Growing private consumption, increased investment and strong government expenditure have improved the conditions for growth.

The Secretariat of the CDP met checkwith officials from various Ministries (Finance, Planning, Foreign Affairs), the Bureau of Statistics and the Prime Minister’s Office, as well as with representatives from the private sector (Chamber of Commerce and the garments association) and the Centre for Policy Dialogue.

Latin America and the Caribbean are headed for a mild economic recovery in 2017-2018. However, the region’s recovery remains shallow and uneven.

Emissions from tourism and trade are growing faster than those from road transport, if current trends persist they could double or even triple by 2050.

Economists from the Global Economic Monitoring Unit of the Development Policy and Analysis Division in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) are currently in Geneva to attend the DESA Expert Group Meeting on the World Economy.

Pingfan Hong, Director of the Development Policy and Analysis Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs delivered a keynote speech at the 2^nd Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Event held in Vienna, Austria from 26 to 28 September 2017. During the first session of the High-level Policy Dialogue, entitled “Global Goals for Local Impact: Strengthening Policy Coordination for the Successful Implementation of Development Goals”, Dr.

Costa Rica is one of the countries where UN-DESA has built capacities on the use of modelling tools to inform sustainable development policies. Pilar Garrido, Deputy-Minister of Planning and Economic Policy of Costa Rica highlighted that “investing in modelling and linking it with policy is actually one of the most important elements for implementing the SDGs. It is a long-term relationship, it is investing in our countries capabilities to build sustainable, coherent and evidence based policies. I think this effort needs to be sustained overtime.”

On 6 July 2017, the Development Strategy and Policy Analysis Unit of DPAD organized a seminar on “Frontier Issues: The impact of the technological revolution on labour markets and income distribution.” It was held in preparation for a forthcoming DESA study, in collaboration with the ILO, UNDP and UN-Women.

The most up-to-date indicators from the World Economic Situation and Prospects as of mid-2017 can now be found in our StatPlanet data visualization tool. StatPlanet allows users to easily browse through data regarding two main economic indicators; annual growth rate of real GDP and annual CPI inflation rate, for 176 UN Member States between 2001 and 2018.

A “Summer School on Modelling Tools for Sustainable Development” will be held from 12 to 28 June in Trieste, Italy. The Summer School will seek to deepen the modelling skills of some 30 government officials and 15 academics from eight countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America to inform sustainable development policies through more than 100 hours of intensive training sessions.