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United Nations Research Guide

Guide to information created by the UN and the UN Family of Organizations. Grateful acknowledgement to Jim Church, University of California Berkeley Libraries, whose work is the basis for this guide.

Organizations & Key Works

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.  UN organization working to eradicate hunger, food insecurity and poverty, and for the sustainable use of land, water, air, climate and genetic resources.

United Nation's Children's Fund.  See also their Innocenti Research Office for additional publications and databases addressing children and development.

United Nations Development Group.  Unites the 32 UN funds, programmes, agencies, departments, and offices that play a role in development.  Led by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).  United Nations' Development agency and leader of the UN Development Group. Provides advice, training, and support to developing countries via a system of country offices worldwide.

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). United Nations body promoting the integration of developing countries into the world economy. See also the UNCTAD/UNDP Global Programme on Globalization and the UNCTAD/WTO International Trade Center.

United Nations Economic and Social Council. The United Nations Economic and Social Council is the UN principal organ for coordination of economic work of the five regional economic commissions, listed below.

United Nations and Business Web site. Provides information on partnerships and alliances between the UN and the private sector to help further the UN Millennium Development Goals.

UN Habitat. United Nations agency for human settlements mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all.

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). United Nations agency devoted to population and related issues.  State of  World Population is their flagship. 

UN Women. United Nations entity working for the empowerment of women and girls.

UN OHRLLS. UN Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries & Small Island Developing Countries.

United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). United Nations agency mandated to promote industrial development and international industrial cooperation.

United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). UN agency conducting research on the social dimensions of world development. Includes hundreds of documents on a wide range of social development issues.

World Food Programme. The food aid agency of the United Nations and largest provider of food aid in the world.

Search Tools

Commodity Trade Statistics Database (COMTRADE). Database for commodity trade between countries for 40 years.

DevInfoContains  official UN statistics used in monitoring the world’s progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. The database is published by the United Nations Statistics Division.

FAOSTAT. Statistical databases covering agriculture, food production, trade, forest products, fisheries and more.

Food Aid Information System (FAIS).  Comprehensive data on food aid flows from the World Food Programme.

Global Urban Observatory. United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UNCHS) collection of databases, with statistical data on urban indicators, human settlements, and city profiles worldwide.

Human Development Report Statistics. Statistics from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Links to the text of national human development reports from over 250 countries and regions.

Millennium Indicators Database. Database of indicators measuring progress towards the Millennium Development goals, adopted by the United Nations Secretariat, IMF, OECD and World Bank.

UNICEF Innocenti Research Databases. Several databases addressing child poverty statitics from UNICEF, including the MODA database on child deprivation.

UNCTADStat. Includes a number of numeric databases dealing with trade and development statistics, including the UNCTAD Handbook of Statistics, the Foreign Direct Investment Database.

UNData. Provides economic, social, cultural, and demographic indicators for countries of the world. Some data therein reaches back to the 1940s with some projections to 2050.

UNIDO Industrial Statistics Industrial statistics from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. UCB subscribes to the Database at the 3-digit level of ISIC (Rev. 2), accessible at the Library Data Lab.

World Income Inequality Database. Information for over 140 countries on income inequalities at both cross-country and time series levels from 1950-98.

FAO Document Depository.  Online archive and library for digital copies from the FAO. Contains publications, journals, meeting documents, technical reports and other information produced by FAO offices worldwide.

Industrial Development Abstracts. From the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). Covers industrial governance, technology, small business development, environmental management, agro-industries and industrial energy.

Millennium Indicators Database. Database of text and indicators measuring progress towards the Millennium Development goals, adopted by the United Nations Secretariat, IMF, OECD and World Bank.

Rural Poverty Portal. Excellent portal also "powered by" the International Fund for Agricultural development on a wide range of poverty issues, country reports and development strategies, from international agencies world wide, including development banks and other international organizations.

Rural Poverty Knowledgebase. Portal of projects and programmes on poverty issues affecting countries world wide. From the International Fund for Agticultural Development (IFAD).

UNDP Human Development Report LibraryThe web site includes the UNDP flagship publication the Human Developmen Report, as well as national human development reports from over 250 countries and regions.