Sustainable Cities and Communities

Indigenous Peoples represent an important and diverse global population.

This strategy paper was written under the supervision of Robertha Reid, Senior Advisor, Office of the Executive Director, and René Alarcón, Senior Trade Promotion Officer, Office of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The United Nations Statistics Division’s (UNSD) mission in the area of energy statistics is to strengthen national statistical systems in order to provide high quality energy statistics and balances. UNSD collects annual and monthly energy statistics and disseminates them on flagships data publications: The Energy Statistical Yearbook, the Energy Balances, the Electricity Profiles, and the Energy Statistics Pocketbook.

Blended finance is most relevant for investments with high sustainable development impact that are not attracting private investment but still have a solid business rationale and potential cash flows. While blended finance can be an option to support post COVID-19 recovery efforts, a new approach to blended finance is necessary to improve its impact. This approach should include: Developing country-led blended finance analysis, within an Integrated National Financing Framework (INFF), to guide development partners on where and how to use blended finance; Shifting focus to sustainable development impact, rather than bankability and leverage volumes; Enhancing transparency in reporting and monitoring, and providing capacity development; Using non-concessional resources (such as from development banks) when possible. This would allow official development assistance (ODA) to be used directly for support of social sectors that may be less suitable for blended finance transactions.

This policy brief reviews the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis in Africa and presents the continent’s social protection responses. The crisis has hit the poorest and most vulnerable hardest and laid bare structural shortcomings such as inadequate health, educational and technological infrastructure, limited social protection, gender inequality, large informal economies, lack of access to basic services, constrained fiscal policy space and a high risk of debt distress in many countries, making them particularly vulnerable to the lasting effects of the pandemic. African countries have realized the need to scale-up social protection programmes and measures to meet the challenges brought about by the COVID-19 crisis as well as to ensure preparedness for other unexpected future events. Thus, they have introduced or adapted over 200 social protection and labour market policies in response to the pandemic. Recognizing the ongoing efforts as well as the persistent gaps and challenges, the brief stresses the need for allocating adequate resources for social protection systems and programmes, aiming for universal coverage to adequately address the different risks and vulnerabilities that individuals face throughout the lifecycle. It also urges development partners to provide financing support to the poorest countries to help them create fiscal space for increased public spending for social protection that is sustainable and equitable through multilateral development co-operation as well as national and regional multi-sectoral partnerships.

This research brief is one of a series of five briefs, which provide an overview of available evidence shown in the Campbell-UNICEF Mega-Map of the effectiveness of interventions to improve child well-being in low- and middle-income countries. These briefs summarize evidence as mapped against the five goal areas of UNICEF’s 2018–2021 Strategic Plan, although it is anticipated that they will also be useful for others working in the child well-being space.

This paper proposes a projection of macroeconomic and environmental conditions to 2030 in order to help clarify some of the likely major Economic and Environmental challenges facing Developing Economies in their efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Using the United Nations Policy Model, the paper also assesses the dynamics and potential impact on Developing Economies of policy changes that could help the world to make substantial progress by 2040 in reaching the ambitious, but absolutely necessary, target of Zero Net Carbon Emissions by mid-century.