Publications

Issued in support of the five-year review of the Mauritius Strategy of Implementation for the sustainable development of SIDS, the report highlights the vulnerabilities of SIDS and recent trends in their sustainable development. The key areas covered by the report are climate change, disaster management, trade and finance, tourism and energy. It also covers energy, natural resources and social development. In addition, the report provides a visual summary of progress made by SIDS in attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), based on analysis performed by UNDP and ESCAP.

The World Population Ageing 2009 report, by DESA's Population Division, which updates the 2007 edition, provides a description of global trends in population ageing and includes a series of indicators of the ageing process by development regions, major areas, regions and countries. This new edition includes new features on ageing in rural and urban areas, the coverage of pension systems and the impact of the 2007-2008 financial crisis on pension systems.

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…

This issue of the Population and Vital Statistics Report presents data for countries or areas on population size (total, male, and female) from the latest available census, estimated total population size for 2006 or 2007 (the later available year), and the number and rate of vital events (live births, deaths, and infant deaths) for the latest available year within the past 15 years (1993-2007). These data are presented as reported by national statistical authorities.

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…