Publications

International Migration and Sustainable Development examines the linkages between international migration and the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. It discusses how international migration is defined and measured, examines levels and trends in international migration at the global and regional level and by income group, explores the growing scope and impact of international migration and reviews its relevance for achieving internationally agreed sustainable development Goals and targets. The report also offers policy recommendations focusing on the social, economic and environmental causes and consequences of…

The updated Guide to Producing Statistics on Time Use offers national statistical offices and policymakers practical recommendations and best practices for collecting, processing, analyzing, and disseminating time-use statistics. These statistics support research and inform policies on various topics, including unpaid work and non-market production, well-being, and gender equality. The Guide introduces key concepts and definitions related to time-use data and provides detailed guidance on each phase of implementing a time-use survey. It emphasizes the modernization of time-use statistics by incorporating innovative technologies and processes. Additionally, the Guide includes a…

The System of Environmental-Economic Accounting—Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) constitutes an integrated and comprehensive statistical framework for organizing data about habitats and landscapes, measuring the ecosystem services, tracking changes in ecosystem assets, and linking this information to economic and other human activity.

Demographic Yearbook 2023 is the the 74th  issue in a series published since 1948. Through the cooperation with the National Statistical Offices, official demographic statistics are compiled in the Yearbook, as available, for more than 230 countries and areas of the world up to the reference year 2023. This edition of the Yearbook contains chapters on the population size and distribution, the population of capital cities, fertility, foetal mortality, infant and maternal mortality, general mortality, nuptiality and divorce.

The Statistical Yearbook is an annual compilation of a wide range of international economic, social and environmental statistics on over 200 countries and areas, compiled from sources including UN agencies and other international, national and specialized organizations. The 2024 edition contains data available to the Statistics Division as of 31 July 2024 and presents them in 33 tables on topics such as: communication; crime; development assistance; education; energy; environment; finance; gender; international merchandise trade; international tourism; labor force; national accounts; population and migration; price and production indices; and science and technology. Most tables covering…

This Summary for Policymakers presents key facts, recommendations and next steps as a summary of the wider publication titled The Waste Crisis: Accelerating National to Local Policy Action Evidence-based strategies for sustainable solutions. The publication  addresses the interlinkages between our current global production and consumption systems, which has led to a waste crisis requiring renewed attention on sustainable waste management policy and practice. Developed through a consultative process with inputs from experts across Member States, the United Nations, and civil society,

the report reviews current sustainable waste…

According to the World Social Report 2024, urgent global action is needed to support national efforts to address the setbacks caused by the recent global crises, and to avoid the conversion of future shocks to crises.

Titled “Social Development in Times of Converging Crises: A Call for Global Action”, the World Social Report 2024 explains that, in our current global policy environment, shocks more readily turn into crises that cross boundaries, demanding international action.  Particularly as such crises disproportionately impact the most vulnerable people, societies and countries.

Crisis-driven setbacks in poverty reduction and unemployment

Successive shocks,…

The UN DESA Annual Highlights report is a tool to communicate the contributions of the Department to the realization of internationally agreed development goals and shared social, economic, and environmental aspirations. It showcases the Department’s role in gauging trends, building capacities, and shaping solutions. UN DESA Highlights 2023–2024 covers activities over the period of the 78th Session of the General Assembly (September 2023 – August 2024) and reflects the Department’s response to the set priorities and expressed needs of Member States. Seven (7) thematic chapters showcase how UN DESA put its expertise to the task of supporting Member State efforts to implement the 2030…

This thirteenth edition of the United Nations E-Government Survey, released in 2024, provides a comprehensive assessment of the digital government landscape across all 193 Member States. The 2024 Survey highlights a significant upward trend in the development of digital government worldwide, with increased investment in resilient infrastructure and cutting-edge technologies. The global average value of the E-Government Development Index (EGDI) shows substantial improvement, with the proportion of the population lagging in digital government development decreasing from 45.0 per cent in 2022 to 22.4 per cent in 2024.  

Despite significant progress in digital government…

The Manual on the Classification of Business Functions was developed to provide a common framework for measuring how enterprises organize their production and supporting functions and to improve understanding of globalization, global value chains and sourcing patterns. The classification provides an internationally agreed set of categories to collect and report statistics on the business functions of enterprises and, therefore, a common framework for international comparison.

The World Statistics Pocketbook, 2024 edition is the forty-eighth in a series of annual compilations of key statistical indicators prepared by the United Nations Statistics Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Over 50 indicators have been collected from more than 20 international statistical sources and are presented in one-page profiles for 30 world geographical regions and 232 countries or areas. The Pocketbook is organized into 5 sections; general information, economic indicators, major trading partners, social indicators, and environmental and infrastructure indicators. This issue presents data for the economic, social, major trading partners and environmental…