Research on Frontier and Emerging Issues

For 153 countries, we estimate the potential of recovering/recycling six energy transition critical minerals—aluminium, cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel and rare earth elements—from their waste and scrap, if these countries have access to the latest technologies.

According to the World Social Report 2024, urgent global action is needed to support national efforts to address the setbacks caused by the recent global crises, and to avoid the conversion of future shocks to crises. The report explains that, in our current global policy environment, shocks more readily turn into crises that cross boundaries, demanding international action. Particularly as such crises disproportionately impact the most vulnerable people, societies and countries.

The inevitability of preparing for a future with an older population adds to the urgency with which countries need to improve how they prepare young people for the jobs of today and the future. Without a large boost in labour productivity, the potential economic benefits due to an influx of young workers will remain unrealized at the scale needed for such a future.

Population ageing is a defining global trend of our time. People are living longer, and more are older than ever before.

To address the existing barriers to the adoption of these technologies, it is important to invest in digital literacy in rural areas, establish a new generation of agricultural extension services, make digital platforms user-friendly for smallholder farmers and build up infrastructure for agricultural e-commerce.

In charting out the way forward, Sustainable Development Outlook 2021 focuses on policy efforts that are cross-cutting in nature and have positive effects on multiple SDGs.

Policies that aim at facilitating the uptake of the lithium-ion battery without compromising environmental impacts should create incentives at various stages of the battery value chain, including the closed-loop recycling system.

New approaches made possible through improved access and Internet connectivity can raise the standard of living for approximately 3.4 billion people living in rural areas, without them having to migrate to cities, according to the newly released 2021 World Social Report “Reconsidering Rural Development.”

Economic growth has slowed down dramatically and poverty is on the rise everywhere. Questions therefore have arisen whether these setbacks will have a permanent effect, jeopardizing progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).