News

By Perks Master Ligoya, Ambassador of Malawi, and Paul Akiwumi, Director for Africa and Least Developed Countries, UNCTAD

A new UNCTAD tool measures countries' capacity to achieve social and economic transformation and helps track their ability to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

UNCTAD says uncertainty about the COVID-19 pandemic’s evolution and the global investment policy environment will continue to affect FDI flows in 2021. For developing countries, the prospects for 2021 are a major concern.

Guidelines to help governments, companies and consumers benefit from sustainable trade in precious plants and animals now include elements such as climate resilience and marine biodiversity.

Here’s why the UN has dedicated a whole year to the creative economy and its critical role in promoting sustainable development, especially in a post-coronavirus world.

UNCTAD Secretary-General sets down roadmap for health, productivity, prosperity and fixing a fractured global economy scarred by the coronavirus pandemic ahead of its October 2021 quadrennial conference in Barbados.

The COVID-19 economic crisis is forecast to reverse years of painstaking development progress in education and nutrition, and to pull 32 million people back into extreme poverty.

The SDG Trade Monitor offers a one-stop shop for users to obtain updated and disaggregated official data on global trade’s contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

UNCTAD estimates show a 5% drop in world trade in the third quarter of 2020 compared to 2019, an improvement from the 19% decline in the second quarter but insufficient to pull trade out of the red.

By Steve MacFeely, Chief Statistician, UNCTAD