UNCTAD warns oil price surges could add $20 billion yearly to import bills, hitting vulnerable economies and worsening poverty globally.

Nutrition is a cornerstone of rural transformation, linking healthy populations, resilient food systems and stronger local economies. Malnutrition costs the global economy up to US$3.5 trillion each year, while every dollar invested in nutrition can generate about US$23 in returns. The International Fund for Agriculture and Development (IFAD) promotes nutrition-sensitive investments that address the causes of malnutrition and strengthen sustainable food systems. Home-grown school feeding programmes illustrate this approach by improving children’s diets while creating reliable markets for small-scale farmers. In Kenya, IFAD-supported cooperatives supply nutritious grains to schools, boosting food security and livelihoods. Through partnerships with governments, donors and international agencies, including Norway-funded initiatives in seven African countries, IFAD has improved nutrition and livelihoods for over 263,000 rural people. 

IFAD’s public-private-producer partnerships connect companies with small farmers, increasing incomes, strengthening supply chains, and supporting sustainable rural development globally.

The ILO’s SCORE Programme is helping textile manufacturers in Albania improve productivity, workplace standards and wages, supporting business growth while creating better-quality jobs for local workers.

As conflict rises and aid declines, UNDP argues that investing in long-term development is essential to building resilience, reducing costs, and securing global peace and stability.

When psychosocial factors harm workers, they become hazards that, alongside physical, chemical and biological risks, must be addressed and managed to ensure safe and healthy working environments. Each year, an estimated 840,000 deaths are linked to psychosocial risks at work, underscoring the scale and urgency of the challenge. The 2026 campaign of the World Day for Safety and Health at Work (28 April) focuses on creating safe and healthy psychosocial working environments, tackling issues such as work-related stress, burnout and mental health, alongside physical safety.

The world is seeing a huge rise in the number of young people ready to work, especially in developing countries, but far too few jobs are being created. Governments don’t need to create all the jobs themselves. Instead, they should make it easier for businesses to start, grow, and hire by setting clear, fair, and predictable rules. When companies feel confident to invest, more jobs follow. If countries succeed, growth and stability will spread globally. If they fail, job shortages could lead to deeper poverty, migration, and unrest.

A global forum where developing countries collaborate, share debt management strategies, and strengthen collective capacity to address rising financial challenges.

The 2026 Financing for Sustainable Development Report finds that a worsening global context—marked by financing gaps, energy shocks, debt burdens, aid declines, and geopolitical fragmentation—is constraining progress on the SDGs. It highlights a “financing squeeze” in developing countries, with high borrowing costs and limited investment.  The report calls for implementing the Sevilla Commitment, a blueprint for action on financing development.

To protect low-income households, small businesses, farmers and vulnerable communities from financial risk, UNDP and partners roll out world’s largest Insurance Innovation programme.

Rising borrowing costs are shrinking fiscal space across developing countries, forcing governments to cut essential spending and delaying development investments.

India has approved its first smell trademark: Sumitomo’s rose‑scented tires, marking a shift in how the country handles non‑traditional marks. Because scents are hard to represent objectively, Sumitomo used scientific tools—like chromatography and mass spectrometry, to define the molecular fingerprint of its rose fragrance —to meet legal standards of clarity and non‑functionality. The case sets a precedent for sensory marks, highlights the need for guidelines and scientific support, and opens opportunities for scent‑based branding in India and beyond.

US tariff changes are unevenly altering competitiveness, creating winners and losers, limiting value chain upgrading, and reshaping global trade flows.

The world is shaped by fast crises and slow, powerful forces. Among the most significant is a coming wave: 1.2 billion young people in developing countries will soon enter the workforce, but far too few jobs await them. This story explores why this demographic surge is often overlooked, why it matters for global stability, and how early investment—in skills, infrastructure, and thriving businesses—could transform a looming risk into a historic opportunity.

UNCTAD’s 2025 report warns that service growth in least developed countries is limited by low productivity, weak digital capacity, and insufficient job creation, restricting broad-based prosperity.