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.

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…

This report, Thirty years after Cairo: Major trends, progress made and challenges ahead, gives a broad overview of global demographic trends since the International Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo in 1994, and those foreseeable over the next 30 years. These include the continued yet slowing growth of the global population, its progressive ageing, and the increasing urbanization and scale of international migration. 

The report highlights the similarities and gradual convergence of demographic trends across major groups of countries, as well as the diversity of demographic situations among certain…

The world is facing a sustainable development crisis. The 2024 Financing for Sustainable Development Report: Financing for Development at a Crossroads finds that financing challenges are at the heart of the crisis and imperil the SDGs and climate action. The window to rescue the SDGs and prevent a climate catastrophe is still open but closing rapidly.

Financing gaps for sustainable development are large and growing – the estimates by international organizations and others are coalescing around $4 trillion additional investment needed annually for developing countries. This represents a more than 50% increase over the pre-pandemic estimates. Meanwhile, the finance divide has not…

Population Prospects of Countries in Special Situations provides an up-to-date overview of current and future major population trends in the LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS in connection with the opportunities and challenges these trends present for achieving sustainable development. This report highlights levels and trends in population size and distribution, mortality, fertility and international migration, including projections to 2050, for the 110 vulnerable countries or territories, while also discussing the implications of population change for achieving specific Sustainable Development Goals.