21 September 2012, New York
In its 2012 Report, the MDG Gap Task Force has had difficulty identifying areas of significant new progress towards delivering on commitments to the Global Partnership for Development, and for the first time there are signs of backsliding. The volume of official development assistance (ODA) fell for the first time in many years, obstacles to exports from developing countries are on the rise, and numerous developing countries are facing debt difficulties. Read more
5 July 2012, New York
The financial needs of developing countries have long outstripped the willingness and ability of donors to provide aid. Addressing this challenge, the survey proposes an international tax, combined with other innovative financing mechanisms, to raise more than $400 billion annually for development and global challenges such as fighting climate change. Read more
2 July 2012, New York
The report presents the yearly assessment of global progress towards the MDGs, highlighting several milestones – three important MDG targets have been met well ahead of the target date of 2015. The report says that meeting the remaining targets, while challenging, remain possible – but only if Governments do not waiver from their commitments made over a decade ago. Read more
8 June 2012, New York
The world economy is on the brink of another major downturn. Global economic growth started to decelerate on a broad front in mid-2011 and is estimated to have averaged 2.8 per cent over the last year. This economic slowdown is expected to continue into 2012 and 2013. The United Nations baseline forecast for the growth of world gross product (WGP) is 2.6 per cent for 2012 and 3.2 per cent for 2013, which is below the pre-crisis pace of global growth. Read more
7 April 2012, New York
Africa and Asia together will account for 86 per cent of all growth in the world’s urban population over the next four decades, adding that this unprecedented increase will pose new challenges in terms of jobs, housing and infrastructure. Africa’s urban population will increase from 414 million to over 1.2 billion by 2050 while that of Asia will soar from 1.9 billion to 3.3 billion, according to the 2011 Revision of the World Urbanization Prospects, produced by the UN Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). Read more
