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UN DESA Policy Brief No. 169: How Shocks Turn into Crises: national policies for advancing social development in turbulent times
Shocks and crises have become more frequent, intense and widespread in an interconnected world. Looking toward the Second World Summit for Social Development in 2025, this policy brief focuses on explaining how shocks turn into crises and how national policies, supported by the international community, can help counter shocks, build resilience, and advance social development objectives, namely eradicating poverty, promoting full and productive employment, and fostering social inclusion in times of converging crises.
UN DESA Policy Brief No. 168: Net Wealth Taxes: How they can help fight inequality and fund sustainable development
Ensuring effective taxation of wealth is a tool to address inequality, increase progressivity in the tax system, and raise domestic revenues to finance sustainable development. This policy brief outlines the advantages and disadvantages of net wealth taxes, lays out some policy instruments that help in their administration, and explains why and how international tax cooperation can aid countries in successfully levying net wealth taxes.
UN DESA Policy Brief No. 166: Global action is needed to advance social development amidst converging crises
In an interconnected world, more frequent, severe and far-reaching shocks and crises are derailing key social development objectives such as poverty eradication, full employment and inequality reduction through a range of channels. Global action is needed to advance social development and build resilient and inclusive societies for all.
UN DESA Policy Brief No. 163: Policy Choices for Leaving No One Behind (LNOB): Overview From 2023 SDG Summit Commitments
Prioritizing leaving no one behind (LNoB), 31 countries have introduced new policies and commitments aimed at eradicating poverty, enhancing human capital, addressing uneven access to basic necessities, improving decision-making processes on sustainable development and ensuring no country or locality is left behind.
UN DESA Policy Brief No. 157: How Can Governments Strengthen Their Relationships with Society to Meet the Sustainable Development Goals? Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic sparked innovation and experimentation in public institutions. Institutional and policy changes can improve Governments’ relationships with other actors and highlight opportunities to accelerate SDG progress. Renewed social contracts, built on trust, are crucial if societies are to meet today’s compounding challenges, better respond to future crises, and achieve the SDGs.
UN DESA Policy Brief Special Issue: Financing the Sustainable Development Goals through mission-oriented development banks
There is an urgent need for channeling long-term risk-tolerant finance towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The paper argues that National Development Banks (NDBs) and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) can play a crucial role in mobilizing the needed capital.
UN DESA Policy Brief No. 149: Promoting Youth Participation in Decision-Making and Public Service Delivery through Harnessing Digital Technologies
Public institutions shall take policy measures to address challenges and build an enabling ecosystem for youth engagement and participation, with a focus on bridging the youth digital divide and supporting digital skills development of youth.
UN DESA Policy Brief No. 135: Cryptoassets and so-called “stablecoins”: Where do we go from here?
While they have been touted for their potential to increase the efficiency of financial transactions and to support financial inclusion, their high volatility and largely unregulated and quasi-anonymous nature has raised concerns over investor protection and financial integrity, and increasingly also financial stability and international spillovers.
UN DESA Policy Brief No. 134: The Great Finance Divide
Developing countries will need reliable access to affordable financing, and also need to manage and use these resources well to translate financing into SDG progress, enhanced productivity and fiscal capacity to service debt.
UN DESA Policy Brief No. 131: Credit rating agencies and sovereign debt: Four proposals to support achievement of the SDGs
Credit ratings play an important role providing information on sovereign borrowers. But financial markets, including credit ratings, often over-emphasize short-term economic concerns, and underweight longer-term issues, including environmental and social risks as well as investment in resilience and sustainability.
UN DESA Policy Brief No. 128: Addressing climate change through sport
Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our times. Sports plays an important role as part of the solution.
UN DESA Policy Brief No. 125: Improving compatibility of approaches to identify, verify and align investments to sustainability goals
Regulators and other market participants have introduced a variety of mandatory and voluntary approaches to help investors align investments with sustainability goals.
UN DESA Policy Brief No. 122: Adapting international development cooperation to reduce risk, enable recovery and build resilience
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed new demands on development cooperation in its various forms: finance, capacity support, policy change and multi-stakeholder partnerships. The ongoing challenge of the pandemic and its consequences has also shown the durability and adaptability of development cooperation.
UN/DESA Policy Brief #100: Effective blended finance in the era of COVID-19 recovery
While blended finance can be an option to support post COVID-19 recovery efforts, a new approach to blended finance is necessary to improve its impact.
UN/DESA Policy Brief #99: Why does corporate sustainability reporting matter to rebuilding better?
Business and financials models must be rethought to accelerate and strengthen business’ contributions to sustainable development
UN/DESA Policy Brief #98: Risk-informed finance
All financing must be risk-informed and resilient, and sufficient financing must be available for investments in risk reduction and resilience, at national and global levels.
UN/DESA Policy Brief #92: Leveraging digital technologies for social inclusion
COVID-19 is accelerating the pace of digital transformation. In so doing, it is opening the opportunities for advancing social progress and fostering social inclusion, while simultaneously exacerbating the risk of increased inequalities and exclusion of those who are not digitally connected.
UN/DESA Policy Brief #78: Achieving the SDGs through the COVID-19 response and recovery
The impact of COVID-19 on SDG achievement will only be known with certainty in the months to come, but assessments for 2020 are bleak. If responses are ad hoc, underfunded and without a view to long-term goals, decades of progress stand to be reversed. However, as countries begin to move towards recovery, coherent and comprehensive actions can place the world on a robust trajectory towards achieving sustainable development.
UN/DESA Policy Brief #76: COVID-19 poses grievous economic challenge to landlocked developing countries
The Covid-19 pandemic is increasing the risks of a balance of payments crisis, a food crisis and a debt crisis in landlocked developing countries
UN/DESA Policy Brief #73: The impact of COVID-19 on sport, physical activity and well-being and its effects on social development
This policy brief highlights the challenges COVID-19 has posed to both the sporting world and to physical activity and well-being, including for marginalized or vulnerable groups. It further provides recommendations for Governments and other stakeholders, as well as for the UN system, to support the safe reopening of sporting events, as well as to support physical activity during the pandemic and beyond.