- Home
- Working Paper Series
- UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) Policy Briefs
UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) Policy Briefs
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs provides thought leadership through its UN DESA Policy Briefs series, presenting timely and relevant analysis and policy guidance on global economic and social issues.
ISSN (online):
27081990
Language:
English
1 - 20 of 74 results
-
-
Credit Rating Agencies and Sovereign Debt
Publication Date: April 2022More LessCredit ratings play an important role providing information on sovereign borrowers. But financial markets, including credit ratings, often over-emphasize short-term economic concerns, and underweight longer-term issues, including environmental and social risks as well as investment in resilience and sustainability.
-
-
-
Why Population Growth Matters for Sustainable Development
Publication Date: April 2022More LessWorld population continues to grow and is expected to peak at a level of almost 11 billion around the year 2100. Most of this growth will take place in low-income and lower middle-income countries.
-
-
-
The Monetary Policy Response to Covid-19
Publication Date: April 2022More LessCentral banks have relied heavily on unconventional monetary policy tools, especially large-scale asset purchases, to respond to the pandemic. These programmes have helped to stabilize financial markets and kickstart economic recovery. But the central bank asset purchases have also contributed to an underpricing of risk and sharp increases in asset prices.
-
-
-
Addressing Climate Change Through Sport
Publication Date: January 2022More LessClimate change is one of the most pressing issues of our times. Sport plays an important role as part of the solution. Sport is a key social platform that can reach and influence millions of peoples worldwide and raise awareness on climate change, promote a culture in favour of climate action, and champion sustainable behaviours. The sport sector can contribute to tackle climate change by reducing sport organizations's climate footprint while governments and international organizations facilitate this goal by setting right policies and guidelines.
-
-
-
COVID-19 Pandemic Disruption – Implications on the Full Deployment of the United Nations Legal Identity Agenda
Publication Date: January 2022More LessCountries are urged to implement the UN Legal Identity Agenda model as matter of priority to establish the necessary interoperability between various government’s components for effective monitoring and assessing impacts of policy decisions.
-
-
-
Partnering with the Private Sector towards a Future of Sustainable Transport
Publication Date: January 2022More LessDocumenting more evidence around post-COVID 19 transport measures can provide useful references in revamping transport systems. It is paramount, however, that governments and the private sector revisit such short-term policies with a view to ensuring that any emergency-based actions that may have had inadvertent negative consequences on sustainable development would not become permanent measures.
-
-
-
Improving Compatibility of Approaches to Identify, Verify and Align Investments to Sustainability Goals
Publication Date: January 2022More LessRegulators and other market participants have introduced a variety of mandatory and voluntary approaches to help investors align investments with sustainability goals.
-
-
-
Integrated National Financing Frameworks – Moving Towards Financing Policy Integration
Publication Date: December 2021More LessINFFs have an important role to play both in the immediate response to the current crisis and in rebuilding better. Integrated financing strategies can serve as a starting point for locally driven reform processes, providing a foundation for action. The INFF methodology puts forward discrete steps to improve financial policymaking.
-
-
-
Sandboxing and Experimenting Digital Technologies for Sustainable Development
Publication Date: December 2021More LessInstitutions and regulators could consider investing in requisite resources and building capacities in deploying sandboxes and experiments, with the medium- and long-term aims to advance agile, responsive and resilient approaches in adopting new technologies and in preparing for the future of digital government and sustainable development.
-
-
-
Adapting International Development Cooperation to Reduce Risk, Enable Recovery and Build Resilience
Publication Date: November 2021More LessThe COVID-19 pandemic has posed new demands on development cooperation in its various forms: finance, capacity support, policy change and multi-stakeholder partnerships. The ongoing challenge of the pandemic and its consequences has also shown the durability and adaptability of development cooperation.
-
-
-
Bringing the Data Community and Policy Makers Together to Ensure a World With Data We Trust
Publication Date: November 2021More LessThe third Forum, held in Bern, Switzerland, in October 2021 brought together over 700 participants in person and over 7,000 virtually, representing a diverse group of stakeholders from the data and statistics community, joining from over 180 countries around the world. The Forum discussions stressed the need for greater collaboration and coordination for inclusive data to leave no one behind; increase financial support; enhance the capacities of National Statistical Offices; and promote greater inclusion of, and access by, marginalised communities.
-
-
-
Investing in the Future of Rural Non-farm Economies
Authors: United Nations and Marcelo T. LafleurPublication Date: October 2021More LessDevelopment strategies that focus solely on urban development and leave rural communities behind are not adequate to overcome the development challenges we face. The in-situ development of rural economies and societies must be a central objective of development if nations are to achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda. A precondition for substantial rural transformation and growth is higher agricultural productivity and the subsequent reallocation of productive resources towards expanding the non-agricultural rural sector. A dynamic local rural economy can benefit from and complement urban growth, alleviate poverty, and reduce migratory pressures on growing cities. Country examples show that it is possible to accelerate in-situ development by investing in infrastructure, offering educational opportunities, expanding financial services, and speeding up the adoption of technologies in food and non-food producing sectors. These investments help create a virtuous circle of agricultural productivity and non-agricultural development.
-
-
-
Harnessing Longevity in the Future of Work
Publication Date: October 2021More LessPromoting the inclusion of older persons in the new realities of work requires addressing barriers in their access to decent work, including age-based discrimination, rigid labour markets, inadequate access to life-long learning, and participation in informal employment and unpaid care work.
-
-
-
Wildfires – a Growing Concern for Sustainable Development
Publication Date: October 2021More LessThis policy brief reviews trends and impacts of wildfires on sustainable development, in all its environmental, economic and social dimensions. It provides an analysis of the key drivers of wildfires and proposes measures to reduce the risk and impacts of future wildfires.
-
-
-
Time for Transformative Changes for SDGs: What the Data Tells Us
Publication Date: October 2021More LessCOVID-19 has had a devastating impact on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, undermining decades of development efforts. The crisis has pushed hundreds millions of people back into poverty and hunger, caused decades of learning loss, worsened inequalities, and much more. The availability of timely, open and disaggregated data will be essential to inform policy making and steer recovery efforts. New investments in data and information infrastructure, as well as human capacity are needed now more than ever. The world finds itself at a critical juncture, where achieving the SDGs will depend on whether or not the COVID-19 crisis serves as a much-needed wake-up call that spurs a decade of truly transformative action to deliver for people and planet.
-
-
-
The Critical Role of Income Redistribution for Poverty Reduction: Alternative Scenarios
Authors: United Nations, Kristinn Sv. Helgason and Kenneth IversenPublication Date: October 2021More LessGlobal progress towards SDG 1 had already slowed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the world was not on track to achieve this goal by 2030. The prospect of achieving SDG 1 by 2030 has been further dimmed by the impact of COVID-19. The global extreme poverty rate (SDG target 1.1) is projected in a baseline scenario to decline to only 9.2 per cent by 2030. This would mean that as many as 785 million people could find themselves in extreme poverty by 2030, far from reaching SDG 1. Given this context, achieving SDG 1 by 2030, will require extraordinary efforts by countries, both individually and collectively. The scenario analysis presented in this policy brief shows that a decline in income inequality can be a potent driver of poverty reduction and if combined with robust economic growth, can produce highly positive, if not miraculous, results for the eradication of extreme poverty, by 2030.
-
-
-
Policy Implications of the Disruption of the Implementation of the 2020 World Population and Housing Census Programme Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic
Authors: United Nations and Srdjan MrkicPublication Date: October 2021More LessPopulation and housing censuses are not being carried out as they were planned before the pandemic. National authorities to remain fully committed to conduct the censuses depending on national circumstances. Postponing census-taking will have adverse impact on assessing the effects of national development policies due to lack of granular census statistics in the 2020’s
-
-
-
Building the Capacities of Public Servants to Implement the 2030 Agenda
Authors: United Nations and Valentina RestaPublication Date: October 2021More LessActivities geared to strengthening the capacity of public servants to implement the 2030 Agenda have multiplied rapidly since 2015, with a multiplicity of national and international actors involved. Yet, available information does not easily allow for a consolidated picture of how ongoing efforts address gaps at the level of individual countries. Areas identified in the Agenda itself as needing capacity building, such as data, statistical systems, follow up and review, have received high attention, as have planning and SDG localization. The landscape of capacity building for SDG implementation appears fragmented. There likely is untapped potential for cross-fertilization of capacity building initiatives. Reporting on capacity-building activities for public servants has not been a consistently high priority of governments. Because of this, the degree of responsiveness of capacity-building activities to recipients’ and countries’ needs is hard to assess. Government-wide capacity-building gap assessments and strategies are rare. Little is known about the changes in learning outcomes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which can have longer-term impacts on capacity in the public service.
-
-
-
A View of Changes in Institutional Arrangements for SDG Implementation at the National Level Since 2015
Authors: United Nations, Lisa Ainbinder and David Le BlancPublication Date: October 2021More LessThere is a trend of broadening and deepening institutionalization of the 2030 Agenda. Yet institutionalization at the country level remains a work in progress – with many countries still putting in place or adjusting parts of their institutional systems for SDG implementation. No regularities or typical patterns of SDG institutionalization are easily identifiable across countries. The sequence and speed of institutional changes relating to the SDGs have varied significantly. Entry points for state and non-state actors to engage with SDG-related institutional processes are multiplying, making institutional arrangements more complex. Yet there are also wide variations in levels of engagement, with potential for greater involvement of different stakeholders in many countries.
-
-
-
Horizontal and Vertical Integration Are More Necessary Than Ever for COVID-19 Recovery and SDG Implementation
Publication Date: September 2021More LessBy putting stress on national socio-economic systems, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed new tensions and trade-offs among policy areas, and exacerbated already existing tensions. In many countries heavily affected by the pandemic, this has revealed problems of lack of policy integration and policy coherence, both within and across sectors as well as across levels of government. Integrated policy-making has been critical in responding effectively to the pandemic, and will be paramount in post-COVID recovery to realize the Sustainable Development Goals.
-