Publications

The publication presents statistics and analysis on the status of women and men in the world, highlighting the current situation and changes over time. It was prepared to coincide with and in observance of the first-ever World Statistics Day, 20.10.2010. The report is the fifth in the series which has been published every five years, as called for in the Beijing Platform for Action adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. As in the past editions, the presentation is made in a format and language that non-specialists can readily understand.

The World Survey on the Role of Women in Development is the flagship publication of the DESA's Division for the Advancement of Women. It is presented to the Second Committee of the General Assembly at five-yearly intervals. The 1999 World Survey focused on globalization, gender and work and the 2004 World Survey addressed women and international migration. The General Assembly requested...

The present report recognizes that further progress has been made towards fulfilling the promises embodied in Millennium Development Goal 8 (MDG 8). At the same time, it identifies important setbacks, most of which have arisen from the current state of the world economy which is suffering its severest downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Some donor countries are cutting their budgets for official development assistance (ODA); several developed and developing countries have resorted to protectionist measures; resurging debt distress is increasing the need for further and broader debt relief; the costs of essential medicines are on the rise; and the technological divide…

The MDG Gap Task Force has assessed the global commitments contained in the framework of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ratified by Governments as the various international events that followed the Millennium Summit. The United Nations Millennium Declaration emphasized that strengthened global partnerships for development were needed to provide the enabling environment for accelerating progress in reducing poverty, improving health and education, establishing gender equality and ensuring the protection of the environment as defined in the MDGs.

The main message of the present report is that while there has been progress on several counts, important gaps remain in…