Publications

The number of deaths of children under the age of five declined from 12.4 million in 1990 to 8.1 million in 2009, which means nearly 12,000 fewer children die each day. Some of the world’s poorest countries have also made impressive gains in the fight against poverty, but the least developed countries still lag in efforts to improve living standards.

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.

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 continues to make advances towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), despite the global economic downturn, but the rate of improvement remains too slow and countries must step up their efforts if the MDGs are to be achieved by their target date of 2015, a new United Nations report says. The annual assessment report, released today by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, shows that the world has made huge strides in reducing extreme poverty...

The United Nations Statistical Yearbook is an annual compilation of a wide range of international economic, social and environmental statistics for over 200 countries and areas of the world, compiled from sources including UN agencies and other international, national and specialized organizations. The fifty-second issue contains data available to the Statistics Division as of June 2008 and presents them in 68 tables on topics including: agriculture; balance of payments; communication; development assistance; education; energy; environment; finance and gender.

The International Recommendations for Tourism Statistics 2008, which has been released in 2010, provides a comprehensive methodological framework for collection and compilation of tourism statistics in all countries irrespective of the level of development of their statistical systems. The publication also contains a wealth of information that might be of interest to data users who would like to understand better the nature of tourism data. The international recommendations were drafted by the World Tourism Organization in close cooperation with the UN DESA Statistics Division, the International Labour Organization and other members of the Inter-Agency Coordination Group on Tourism…

The Supplement covers a number of topics deemed to be beneficial to trade data compilers, including an overview of compiling practices, the revised International convention on the simplification and harmonization of customs procedures (revised Kyoto Convention), the 2007 edition of the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System, specific compilation issues such as goods for processing and re-exports and an overview of the differences between IMTS and general merchandise.

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 Millennium Development Goals report presents a yearly assessment of global progress towards achieving the MDGs. It is prepared by the Statistics Division at DESA on the basis of input provided by the members of the Inter-agency and Expert Group on MDG Indicators. Less than six years away from the 2015 deadline to achieve the MDGs, this report warns that despite many successes, overall progress has been...

This report presents an assessment of progress, based on data available as of June 2008 on all official Millennium Development Goals (MDG) indicators, including the new ones introduced. The aggregate figures in the report provide an overall assessment of regional progress under the eight goals and are a convenient way to track advances over time.

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…