FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS (FAO)

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022. Repurposing food and agricultural policies to make healthy diets more affordable. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2022; 260 p. ISBN 978-92-5-136499-4. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022 has been prepared by the FAO Agrifood Economics Division in collaboration with the Statistics Division of the Economic and Social Development Stream and a team of technical experts from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF),the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO). This year’s report first presents the latest updates of the food security and nutrition situation around the world, including updated estimates on the cost and affordability of a healthy diet. The report then takes a deep dive into “repurposing food and agricultural policy support to make healthy diets more affordable” through reducing the cost of nutritious foods relative to other foods and people’s income, which, in turn, helps countries make more efficient and effective use of – in many cases – limited public resources.

Thinking about the future of food safety. A foresight report. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2022; 158 p. ISBN 978-92-5-135783-5. In this publication, the FAO Food Safety Foresight programme provides an overview of the major global drivers and trends by describing their implications for food safety and for agrifood systems by extrapolation. The various drivers and trends reported include climate change, changing consumer behaviour and preferences, new food sources and production systems, technological advances, microbiome, circular economy, food fraud, among others. The intended audience for this publication is broad – from the policymakers, academia, food business operators, private sector, to the consumers.

UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION (UNESCO)

World heritage glaciers: sentinels of climate change. Paris: UNESCO Publishing 2022; 33 p. ISBN 978-92-3-100557-2. Glaciers are some of the most valuable indicators for understanding climate change. Among the most dramatic evidence that Earth’s climate is warming is the retreat and disappearance of glaciers around the world. Closely observing and quantifying this phenomenon is essential to develop effective adaptation responses. Around 18,600 glaciers have been identified in 50 World Heritage sites. These glaciers span an area of about 66,000 km², representing almost 10% of the Earth’s glacierized area. Research studies performed with satellite data highlight that these glaciers have been retreating at an accelerating rate since 2000. The most important protective measure to counteract substantial glacier retreat worldwide is to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If emissions are drastically cut to limit global warming to 1.5°C relative to pre-industrial levels, glaciers in two-thirds of World Heritage sites could be saved. At site level, adaptative measures need to be strengthened to respond to inevitable glacier changes in the near future. These include identifying knowledge gaps and improving monitoring networks, designing and implementing early warning and disaster risk reduction measures, making glaciers a focus of targeted policy, and promoting knowledge exchange, stakeholder engagement and communication. The successful implementation of these measures requires the mobilization of key stakeholders (e.g., governments, civil society, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and the private sector) to develop sustainable financing and investments, notably through the establishment of an international fund for glacier research and monitoring.

JOINT UNITED NATIONS PROGRAMME ON HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)

Dangerous inequalities: World AIDS Day report 2022. Geneva: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS 2022; 80 p. The world is not on track to end the AIDS pandemic. New infections are rising and AIDS deaths are continuing in too many communities. This report reveals why: inequalities are holding us back. This report calls the world’s attention to the painful reality that dangerous inequalities are undermining the AIDS response and jeopardizing the health security of everyone. The report highlights three specific areas of inequality for which concrete action is immediately possible: gender inequalities and harmful masculinities driving HIV; marginalization and criminalization of key populations, and inequalities for children whose lives must matter more than their market share.

Global AIDS Monitoring 2023. Indicators and questions for monitoring progress on the 2021 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS. Geneva: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS 2022; 168 p. This document is a detailed compilation of indicators and a suite of questions on national policies and their implementation designed for use by national AIDS programmes and partners to assess the state of a country’s HIV and AIDS response, and to measure progress towards achieving national HIV targets. Countries are encouraged to integrate these indicators and questions into their ongoing monitoring efforts and to report comprehensive national data through the Global AIDS Monitoring (GAM) process. In this way they will contribute to improving understanding of the global response to the HIV epidemic, including progress that has been made towards achieving the commitments and global targets set out in the new United Nations Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS: Ending Inequalities and Getting on Track to End AIDS by 2030, adopted in June 2021,1 and the linked Sustainable Development Goals.

ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT (OECD)

The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Telemedicine. OECD Health Policy Studies. Paris: OECD Publishing 2023; 180 p. ISBN 9789264484566 (HTML) ISBN 9789264758155 (EPUB) ISBN 9789264420038 (PDF). This report provides an update to a Health Working Paper published in January 2020, which showed that, while care delivered via telemedicine could be both safe and effective, telemedicine services represented only a small fraction of all health care activity and spending. At that time, providers and patients seeking to use telemedicine faced regulatory uncertainty, limited financing and reimbursement, and unclear governance. Just a few weeks later, in response to the unfolding COVID-19 crisis, governments across the OECD adopted broad non-pharmaceutical interventions to limit social contacts and mobility. With in-person care heavily restricted, governments and providers moved quickly to expand remote care services. Consequently, the number of remote consultations skyrocketed. The sudden increase in virtual care has had clear benefits, preserving access to and continuity of care. Yet, it has also laid bare the limits of remote care and added to concerns that some teleconsultations constitute low value care. This report provides an overview of national policies to implement and scale up remote consultations during the COVID-19 pandemic and tries to quantify the resulting boom in the use of telemedicine services; the impact that the massive shift to virtual care has had on health care system performance; and policy priorities for remote care as countries move to a post-acute stage of the COVID-19 pandemic.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION (ILO)

World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2023. Geneva: International Labour Organization 2023; 190 p. ISBN 9789220372913 (print) ISBN 9789220372920 (web PDF). This year’s Report provides a comprehensive assessment of current decent work deficits and how these have been exacerbated by multiple, overlapping crises in recent years. It analyses global patterns, regional differences, and outcomes across groups of workers. The report provides labour market projections for 2023 and 2024 and presents trends in labour productivity growth, analysing the factors contributing to its decline.

Greening Enterprises: Transforming processes and workplaces. Geneva: International Labour Organization 2022; 223 p. ISBN 978-92-2-032008-2 (print) ISBN 978-92-2-032007-5 (web PDF).
The conduct of enterprises is crucial to the natural environment’s well-being and to a just transition. Most enterprises, including small ones, are implementing measures to reduce waste and carbon emissions; in most cases this entails no cost or even a reduction in production costs. This is the first ILO research report focusing specifically on the transition of enterprises. What are enterprises of different sectors and sizes doing to reduce emissions? How are small enterprises in developing countries adapting to the just transition and what was the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the green transition? What policies promote enterprise productivity and environmental sustainability? These are some of the questions addressed in the report. The report considers the enterprise not only in terms of its production processes but also as a workplace. Through this approach, it has identified a range of measures that enterprises may use to become more environmentally sustainable and that also give workers a role in the process. Sustainable transport, increased resource intensity, waste management, work organization and sustainable food at work are increasingly part of enterprises’ efforts to curb their impact on the environment.

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (WHO)

Improving the lives of people with epilepsy. Technical brief. Geneva: World Health Organization 2022; 43 p. ISBN 978-92-4-006407-2 (electronic version) ISBN 978-92-4-006408-9 (print version). The technical brief presents the key information on epilepsy and recommends actions to policy makers and other stakeholders. Using the concept of levers for change introduced by the Operational Framework for Primary Health Care, it identifies actions on the policy and operational levels that national and local governments, policy-makers, and programme managers across various sectors at national and local levels should take to strengthen services for people with epilepsy using a person-centred approach based on human rights and universal health coverage.

The levers and corresponding actions and resources could also be useful in planning and programming by civil society groups, professional associations, academic institutions, organizations of people with epilepsy and their families and carers, development partners, and global and national funding initiatives. Each country can customize its multisectoral approach to epilepsy according to the setting and its priorities to achieve significant gains for its society and improve the lives of people with epilepsy.

The WHO AWaRe (Access, Watch, Reserve) antibiotic book. Geneva: World Health Organization 2022; 697 p. ISBN 978-92-4-006238-2 (electronic version) ISBN 978-92-4-006239-9 (print version).
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a threat to global health and development and it contributes to millions of deaths worldwide each year. Inappropriate use and overuse of antibiotics are driving an increase in AMR and have a detrimental impact on the effectiveness of these critical medicines. Given the urgency of the threat to human health from AMR, and the many clinical infections for which antibiotics play a lifesaving role, WHO took a pragmatic approach to developing simple, practical guidance on how they should be used. The WHO AWaRe (Access, Watch, Reserve) antibiotic book, produced as an adjunct to WHO’s Essential Medicines List (EML), provides concise, evidence-based guidance on the choice of antibiotic, dose, route of administration, and duration of treatment for more than 30 of the most common clinical infections in children and adults in both primary health care and hospital settings. The AWaRe system groups the hundreds of different antibiotics used globally into three simple categories – Access, Watch and Reserve – based on their clinical importance and the risk of their use promoting resistance. The AWaRe antibiotic book provides clear guidance on the choice of antibiotic, formulation, dose, and duration for essential antibiotics for hospital and primary health care settings, including guidance on when not to use antibiotics.

World malaria report 2022. Geneva: World Health Organization 2022; 293 p. ISBN 978-92-4-006489-8 (electronic version) ISBN 978-92-4-006490-4 (print version). Each year, WHO’s World malaria report offers in-depth information on the latest trends in malaria control and elimination at global, regional, and country levels. The report highlights progress towards global targets and describes opportunities and challenges for curbing and eliminating the disease. This year’s report includes 3 new sections on: global and regional initiatives launched in 2021 and 2022; global malaria surveillance and country-level case studies on surveillance systems assessments; and research and development. The report also includes an expanded section on threats to malaria control, with a focus on the declining effectiveness of insecticide-treated mosquito nets.