Global economic growth is projected to remain at 2.8 per cent in 2025, unchanged from 2024, according to the United Nations flagship report, World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) 2025. While the global economy has demonstrated resilience, withstanding a series of mutually reinforcing shocks, growth remains below the pre-pandemic average of 3.2 per cent, constrained by weak investment, sluggish productivity growth, and high debt levels.

The report notes that lower inflation and ongoing monetary easing in many economies could provide a modest boost to global economic activity in 2025. However, uncertainty still looms large, with risks stemming from geopolitical conflicts,…

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 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…

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 2022-2023 covers activities over the period of the 77th Session of the General Assembly (September 2022 – August 2023) 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…

According to The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2023: Special Edition, failure to redouble global efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals – the promise of a better world for all – may fuel greater political instability, upend economies and lead to irreversible damage to the natural environment.

World leaders made a historic promise to secure the rights and well-being of everyone on a healthy, thriving planet when they agreed to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 SDGs in 2015. However, the combined impacts of the climate crisis, the war in Ukraine, a gloomy global economic outlook and lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have revealed…

The United Nations E-Government Survey 2022 is the 12th edition of the United Nations’ assessment of the digital government landscape across all 193 Member States. The E-Government Survey is informed by over two decades of longitudinal research, with a ranking of countries based on the United Nations E-Government Development Index (EGDI), a combination of primary data (collected and owned by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs) and secondary data from other UN agencies.

This edition of the Survey includes data analysis in global and regional contexts, a study of local e-government development based on the United Nations Local Online Service Index (LOSI),…

The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 provides a global overview of progress on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, using the latest available data and estimates. It tracks the global and regional progress towards the 17 Goals with in-depth analyses of selected indicators for each Goal.

According to the Report, cascading and interlinked crises are putting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in grave danger, along with humanity’s very own survival. The Report highlights the severity and magnitude of the challenges before us. The confluence of crises, dominated by COVID-19, climate change, and conflicts, are creating spin-off impacts on…

Global growth prospects have weakened significantly amid the war in Ukraine, rising energy, food and commodity prices, soaring inflation and tightening monetary policy stances by major central banks. The world economy is projected to grow by 3.1 per cent in 2022, marking a downward revision of 0.9 percentage points from our previous forecast released in January 2022. The baseline forecast faces significant downside risks from further intensification of the war in Ukraine and potential new waves of the pandemic.

Growth forecasts for the United States, European Union and China have been revised downward, with the European Union registering the most significant downward revision. The…

The global economic recovery is facing significant headwinds amid new waves of COVID-19 infections, persistent labour market challenges, lingering supply-chain challenes and rising inflationary pressures. After expanding by 5.5 per cent in 2021, the global output is projected to grow by only 4.0 per cent in 2022 and 3.5 per cent in 2023, according to the United Nations World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) 2022.

The robust recovery in 2021 – driven by strong consumer spending and some uptake in investment, with trade in goods surpassing pre-pandemic levels — marked the highest growth rate in more than four decades, the Report highlighted. Yet the momentum for growth –…

More countries and communities are recognizing the need to bolster efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in light of the toll the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on people around the world, according to The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2021, released by the United Nations.

The decisions and actions taken during the next 18 months would determine whether pandemic recovery plans would put the world on a course to reach the globally-agreed upon goals that aim to boost economic growth and social well-being while protecting the environment.

According to the report, which tracks global efforts to achieve the SDGs, COVID-19 had caused a major disruption…