Many young people around the world — especially the disadvantaged — are leaving school without the skills they need to thrive in society and find decent jobs.

As well as thwarting young people’s hopes, these education failures are jeopardizing equitable economic growth and social cohesion, and preventing many countries from reaping the potential benefits of their growing youth populations.

The 2012 Education for All Global Monitoring Report will examine how skills development programmes can be improved to boost young people’s opportunities for decent jobs and better lives.

This flagship report is a comprehensive review that gives an overall picture of the world’s freshwater resources. It analyses pressures from decisions that drive demand for water and affect its availability. It offers tools and response options to help leaders in government, the private sector and civil society address current and future challenges.

The hidden crisis: Armed conflict and education documents the devastating effects of armed conflict on education. It examines the widespread human rights abuses that are keeping children out of school.

Migration and Climate Change provides the first authoritative overview of the relationship between climate change and migration, bringing together both case studies and syntheses from different parts of the world.

Social science from Western countries continues to have the greatest global influence, but the field is expanding rapidly in Asia and Latin America, particularly in China and Brazil.

The United Nations World Water Development Report, published every three years, is a comprehensive review providing an authoritative picture of the state of the world's freshwater resources. It offers best practices as well as in-depth theoretical analyses to help stimulate ideas and actions for better stewardship in the water sector. It is the only report of its kind, resulting from the collaboration and contributions of the 26 UN agencies, commissions, program, funds, secretariats and converntions that have a significant role in addressing global water concerns.

This report analyzes all aspects of cultural diversity, which has emerged as a key concern of the international community in recent decades, and maps out new approaches to monitoring and shaping the changes that are taking place. It highlights, in particular, the interrelated challenges of cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue and the way in which strong homogenizing forces are matched by persistent diversifying trends.

A unique guide to every UNESCO World Heritage site. The global list has proved a valuable tool in the battle to preserve the world’s heritage. Managed by the World Heritage Committee with strict criteria, only the world’s most spectacular and extraordinary sites making it onto the List.

The Report reviews the role of engineering in development, and covers issues including poverty reduction, sustainable development, climate change mitigation and adaptation. It presents the various fields of engineering around the world. The first ever international report on engineering from UNESCO is intended to identify issues and challenges facing engineering, promote better understanding of engineering and its role, and highlight ways of making engineering more attractive to young people, especially women.

The latest in a series which analyses the status of science worldwide every five years, the UNESCO Science Report 2010 is divided into national and regional chapters, each written by experts who hail from the same country or region they are covering.

The Arctic is undergoing rapid and dramatic environmental and social transformations due to climate change. This has ramifications for the entire planet, as change spreads through interconnected global networks that are environmental, cultural, economic and political. Today, with the major thrust of research shifting away from deciphering causes and monitoring trends, the central preoccupation of a growing circle of actors has become the exploration of strategies for responding and adapting to climate change.

Following from the Sixth Phase of UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme (2002-2007), the Urban Water Series - UNESCO-IHP addresses fundamental issues related to the role of water in cities and the effects of urbanization on the hydrological cycle and water resources.