Sustainable development

The promotion of social progress and an improved standard of living as a precondition for the maintenance of international peace and security constitutes one of the central purposes of the UN Charter

Consequently, a vast majority of the United Nations' resources are devoted to raising the standards of living, promoting full employment and economic and social progress.

Sustainable development by topic

Economic and Social Council

The Economic and Social Council - ECOSOC - oversees and coordinates 
the economic and social work of the United Nations, its funds and programs and specialized agencies.

More on UN and sustainable development

UN documents and publications in catalogues and databases

  • United Nations Digital Library offers UN documents and open access publications, UN voting data and speeches, UN maps, Content in 6+ languages. Replaces the traditional online catalogue UNBISnet.
  • UN iLibrary UN publications online covering different topics.
  • ODS full-text UN documents published from 1993 onward and scanned documents published between 1946 and 1993 in the official languages of the UN.
  • Daily list of documents (ODS). Documents published for the day, with full text links, can be found in the United Nations full text database ODS.
  • UNBIS Thesaurus a multilingual database of the controlled vocabulary used to describe UN documents.
  • Index to proceedings is an annual bibliographic guide to the proceedings and documentation of the major UN organs. The index includes:
    • a list of all documents
    • a comprehensive subject index
    • an index to speeches
    • a voting chart of resolutions
  • United Nations Documents Index (United Nations Digital Library) References to all documents by subject area are published. A collection of indexes is held by the Dag Hammarskjöld and Law Library, Uppsala, and the Libraries at UN Headquarters in New York and Geneva.
Last modified: 2023-11-23