Reduced Inequalities

Impacts of crises on inequality and marginalization are more complex and layered in today’s interconnected world than they were in the past, often manifesting through exacerbation of various pre-existing vulnerabilities of disadvantaged groups. Recovery strategies and efforts to build resilience thus require more multidimensional lenses for addressing secondary impacts of shocks, particularly on the most vulnerable. This brief explores whether multidimensional approaches to addressing issues related to poverty and vulnerability are more helpful in crisis contexts. Towards that end, the brief analyzes primary data on beneficiaries of UNDP Bangladesh’s Livelihoods Improvement of Urban Poor Communities (LIUPC) project. The findings are expected to contribute to the conception, design and scaling-up of future initiatives and contextualized solutions to strengthen the resilience of urban poor communities in similar settings.

The recent confluence of crises – the COVID-19 pandemic, violent conflicts, and climate change – has caused severe setbacks to central objectives of social development, such as poverty eradication, employment generation, inequality reduction, and building inclusive societies. People and societies in vulnerable situations have been hit the hardest by the converging crises. There are indications that shocks and crises are becoming ever more frequent, severe, and far-reaching – driven by the worsening effects of climate change, the growing probability of pandemics, growing geopolitical tensions, and increasingly dense global networks of trade, finance and transport. The effects of these converging crises can be severe and long-lasting, as they may exhaust public and private response capacities, cause economic scarring, and trap people in a cycle of poverty. The World Social Report (WSR 2024) estimates that the potential cumulative global economic output loss could be over $50 trillion in the 2020–2030 period, an indication of lost opportunities for social development. National social protection mechanisms can help to protect and further advance social development. These mechanisms, by limiting the adverse impacts of shocks and crises, especially on people in vulnerable situations, and by supporting short-term recovery, enhance longer-term resilience and foster sustainable and inclusive growth. Yet only 47 per cent of the global population and as few as 13 per cent in low-income countries, are estimated to have access to at least one social protection benefit. At the same time, converging crises may increase the cost of providing adequate and universal social protection, while also depleting public financial resources. As a result, many developing countries, including most low- and lower-middle-income countries, would find it difficult to achieve universal social protection by 2030 without additional international support

Taxing wealth can take many forms; policy makers should carefully analyse options best suited to the existing tax system and the social-economic situation in their country. Ensuring effective taxation of wealth is a tool to address inequality, increase progressivity in the tax system, and raise domestic revenues to finance sustainable development. Net wealth taxes are gaining support, fuelled by the view that all individuals and corporations must pay their fair share of taxes. Investments in technological progress and automation of tax administrations, coupled with third-party reporting, international tax cooperation in the form of exchange of information and exit taxes, are crucial elements that could help countries to efficiently and effectively levy a net wealth tax.

This policy brief focuses on the challenges of an ageing workforce and available policy strategies to unlock its full potential. It presents policy examples from the UNECE region aimed at readying the workforce for the future, retaining older workers in the workforce and re-engaging older workers beyond normal retirement age. Finally, the policy brief also offers a checklist of effective measures to address the challenges of an ageing workforce.

Public debt can be vital for development. Governments use it to finance expenditures, protect and invest in their people and pave the way to a better future. However, when public debt grows excessively or its costs outweigh its benefits, it becomes a heavy burden. This is precisely what is happening across the developing world today.

Export diversification has been among the most cited policy recommendations for African countries to spur structural transformation and increase resilience. However, export diversification that benefits structural change is not an automated process and requires an analytical approach and complex decision-making. Applying an adjusted economic complexity and product space methodology on trade data of 54 African countries and their trading partners, this paper assesses export diversification opportunities that are feasible to realize, associated with structural change and of high demand in the world and on the African continent. Increasing complementarities of African exports and imports are crucial to yield higher benefits from the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The paper’s focus on intra-African diversification opportunities allows for a continental mapping of current exports with export diversification opportunities and the identification of niche areas of individual countries. The paper finds that almost all countries have some potential for product diversification into light manufacturing (machinery and mechanical appliances; electrical machinery) and processed base metal products (articles of iron and steel), though in different products. The paper’s findings can guide policymakers and development partners in identifying industrialization strategies and productive capacity needs.

This paper examines the drivers of income inequality within and across countries using relevant measures of inequality and an estimation technique that jointly accounts for both model and estimation uncertainties. The estimations are applied to a global sample and to three categories of vulnerable developing countries: Africa, least developed countries (LDCs), and landlocked developing countries (LLDCs). We find that multiple factors contribute to income inequality within and across countries but that there are significant differences in the key drivers globally and in Africa, LDCs and LLDCs. We also find strong support for the Kuznets hypothesis in the global and the developing countries samples but not in the Africa, LDC and LLDC samples. These differences underscore the need for policymakers to account for country-heterogeneity in the design of policies to combat inequality within and across countries.

يقترح موجز السياسات "التنمية المجتمعية الدامجة للأشخاص ذوي الإعاقة: من النهج الطبي إلى الدمج و المشاركة" تغييراً جذرياً في طريقة دعم الأشخاص ذوي الإعاقة في المنطقة العربية. فالخدمات المقدّمة إلى هذه الفئة المجتمعيّة لا تزال تتّخذ منحىً طبيّاً، ما يحرم الملايين من أفرادها من المشاركة الكاملة في مجتمعاتهم. كذلك يُوجَّه الجزء الأكبر من الموارد إلى المؤسسات التقليدية التي تخدم أعداداً قليلة من الأشخاص ذوي الإعاقة، ولا تُخصص سوى موارد ضئيلة جدًا لتطوير برامج دامجة ومستدامة تضمن لهم العيش المستقل والمشاركة الفعّالة. ونظراً إلى أنّ هذا الواقع يخلق فجوةً واسعة بين التشريعات الطموحة وواقع الحال، تدعو السياسة المقترحة إلى إعادة تخصيص الموارد نحو بناء بيئات شاملة للأشخاص ذوي الإعاقة، من خلال دعم سبل العيش المستقلّ، وإزالة الحواجز المؤسسية والسلوكية، وتعزيز فرص التعليم والعمل المستدام.

The present policy brief examines three main barriers to women’s political participation in the Arab region, namely the limited application of temporary special measures, discriminatory laws and practices against women in the private and public spheres, and institutional attitudes towards women such as negative views and stereotypes about women’s capabilities in leadership roles. The brief presents best policy practices from Arab countries and globally that have contributed to closing the gaps across these three main dimensions related to women’s political participation. It also offers policy options for Arab Governments using specific country examples from the region to address existing barriers to increasing women’s political participation. It illustrates how these policy options can support countries in improving their performance on international developmental and gender equality indices. This policy brief is the third in a policy briefs series on “the contribution of development indices in closing the gender gap and advancing social and economic development”.

يبحث موجز السياسات هذا في ثلاثة حواجز رئيسية تعيق مشاركة المرأة في الحياة السياسية في المنطقة العربية، وهي التطبيق المحدود للتدابير الخاصة المؤقتة، والقوانين والممارسات التمييزية ضد المرأة في المجالَين الخاص والعام، والمواقف المؤسسية تجاه المرأة مثل الآراء السلبية والصور النمطية عن قدرات المرأة في الأدوار القيادية. ويعرض الموجز أفضل الممارسات في مجال السياسات العامة في البلدان العربية وحول العالم، التي ساهمت في سدّ الفجوات في هذه الأبعاد الرئيسية الثلاثة المتعلقة بمشاركة النساء في الحياة السياسية. كما يقدم الموجز للحكومات العربية خيارات في مجال السياسات العامة، مستعيناً بأمثلة من بلدان محدّدة في المنطقة لمعالجة الحواجز القائمة أمام زيادة مشاركة النساء في مضمار السياسة. ويوضح كيف يمكن لهذه الخيارات أن تدعم البلدان في تحسين أدائها على مؤشرات التنمية الدولية والمساواة بين الجنسين. وهذا الموجز الثالث هو جزءٌ من سلسلة موجزات في مجال السياسات العامة حول “مساهمة مؤشرات التنمية في سدّ الفجوة بين الجنسين والنهوض بالتنمية الاجتماعية والاقتصادية”.

Amid uneven SDG progress and overlapping crises, efforts to deliver sustainable development that leaves no one behind continue to face persistent, intersecting barriers—even where commitments are strong. Consider, for example, the experience of a woman with a disability in an informal settlement: she cannot afford assistive devices, faces inaccessible infrastructure, encounters weak enforcement of rules, experiences hiring bias and may struggle to evacuate during an earthquake. This scenario shows how multiple barriers converge to deepen exclusion. This policy brief highlights five dimensions where exclusion is often observed—affordability, access, governance, participation and external shocks, among others—and illustrates how governments are responding in each through policy examples and observations. Insights are drawn from 2024–2025 country implementation updates from thirteen countries that announced commitments at the 2023 SDG Summit, as well as 2025 Voluntary National Review (VNR) reports from three additional countries3 with such commitments. The analysis is intended to inform global policy discussions, including, as relevant, the World Social Summit under the title Second World Summit for Social Development.