Impact
The WIID – an important source for the UN Economists Network report for the 75th Anniversary of the United Nations

New York, 17 September - The UN's top economists warned of crises of our own making if global 'megatrends' are left unchecked in a special report on six global megatrends. In a press release, UNDESA said, 'the chief economists in the United Nations system jointly identified climate change and nature degradation, inequalities, urbanization, rapid population changes and technological revolution as the five megatrends that will shape our world over the course of this century'. 

The report was released in advance of the UN General Assembly meetings as an urgent call to global leaders to act today to curb the potentially negative impacts of the megatrends identified. 

The chapter on inequalities relied extensively on data from the World Income Inequality Database (the WIID) – which is hosted by UNU-WIDER – to analyse income inequality trends globally. A major section of the chapter on inequalities was based on a WIDER Working Paper released earlier this year and written by UNU-WIDER Research Fellow Carlos Gradín, who leads the team maintaining the WIID and is an expert on inequality. Once again, the WIID has proven a valued source of information on inequalities globally and assisted UN economists and the United Nations in its work to monitor and address global trends.