Publications

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.

According to the 2008 World Economic and Social Survey, economic insecurity arises from the exposure of individuals, communities and countries to adverse events, and from their inability to cope with and recover from the downside losses. The risk and threats vary from community to community; in advanced countries, they have been associated with a significant rise in inequality, a hollowing out of middle-class lifestyles and reduced welfare protection. Elsewhere, economic shocks and premature deindustrialization have raised fears of an insufficiency of the formal sector jobs needed to accommodate an expanding urban population. In still other places, food insecurity has given rise to…

In the wake of turbulence in the economic environment, the United Nations baseline forecast for world economic growth has been revised downward in line with the pessimistic scenario of World Economic Situation and Prospects 2008 published in January. The deepening credit crisis in major developed market economies, as triggered by the continuing housing slump, the declining value of the United States dollar vis-à-vis other major currencies, persisting global imbalances, and soaring oil and non-oil commodity prices are slowing growth of the global economy.

Global growth reached 3.8 per cent in 2007 but is expected to decline markedly to 1.8 per cent in 2008, with the weakness likely…

The World Economic Situation and Prospects 2008 highlights the risk of a recession in the United States and a hard landing of the global economy as a whole. The combination of a deep housing slump in the United States, continuous devaluation of the United States dollar and related increased financial turmoil could trigger an abrupt adjustment of the global imbalances, which would not only send the economy of the United States into a recession but would also lead to a hard landing for the global economy as a whole. Lessons need to be learned from the recent financial turmoil to reduce vulnerabilities to future financial stress. Responses by the central banks of the major economies have…

The year 2005 marks ten years since the General Assembly adopted the World Programme of Action for Youth in 1995. This report, an official report to the General Assembly, called for a renewed committment to the goals of the World Programme of Action, since over 200 million youth were living in poverty, 130 million youth were illiterate, 88 million were unemployed and 10 million young people were living with HIV/AIDS.

In the World Youth Report 2005, it is argued that too often, youth policy is driven by negative stereotypes of young people, including delinquency, drug abuse and violence. What seems to be forgotten is that young people are a positive force for development, peace,…