Publication

The report gives an overview of river flow, as well as major floods and droughts. It provides insights into hotspots for changes in freshwater storage and highlights the crucial role and vulnerability of the cryosphere (snow and ice). The report also shows how large areas of the globe recorded drier than normal conditions in 2021 - a year in which precipitation patterns were influenced by climate change and a La Niña event.

By mid-2022, the lack of water and pasture had killed 439,400 livestock in Turkana and 273,000 in Marsabit, Kenya. Some water sources, such as boreholes, are no longer functional due to the drought. Because of insufficient resources, the government and humanitarian response remains inadequate to meet the needs of the affected population.

The present report has followed three eras of global inequality: the first, from 1820 until 1950; the second, from 1950 to 2000; and the current one of decreasing inequality thanks to the rise of Asian incomes. Whether global inequality will continue on its downward trend depends now much more on changes in India and large African countries than on China.

Income inequality and poverty will rise if the purchasing power of the lowest paid is not maintained. In addition, a much-needed post-pandemic recovery could be put at risk. This could fuel further social unrest across the world and undermine the goal of achieving prosperity and peace for all.

Through smart city initiatives, digital technologies are increasingly applied in cities to modernize city operations and transform service delivery. The ongoing digital transformation provides new opportunities but also creates challenges, and it is increasingly apparent that delivering effective urban digital services is a complex task

The G7 has launched a partnership designed to help developing countries ‘build back better’ after COVID-19. This ambition is coming up against multiple challenges, but the pandemic created an opportunity to transform international development assistance and promote sustainable economic growth

Biodiversity is a classic example of a global commons. As entering the coming decades of a rapidly changing climate, declining biodiversity, growing human populations and economic growth, sub-Saharan Africa countries are facing an existential challenge to their security and welfare.

This report aims at inspiring strategic thinking and actions to transform agrifood systems towards a sustainable, resilient and inclusive future. It analyses major drivers of agrifood systems and explores how their trends could determine alternative futures of agrifood, socioeconomic and environmental systems.

This report finds that electric mobility is increasingly relevant for low- and middle-income countries. As of today, electric mobility for passengers is a comparative rarity across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In some of the LMIC leading markets, electric vehicles account for less than 0.5 percent of total sales.

This report provides an annual snapshot of the progress of the buildings and construction sector on a global scale and reviews the status of policies, finance, technologies, and solutions to monitor whether the sector is aligned with the Paris Agreement goals. It also provides stakeholders with evidence to persuade policymakers and the overall buildings and construction community to take action.

The 2022 elections saw the first-ever female presidential running mate for one of the major coalitions, and increases in the number of women elected to county governments and as governors. Despite these wins, however, the constitutional gender quota was far from being achieved in this election cycle and many women politicians are still exposed to violence.

A key challenge faced by many entities working to end violence against women is ensuring that survivors’ voices and inputs are incorporated into policies, practices, and procedures on response. Not all women and girls experience violence in the same way. An effective intervention takes into account the realities of their unique circumstances, addresses individual needs, and reduces the risk for further harm and suffering.

There is widespread recognition of the global environmental impact of agricultural production on greenhouse gas emissions, but evidence is sparse regarding the impact in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This study treats agricultural emissions as an undesirable output from agricultural production and apply the directional distance function to measure environmentally-adjusted technical efficiency in six countries in the MENA region during the period 1980–2016.

Peace and security is an area in which the EU-Africa partnership has been particularly effective – despite the political falling outs of recent years. The partners’ different responses to the Ukraine crisis, for example, highlights their differing views on the global order.

As the COVID‐19 crisis recedes, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is back to work and looking forward. The new and unwelcome entrant in the policy space is inflation. While comparable to advanced country levels and well managed by regional monetary authorities, inflation nonetheless is being propelled by forces that may give it more staying power than originally hoped.

Climate change is already affecting people’s lives and livelihoods in Angola, as well as the Angolan economy. The country is experiencing increasingly severe and frequent climate hazards, including the South’s worst prolonged droughts in decades. Climate change impacts also come with a heavy price tag: climate-related disasters (floods, storms, droughts) cost Angola nearly US1.2 billion dollars between 2005 and 2017, and on average droughts alone affect about a million Angolans every year.

This report explains how rising climate and disaster risk can increase the vulnerability of Asia and the Pacific region’s urban poor and how engendering systemic change can strengthen their resilience.

Informality remains widespread in South Asia despite decades of economic growth. The low earnings and high vulnerability in the informal sector make this a major development issue for the region. Yet, there is no consensus on its causes and consequences, with the debate polarized between a view that informality is a problem of regulatory evasion and should be eradicated, and another which equates informality with economic exclusion

Uzbekistan has significantly improved its monetary policy framework during 2017-21. Nevertheless, the transition to inflation targeting is challenging as the country is going through a period of deep structural reforms.

Central America is one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to extreme climate events. The literature estimates the macroeconomic effects of climate events mainly using annual data, which might underestimate the true effects as these extreme events tend to be short-lived and generate government and family support in response.