The Lid is On

Not many school commutes involve having to go through checkpoints and body searches, but that’s the daily reality for some 163 Palestinian youngsters in Hebron, a bustling city in the southern part of the West Bank. 

During a recent visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Reem Abaza, of UN News, went inside the closed zone for this edition of our Lid Is On podcast, to speak with students and teachers from Qurtuba School.

In this week’s episode of our flagship podcast, The Lid Is On, Conor Lennon from UN News looks at the United Nations' efforts to make big business part of the solution for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 - not much more than 11 years away.

His guest is Dan Thomas, Head of Communications from UN Global Compact, the world’s biggest corporate sustainability initiative, with a mission to bring companies in line with universal principles on human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption.

Disarmament is too important to be left to the experts.

That’s the view of Renata Dwan, Director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), who says young people and civil society have a vital role to play in arms control, at this turbulent time in world history.

For our latest Lid Is On podcast, from UN News, Paulina Greer talks to her about ridding the world of nuclear and other weapons, and she explains why that’s not just some utopian dream these days – it’s a practical necessity.

How can the United Nations, created in the aftermath of the Second World War, stay relevant to today’s young people?

At this year’s High-Level Week of the General Assembly, the UN Secretary-General launched the Youth2030 Strategy, an ambitious plan to get the UN to step up its support for the empowerment of young people, and harness their talents for the global good.

This is the first in a series of special episodes of The Lid Is On, recorded during High-Level week of the General Assembly, and featuring some of the many experts, UN officials and politicians who filled UN Headquarters during late September 2018.

Conor Lennon kicks off with a look at digital technology, and how it is being used to tackle some of the world's biggest problems, from climate change to disaster relief.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that about 800,000 people died in 2016 by their own hand, mostly in low- and middle-income countries.

As this week marks World Suicide Prevention Day, WHO is appealing to countries to develop suicide prevention strategies and a toolkit has been developed to help communities address the issue effectively.