At least 242 million students in 85 countries had their schooling disrupted by extreme climate events in 2024, including heatwaves, tropical cyclones, storms, floods, and droughts, exacerbating an existing learning crisis, according to a new UNICEF analysis released today.

In 2024, global employment expanded in line with a growing labour force, keeping the global unemployment rate steady at 5 per cent, similar to that of 2023. Slowing productivity growth remains a major bottleneck with respect to expanding the opportunities for decent work.

A double-whammy of El Niño and long-term climate change hit Latin America and the Caribbean in 2023, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Drought, heat, wildfires, extreme rainfall and a record-breaking hurricane had major impacts on health, food and energy security and economic development.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) launched the World Migration Report 2024, which reveals significant shifts in global migration patterns, including a record number of displaced people and a major increase in international remittances.

The global agrifood system has been largely overlooked in the fight against climate change. Yet, greenhouse gas emissions from the agrifood system are so big that they alone could cause the world to miss the goal of keeping global average temperatures from rising above 1.5 centigrade compared to preindustrial levels.

The need to adapt to climate change is undisputed, as evidenced by the increasing commitments being made to adaptation. Despite the recognized need, there are significant challenges that make it very difficult to track, monitor, and evaluate adaptation.

Global megatrends such as income inequality, climate change, demographic shifts, technological progress, and urbanisation are shaping the future of societies. Yet, their quantitative impacts on development are neither well understood nor established.

This brief examines solutions on the Adaptation at Altitude Solutions Portal that have been implemented either across borders or in multiple countries with shared borders. These transboundary solutions were then categorised according to the type of risk that they primarily address: hazards, risks to shared resources, ecosystem risks.