Publications

The lives of women and girls around the world have improved in several areas over the last 20 years, according to the new UN DESA report “The World’s Women 2015,” launched today. Coming on the heels of the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this new set of data on women and girls worldwide brings into sharp perspective the need for gender equality outlined in Goal 5.  

“We cannot achieve our 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development without full and equal rights for half of the world’s population, in law and in practice,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at a recent event on gender equality organized on the side of the Sustainable Development Summit.…

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) achieved significant progress over the past 15 years, but persistent gaps in official development assistance and an insufficient access to markets, affordable medicines and new technologies have highlighted the need for a rejuvenation of the global partnership for development, according to a new report launched today by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The “Taking Stock of the Global Partnership for Development” report of the United Nations MDG Gap Task Force monitors the recent achievements and challenges in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goal 8, while looking ahead towards the new…

The current world population of 7.3 billion is expected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100, according to a new UN DESA report, “World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision”, launched today.

“Understanding the demographic changes that are likely to unfold over the coming years, as well as the challenges and opportunities that they present for achieving sustainable development, is key to the design and implementation of the new development agenda,” said Wu Hongbo, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.

Most of the projected increase in the world’s population can be attributed to a short list of high-…

The world economy continues to grow at a modest pace, with a gradual improvement projected for the second half of 2015 and 2016, according to the World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) as of mid-2015 report.

Growth of world gross product is projected to improve slightly from 2.6 per cent in 2014 to 2.8 per cent in 2015—a downward revision by 0.3 percentage points from the forecast presented in the WESP 2015 in January.

The downward revision reflects mainly deterioration in the prospects of the economies in transition and several large developing countries, especially in South America. In 2016, global growth is forecast to improve to 3.1 per cent, which is still well…

Global economic growth is forecast to increase marginally over the next two years, according to the United Nations World Economic Situation and Prospects 2015 (WESP) report.The global economy is expected to grow 3.1 per cent in 2015 and 3.3 per cent in 2016, compared with an estimated growth of 2.6 per cent for 2014.

The global economy expanded during 2014 at a moderate and uneven pace. Legacies from the global financial crisis continue to weigh on growth, while new challenges have emerged, including geopolitical conflicts such as in Ukraine and the Ebola epidemic.

Unemployment figures remain historically high in some regions, but appear to have stopped rising. While…