. This policy brief provides an overview of some of the main findings of the recently released report, World Population Prospects 2024: Summary of Results (United Nations, 2024a) with the aim of helping countries prepare for population sizes, age structures and spatial distributions that may differ appreciably from those of their recent past.
ALL POPULATIONS ARE MOVING TOWARDS LONGER LIVES AND SMALLER FAMILIES
At first glance, the demographic outlook of countries…
Policy Briefs |
INTRODUCTION
The recent confluence of crises – the COVID-19 pandemic, violent conflicts, and climate change – has caused severe setbacks to central objectives of social development, such as poverty eradication, employment generation, inequality reduction, and building inclusive societies. People and societies in vulnerable situations have been hit the hardest by the converging crises.
There are indications that shocks and crises are becoming ever more frequent, severe, and far-reaching – driven by the worsening effects of climate change, the growing probability of pandemics, growing geopolitical tensions, and increasingly dense global networks of trade, finance and transport. The…
Policy Briefs |
INTRODUCTION
The capacity of Governments to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been tested in all countries. The Global Sustainable Development Report 2023 underlined that the uneven and slow progress on the SDGs since 2016 was further undermined by the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and recent crises. The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024 has confirmed that countries are severely off track to achieve the SDGs. Progress on a number of SDG targets has stalled or suffered a reversal. Most targets are not on track to be achieved by 2030, and progress does not seem fast enough for the few targets that are closer to being met. Recent crises have also…
Policy Briefs |
BACKGROUND
In the lead up to the 2023 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit (18-19 September, New York), the Secretary-General urged all Member States and stakeholders to present forward looking commitments to accelerate sustainable development in the coming years. A total of 39 Member States and 1 non-member observer state submitted 141 commitments via the SDG Summit Acceleration and Accountability Platform. This policy brief reviews these national commitments from the 2023 SDG Summit, focusing on how countries are translating the leaving no one behind (LNoB) concept into different policies across various country settings.
PROFILE OF COUNTRIES COMMITTED TO LNOB
During the 2023…
Policy Briefs |
INTRODUCTION
Population ageing is a global phenomenon, a shift towards an increasing share of older persons in the population. Even the least developed countries (LDCs) are beginning to experience the progressive ageing of their populations, and this process is expected to accelerate during the second half of the current century (United Nations, 2023a). Despite its far-reaching consequences, the emergence of this trend in LDCs has attracted only limited attention from both national policymakers and the international community. Most LDCs are still early in the decades-long process of population ageing, which is a direct consequence of the demographic transition towards longer lives and…
Policy Briefs |
In the three decades that preceded the Covid-19 pandemic, more than one billion people escaped extreme income poverty. As the health and economic upheavals brought on by Covid-19 and subsequent crises have made evident, however, progress towards poverty eradication is fragile.
With only a few years remaining before the target date of 2030 for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there is a renewed commitment to accelerate progress towards poverty eradication. In 2025, the United Nations will convene the Second World Summit for Social Development to give momentum towards the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, with a focus on poverty eradication and the other two pillars of…
Policy Briefs |
PDF document available at: https://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/publication/PB150.pdf
Worldwide, populations are ageing rapidly due to gains in life expectancy and declines in fertility. The trend towards a growing number and share of older persons is projected to continue in the foreseeable future. As the number of older persons grows, their socioeconomic and demographic characteristics will evolve as well, with implications for economies, societies and public budgets.
While long-term trends are hard to predict, assessing the characteristics of current and future cohorts of older persons provides important insights into the future of our ageing world. On…
Policy Briefs |
PDF document available at: https://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/publication/PB149.pdf
Introduction
Public institutions are confronted with far-reaching and complex challenges in building an inclusive and resilient post-COVID-19 society, ranging from public health and employment to education and social protection. These are coupled with other pressing challenges toward achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including poverty eradication, climate change as well as energy and food crises. As governments alone cannot effectively respond to these multi-faceted challenges and “participation is a key dimension of governance and one of the pillars…
Policy Briefs |
PDF document available at: https://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/publication/PB151.pdf
Languages are one of the most significant emblems of human diversity, revealing how we can perceive, relate to, and understand the world differently. Languages are vehicles of our cultures, collective memory and values. They are an essential component of our identities.
Out of the 6,700 languages spoken worldwide, forty percent are in danger of disappearing. Indigenous Peoples make up less than 6 percent of the global population, yet they speak more than 4,000 of the world’s languages. Most of the languages that are under threat are Indigenous languages.
This dilemma is…