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.

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…

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…

World Population Prospects 2024: Summary of Results adopts the analytical framework of the demographic transition—the historic shift towards longer lives and smaller families—approximated here by the timing at which populations peak in size, to explore differences in population trends that characterise countries and regions today and provide insight into their future trajectories. The report also offers policy recommendations to prepare countries for a population size, age structure and spatial distribution that may differ appreciably from that of their recent past. 

World Population Prospects 2024 is the twenty-eighth edition of the official United Nations population…

The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024 details the significant challenges the world is facing in making substantial strides towards achieving the SDGs based on the latest data and estimates. It features areas with setbacks while also showcasing where tangible progress has been made, for instance, in reducing global child mortality, preventing HIV infection, and access to energy and mobile broadband. The report also highlights where action must accelerate, particularly in critical areas undermining SDG progress - climate change, peace and security, inequalities among and between countries, among others.

According to the report, with just six years remaining, current progress…

Global economic prospects have improved since January, with major economies avoiding a severe downturn, bringing down inflation without increasing unemployment. However, the outlook is only cautiously optimistic. Higher-for-longer interest rates, debt sustainability challenges, continuing geopolitical tensions and ever-worsening climate risks continue to pose challenges to growth, threatening decades of development gains, especially for least developed countries and small island developing States.

According to the World Economic Situation and Prospects as of mid-2024, the world economy is now projected to grow by 2.7 per cent in 2024 (+0.3 percentage points from the January…

The Handbook on the Least Developed Country Category contains comprehensive and authoritative information on criteria defining the category, graduation procedures, and international support measures for least developed countries (LDCs). This 5th edition reflects recent developments in the LDC category, including refinements to the LDC criteria and the progress of several countries towards graduation from the category. Moreover, it contains updated information on international support measures, including on “smooth transition” provisions for countries graduating from the LDC category. The Handbook, prepared by the Committee for Development Policy (CDP) and the UN Department of Economic…