Publications

If the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are to be achieved, a serious shortfall in funding must be addressed. This is the stark revelation of the UN’s MDG Gap Task Force report, released today in New York. Introducing the report, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon underlined the importance of the report’s findings, saying “we cannot afford to leave the poor even further behind.”

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 2010 Revision of the World Population Prospects is the twenty-second round of global demographic estimates and projections undertaken by the Population Division of DESA. The world population prospects are used widely throughout the UN and by many international organizations, research centers, academic researchers and the media. This new revision was released on 3 May and key findings and projections were presented at a press conference in New York by Hania Zlotnik, Director of DESA’s Population Division. The next revision is due in the first part of 2013.

This publication provides an overview of 145 successful innovations in governance and public administration from 50 countries that received the United Nations Public Service Awards, which is the most prestigious international recognition of excellence in public service.

The purpose of the series is to disseminate, through descriptive case studies, information about innovative practices by:

(i) looking at the problem that led to an innovation;

(ii) the solution that was designed and implemented to respond to the specific challenge;

(iii) the actors and steps involved in the innovation process, and

(iv) lessons learned. Learning more about how public…

This Publication contributes to the series of events, conferences and publications related to the first review and appraisal of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing. It highlights priorities, as well as recent trends and policy developments, in the five UN regions of the world.

The publication, which is a joint effort of UN staff and international experts, aims to assist national governments, the international community and the public at large to better assess the situation of older persons five years after the Second World Assembly on Ageing. It should better inform the debate on how to align priorities, policy innovations and technical cooperation to implement the…

The objective of the study is to serve as a guiding framework for policymakers, researchers and practitioners interested in developing practical tools for evidence-based policymaking, impact assessment, monitoring and evaluation in the area of social inclusion. It provides guidance on how to develop tools, taking into consideration the historical, cultural and contextual backgrounds of one’s own society.

The study also builds on the work on social indicators that has already been undertaken by many people at local, national, regional and international levels. It is hoped that the study will help to inspire new ideas and to generate innovative…

In the 2010 MDG Gap Task Force Report, UN warns that the shortfalls in meeting agreed actions on combating poverty and raising life standards are jeopardizing the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)...

SPFII, in cooperation with ILO, UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA and SCBD has published the Resource Kit on Indigenous Peoples Issues. The Kit is aimed UN Country Teams (UNCTs), and other development agents, providing them with guidance as to how to engage indigenous peoples and include their perspectives in development processes.

The financial fallout in the USA which rapidly turned into a global economic crisis underscored the interconnectedness of the global economy. The economic and financial crisis came on top of several other crises. Skyrocketing but highly volatile world food and energy prices evidenced a decades-long neglect of food agriculture and failure to rein in increasingly speculative energy markets. And the effects of climate change, which is already a clear and present danger whose consequences are being felt in many part of the world in the form of more frequent and severe droughts and excessive rainfall, are compounding other crises.

These multiple dramas have unfolded simultaneously and…

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 2010 United Nations e-Government Survey: Leveraging e-government at a time of financial and economic crisis was completed in December 2009 and launched in early 2010. The report presented various roles for e-government in addressing the ongoing world financial and economic crisis. The public trust that is gained through transparency can be further enhanced through the free sharing of government data based on open standards.

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.