Hunger is often associated with developing countries, but food insecurity is also present in higher income countries, including the richest country in the world, the United States.
The UN wants more people to understand that a way to effectively tackle the problem, and take a big step towards ending hunger, is to reduce the billions of tonnes of food that are lost and wasted each year.
In the midst of COVID-19, we have an historic opportunity to look at the world as it is, based on the facts, and then focus on collective solutions, according to a special project undertaken by the United Nations this year to mark its 75th anniversary, and the fifth anniversary of the game-changing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Tune in to this special edition of our Lid is On podcast -Nations United: Urgent Solutions for Urgent Times, hosted by Hollywood great, Julia Roberts.
Although COVID-19 continues to dominate the headlines, a host of other global challenges have not gone away, such as conflict, famine and the existential threat posed by climate change.
The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, will try to refocus attention on some of these themes at the seventy-fifth session of the General Assembly, which opens this week.
If you’re wondering what the UN is doing to help prevent the kind of disaster that’s befallen Beirut, the Organization has an entire office dedicated to lowering the risks.
For this latest Lid is On podcast from UN News, Conor Lennon’s been finding out how the Office for Disaster Risk Reduction works tirelessly to persuade governments to put it at the heart of their decision-making.
The manufacture of ukuleles by a company in Hawaii is helping to promote Hawaii’s culture of aloha - reflecting love, kindness, understanding and compassion, with the added benefit of reforesting the US Pacific Ocean state.
For this latest in our Lid is On podcast series, from UN News, Daniel Dickinson reports from the iconic US island state, where climate action is mingling with an ancient Pacific culture.
Music: Hawaiian Supaman by Del Beazley; He Alii Ka Aina
by Cody Pueo Pata.
Both songs played and sung by Joe Souza.
As the coronavirus continues to spread worldwide, in developing countries it’s rural girls who are proving to be the most vulnerable to abuse during economic collapse and lockdown.
That’s the view of a young woman activist from Uganda, Zahara, who in this special edition of our Lid is On podcast, hosted by the UN sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA, joins the agency’s chief Natalia Kanem, plus leading child rights NGO, Plan International’s AB Albrectsen, in conversation to talk about the challenges facing women and girls during this unprecedented health crisis.
While many in the developed world are home schooling via Zoom and other online tools these days, in South Sudan, it’s old-fashioned radio that’s proving the best way to keep children on track with schoolwork.
The country is still recovering from a brutal, seven-year civil war, in which hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed. The UN Peacekeeping Mission in South Sudan, UNMISS, has a mandate to protect civilians and, during the COVID-19 pandemic, that includes providing advice on limiting the spread of the virus.
Countries must not forget routine lifesaving immunizations for diseases like measles, while racing to find a vaccine that will save millions of lives and end the COVID-19 pandemic.
That’s the message from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) vaccination programme director, Professor Kate O'Brien, who’s been talking in-depth to UN News for this latest Lid is On podcast, stressing also the importance of getting the facts, as misinformation rages online.
Music credit: Ketsa, ‘Live With No Fear’
In this special edition of our Lid Is On podcast, from UN News, we hear from independent UN human rights expert, Tendayi Achiume, who warns that apart from the coronavirus that’s destroying so many lives and transforming societies around the world, a virulent xenophobia and tide of racial hatred has also been unleashed, aided by what she calls “entrepreneurs of intolerance”.
Music credit: Ketsa: “Within the Earth”, and “Awaiting Her Return”
Yuriko was just a 12 year-old growing up in Hiroshima, when the devastating mushroom cloud enveloped the city in the morning of 6 August 1945.
Kathleen Burkinshaw’s novel The Last Cherry Blossom, tells Yuriko’s extraordinary survival story, a journey inspired by the life of the author’s mother, laying bare the importance of nuclear disarmament.
For this edition of our podcast show, The Lid is On, Ana Carmo spoke to Ms. Burkinshaw when she came to talk about the book, at the UN Bookshop in New York last year.
