All publications and documents

The social networking site has become a formidable broadcasting tool and an indispensable communication channel for international organisations to amplify their messages to a global audience. No international organisation can ignore the power of digital communications and especially Twitter. In the latest installment of the award-winning Twiplomacy study, global public relations and…

One in four undernourished people in the world live in Africa: Africa is the only continent where the absolute number of undernourished people has increased over the last 30 years. Food insecurity remains an essentially rural phenomenon. It affects the rural world more than cities because the people producing food often do not make enough to feed their families due to the lack of adequate access…

The first publication of the Energy-Water initiative, introduces the energy-water nexus, examines the water requirements of power generation and outlines some potential technical and institutional solutions for improving the management of the nexus. Today, more than 780 million people lack access to potable water, and over 1.3 billion people lack access to electricity. At the same time,…

With this fourth assessment of the gap between ambitions and needs, the United Nations Environment Programme seeks to inform governments and the wider public on how far the response to climate change has progressed over the past year, and thus whether the world is on track to meet the 2° C target. In addition to reviewing national pledges and actions, this year’s assessment, for the first time,…

Deviations from normal precipitation and mild temperatures systematically increase the risk of conflict, often substantially. This relationship is apparent across spatial scales ranging from a single building to the globe and at temporal scales ranging from an anomalous hour to an anomalous millennium. Each 1-SD change in climate toward warmer temperatures or more extreme rainfall increases the…

This document is aimed at the general public and provides an overview of Germany’s commitment to implementing the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.It is based largely on the latest biennial German national report in which Germany, party to the UNCCD and host state of the UNCCD Secretariat in Bonn, describes the measures taken in 2010 and 2011 to support the implementation of…