DESA News

Volume 19, No.02 - February 2015

Trends and analysis


Facebook chat on world economy

2015wesp_infographic_enA Facebook chat will be held on 12 February from 10 am to 11:30 am EST, to discuss the current state of the world economy and forecasts for 2015 and 2016 as identified in the recently released World Economic Situation and Prospects 2015.

Oil prices: what goes down must come up? Will the EU economy hold up? How will the Russian economy fare amid the sanctions? Is the Chinese economy slowing down?

Economists from the Global Economic Monitoring Unit of UN DESA’s Development Policy and Analysis Division (DPAD) will be on hand to answer questions on the world economy and about the findings of their latest report, the World Economic Situation and Prospects 2015 launched on 19 January.

The report forecasts global economic growth to increase marginally over the next two years at 3.1 per cent in 2015 and 3.3 per cent in 2016, compared with an estimated growth of 2.6 per cent for 2014. An expected US interest rate increase, remaining euro area fragility, a further slowdown in developing economies and geopolitical conflicts pose major concerns for the global economic outlook.

“The report of the World Economic Situation and Prospects 2015 contains a lot of detailed analysis not only on the global economy, but also on the regional economic outlook,” says Pingfan Hong, the Director of DPAD, as he welcomes the online community to join the chat with his team of economists and the authors of the report.

You can post your questions at http://bit.ly/AskWESP2015 or via Twitter using the hashtag #AskWESP2015.

For more information: World Economic Situation and Prospects 2015
To join the Facebook chat: http://bit.ly/AskWESP2015

 

Data in support of post-2015 development agenda

control_centerExpert Group Meeting on the indicator framework for the post-2015 development agenda will be held on 25-26 February at UN Headquarters in New York.

UN DESA’s Statistics Division is organizing the event back-to-back with the forty-sixth session of the United Nations Statistical Commission, which will take place on 3-6 March.

The Expert Group Meeting, with broad participation of representatives from national statistical systems and international and regional organizations, will discuss the development of the indicator framework for the post-2015 development agenda. The objective is to reach a common understanding of how this work will be conducted within the available time frame.

Statistical experts from civil society, academia and private sectors will also participate. The outcome of the meeting will be presented to the Statistical Commission at its forty-sixth session under agenda item 3: Data in support of the post-2015 development agenda.

For more information:

Calendar of events of UN DESA’s Statistics Division