The sixth edition of the State of the World's Indigenous Peoples focuses on Climate Crisis. It focuses on the vital role of Indigenous peoples in addressing the impacts of climate change. Although Indigenous Peoples account for only around 5 per cent of the world’s population, they effectively manage and protect an estimated 80 per cent of the Earth’s biodiversity and about 40 per cent of protected areas and ecologically intact landscapes. Since Indigenous Peoples first came to the United Nations, they have emphasized the fundamental importance of their relationship with their lands, territories and resources, which hold a deep cultural and spiritual significance within their societies…

Economic insecurity, staggering levels of inequality, declining social trust and social fragmentation are destabilizing societies worldwide. The World Social Report 2025, reveals trends that are threatening communities and demand immediate, decisive policy action. The report calls for a new policy consensus anchored in three principles—equity, economic security for all, and solidarity—that are essential to strengthen the three dimensions of sustainable development.

The report is the first to be co-produced with the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER). This collaboration brings new research insights into the report,…

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 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…

Population ageing is a defining global trend of our time. People are living longer, and more are older than ever before. Spectacular improvements in health and survival and reductions in fertility have driven this momentous shift, which has begun or is expected to begin soon in all countries and areas.

This change brings both challenges and opportunities as countries strive to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In 2022, the world marked the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing. To commemorate this landmark, the World Social Report 2023 explores the economic and social implications of the ageing of the human…

New approaches made possible through improved access and Internet connectivity can raise the standard of living for approximately 3.4 billion people living in rural areas, without them having to migrate to cities, according to the newly released 2021 World Social Report “Reconsidering Rural Development.”

The COVID-19 pandemic, together with already persistent high levels of poverty and inequalities, are threatening to stall progress for the world’s rural populations. But the pandemic has also proven that new technologies can enable rural populations to flourish, ending the rural-urban divide.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the new technologies opened up new…

Progress in protecting the world’s forests—and the people who rely on them—is at risk due to the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the escalating climate and biodiversity crises, according to a new report released today by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA).

According to the Global Forest Goals Report 2021, the world had been making progress in key areas, such as increasing the global forest area through afforestation and restoration. Many regions, in particular, Asia, Europe and Oceania, appear to be on track to reach one of the key targets of the Global Forest Goals - increasing forest area by three percent by 2030. However, these advances…

The world’s indigenous peoples call 22 per cent of the global land surface home. They live in areas where you find about 80 per cent of the planet’s biodiversity and much of the world’s non-commercially exploited land and many of its remaining mineral and forest resources, major rivers, fossil fuels and sources of renewable energy. 

While often described as the custodians of our Earth’s precious resources, they are frequently denied their rights to lands, territories and resources, according to a new UN DESA publication released today. 

The latest volume of the State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples entitled “Rights to Lands, Territories and Resources”,…

This guide has been developed as a resource for Member States to provide information about the inclusion of youth in their delegations and offers ideas for those with existing youth delegate programmes on how to potentially strengthen them. It includes sections on establishing a programme, suggestions for possible roles of youth delegates and practicalities to be considered.

Tearing down barriers that prevent more young people from becoming successful social entrepreneurs will contribute to advancing the Sustainable Development Goals and tackling the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19, according to a new report released today by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

The report calls on governments and other decision-makers to remove obstacles to youth social entrepreneurship, such as access to start-up funds that are presently limiting the ability of young people to engage in profitable activities. Many regulatory systems often prevent — sometimes involuntarily — young people from accessing financial products and services needed…

Growing inequality in both developing and developed countries could exacerbate divisions and slow economic and social development according to a new UN report, the World Social Report 2020, that was launched today. More than two thirds of the world’s population today live in countries where inequality has grown, and inequality is rising again even in some of the countries that have seen inequality decline in recent decades, such as Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.

The impacts of inequality are being felt at the personal and national levels. According to the report, which is produced by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, highly unequal societies are less effective at…