Economic Growth & Sustainable Development
2020 Human Development Perspectives: Tackling social norms – a game changer for gender inequalities (UNDP)
Report in English, Press Release in English, French & Spanish: http://hdr.undp.org/en/GSNI
Despite decades of progress in closing the gender equality gap, close to nine out of 10 men and women around the world, hold some sort of bias against women, according to new findings published on 5 March 2020 from the UN Development Programmme (UNDP). The first UNDP Gender Social Norms Index analyzed data from 75 countries, which are collectively home to more than 80 per cent of the global population, and found new clues to the invisible barriers women face in achieving equality – potentially forging a path forward to breaking through the so-called “glass ceiling”. According to the data, almost half of those polled feel that men are superior political leaders, while more than 40 per cent believe they make better business executives and are more entitled to jobs when the economy is lagging. Moreover, 28 per cent think it is justified for a man to beat his wife. The analysis also highlighted a bias shift in some 30 countries, revealing that while some show improvements, attitudes in others appear to have worsened in recent years – signaling that progress cannot be taken for granted.
Achieving SDG 10: A Global Review of Public Service Inclusion Strategies for Ethnic and Religious Minorities (UNRISD Occasional Paper 5)
https://bit.ly/2WGP0MW
This paper, published by the UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), presents the results of a systematic review on strategies for the inclusion of minority ethnic and religious communities, often neglected populations in term of sustainable development activity. It focuses on four public service areas: education, health, local government and police services, and identifies evidence gaps with the overall aim of raising awareness and provoking debate and ultimately action on the inclusion of disadvantaged ethnic and religious minorities in public services.
Brexit beyond tariffs: The role of non-tariff measures and the impact on developing countries (UNCTAD Research Paper No. 42)
https://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ser-rp-2020d1_en.pdf
The United Kingdom left the European Union in January 2020. During a transition period that lasts until the end of 2020, the European Union and the United Kingdom aim to determine their future trade relations. In this Research Paper, we explore quantitatively the role of non-tariff measures (NTMs), including regulatory measures such as sanitary and technical requirements, in shaping the United Kingdom’s future trade relations with the European Union and the impact on developing countries. We simulate the possible impacts of Brexit using a panel data gravity model and compare the European Union membership effect with the effects of free trade agreements and customs unions.
Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation for International Transport Networks (UNECE)
https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/doc/2020/wp5/ECE-TRANS-283e.pdf
From road and rail networks to ports, airports and inland waterways, critical transport resources are facing unprecedented threats from a climate which is already changing. However, adapting transport systems to rising climate risks has so far received relatively low attention. Helping to address this gap, UNECE released a first of its kind study mapping key areas of the region’s main inland transport networks and nodes. This presents an initial perspective of areas of potential risk which could warrant more in-depth assessment, offering a tool to help prioritize adaptation efforts. This pioneering work has no equivalent in other regions. The study also draws on country experiences in the form of case studies, demonstrating a range of efforts that have been undertaken to analyze and adapt to climate impacts.
Dag Hammarskjöld Library Digitization Update – World Conference on Women
https://library.un.org/content/digitization-update-world-conf-women
From its very inception, the issues of women’s rights and the advancement of the status of women in all realms of society were brought to the table at the United Nations. At the San Francisco Conference in 1945, outspoken women delegates achieved that several articles on gender equality were included in the UN Charter. Eleanor Roosevelt, one of 17 women delegates and advisers at the first session of the General Assembly in London, in “An Open Letter to the Women of the World” called upon all women to grasp every opportunity to play a more active role in international affairs. Shortly thereafter, ECOSOC established the Commission on the Status of Women. Discussions about the advancement of women culminated in the proclamation of 1975 as the International Women’s Year. In 1975, the First World Conference of the International Women’s Year was held in Mexico City. The Conference marked the beginning of a new era of greater participation of women and girls in all aspects of social progress, development, and the search for peace, and urged Member States to recognize women’s rights and to develop policies to fully integrate women into all areas of life. The Dag Hammarskjöld Library has now digitized the complete documentation of the Conference, which can be accessed online in the UN Digital Library.
More information
AskDAG: Major UN conferences on women
Research Guide: Commission on the Status of Women
Research Guide: Women and Global Diplomacy:
From Peace Movements to the United Nations
Blue Book: The United Nations and the Advancement of Women, 1945-1996
 Education Progress
https://www.education-progress.org/
To mark International Education Day, the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report launched a new online interactive tool, Education Progress. Available in seven languages (including English, French, Spanish and German), the site brings together data from various sources, notably the GEM Report’s own analyses and UNESCO Institute for Statistics, to explore the progress made towards SDG 4, the global education goal. The majority of the visualisations are interactive – you can choose your country, region, or income group to visualise the bottlenecks and policy priorities from now until 2030 in five areas central to SDG 4- access, equity, learning, quality and finance. Everything is shareable and downloadable, users can create images and data files to explore further, print, or use online or in presentations.
 Global Employment Trends for Youth 2020: Technology and the future of jobs (ILO)
The number of young people currently not in employment, education or training (NEET) is rising, and young women are more than twice as likely as their male counterparts to be affected, according to a new International Labour Organization (ILO) report released on 9 March 2020. Young people (those aged 15-24) who are employed also face a greater risk than older workers of losing their jobs because of automation, and those with vocational training are particularly vulnerable, the report shows.
A new era for girls: Taking stock on 25 years of progress for girls (UNICEF, UN Women and Plan International)
https://www.unicef.org/media/65586/file/A-new-era-for-girls-2020.pdf
https://data.unicef.org/resources/a-new-era-for-girls-taking-stock-of-25-years-of-progress/
 In 1995, the global community adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action with the vision of improving the rights of women and girls. The analysis presented in this report demonstrates that while girls’ lives are better today than they were 25 years ago, the gains are uneven across all regions. The report calls on global, national and regional stakeholders to expand opportunities for girls and young women to be the changemakers and designers of the solutions to their challenges and opportunities; invest in the skills development of adolescent girls so they can compete in today’s labour market; improve girls’ health and nutrition; and end violence in all its forms against them.
Peatland mapping and monitoring: Recommendations and technical overview (FAO)
 http://www.fao.org/3/CA8200EN/CA8200EN.pdf
Peatlands cover only 3 percent of the world’s surface yet contain as much carbon as all of its vegetation, dramatically underscoring their pivotal role in global climate regulation. Their degradation, by drainage or fire or other forces, triggers their conversion from slow carbon sinks into fast sources capable of releasing carbon stored over millennia in a few decades. To avoid their degradation and effectively plan their restoration, peatlands should be urgently mapped and monitored. To help member states on this complex task, FAO launched this practical publication on 18 March 2020 full of accessible technical information about the world’s peatlands and recommendations on how to manage these special ecosystems. The publication is the joint work of 35 expert authors from 14 countries, and highlights experiences from tropical peatland countries such as Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Peru, and the temperate regions. Sixth report on the protection of the atmosphere / by Murase Shinya, Special Rapporteur (A/CN.4/736, 11 February 2020)
English, French & Spanish: https://undocs.org/A/CN.4/736
“The purpose of the present report is primarily to review the comments and observations made by States and international organizations since the adoption, on first reading in 2018, of the draft preamble and guidelines on the protection of the atmosphere. Attention is also paid to comments and observations received prior to the adoption on first reading, where such comments appear to remain pertinent to the current text.”
 Towards Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in the UNECE Region
https://www.unece.org/index.php?id=53936
The UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) launched on 17 March 2020 a first Regional report on progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This comes at a key juncture in the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda since its adoption in 2015, and will help to sharpen efforts as we enter the Decade of Action to deliver the SDGs. It describes the levels and trends of selected indicators relevant for the region, and highlights measurement challenges, to inform the Regional Forum on Sustainable Development for the UNECE Region on 19 March. In total, the report reviews 49 indicators across all 17 SDGs. For most indicators, the report looks at change over recent years.
 UNECE Dashboard for the SDGs
https://w3.unece.org/sdg/
The SDGs’ globally-agreed framework of 232 indicators allows everyone—governments, researchers, civil society, business and beyond—to keep track of how our countries are progressing towards environmental, social and economic sustainability. A new UNECE Dashboard for SDGs, launched ahead of the Regional Forum, brings together available data for UNECE’s 56 member countries, providing for the first time a regional perspective on the global indicators. With data for 80 regionally-relevant indicators across all 17 goals, users can see snapshots of where countries stand for each indicator, view differences between women and men; create graphs and maps; compare countries; access definitions and explanations; and download full datasets for more in-depth analysis.
 Women & Power
We’ve got the power — Women, adolescent girls and the HIV response (UNAIDS)
 https://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/
2020_women-adolescent-girls-and-hiv_en.pdf
This publication marks the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. It is dedicated to the women leaders and allied community mobilizers who have devoted their lives to advancing the human rights and dignity of all people affected by the HIV epidemic, and to opposing social injustice, gender inequality, stigma and discrimination, and violence. Unless otherwise indicated, the HIV-related statistics cited in this publication reflect the most recent UNAIDS data available. What do you want to know? FAO’s new open data policy makes fact-finding and information sharing easier
http://www.fao.org/fao-stories/article/en/c/1264748/
… Knowledge is meant to be shared, and FAO has always encouraged the use of our data to inform humanitarian work or enhance scientific advancement. However, now that we have adopted an open data licensing policy, it is easier for researchers, journalists, scholars, humanitarian workers or students to access, download, copy and use these data sets for free and for redistribution. …The Open Data policy applies to the following FAO databases: Agricultural Market Information Systems (AMIS), AQUASTAT: Global Information System on Water and Agriculture, FAOSTAT, FISHSTAT: Fisheries and Aquaculture database, Gender and land rights database (GLRD), Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS), Food Price Monitoring and Analysis (FPMA) Tool, FAO/WHO GIFT: Global Individual Food Consumption – Indicators only, not microdata, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Data Portal
 WMO Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2019
https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=10211
The tell-tale physical signs of climate change such as increasing land and ocean heat, accelerating sea level rise and melting ice are highlighted in a new report compiled by the World Meteorological Organization and an extensive network of partners. It documents impacts of weather and climate events on socio-economic development, human health, migration and displacement, food security and land and marine ecosystems. The “WMO Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2019” includes input from national meteorological and hydrological services, leading international experts, scientific institutions and United Nations agencies. The flagship report provides authoritative information for policy makers on the need for Climate Action.
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Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, the fifth United Nations Secretary-General, praised for his ability to foster dialogue and for leading the Organization through a turbulent decade, has passed away on 4 March 2020 at the age of 100.
