The head of the UN migration agency, IOM, is strongly advocating for governments everywhere to respect the “fundamental right of healthcare” when it comes to ensuring vulnerable migrants and the displaced get equal access to COVID-19 vaccines.

In an interview for UN News, António Vitorino wants migrants to be included in all plans. The agency's Yasmina Guerda, began by asking the Director General to outline the overall impact of the pandemic on migrants and the displaced.

Nearly 60,000 people from Ethiopia’s volatile Tigray region have now crossed the border to remote southeastern Sudan, after more than two months of fighting, many with just the clothes on their backs. 

The emergency has created a massive protection challenge for the UN refugee agency in Sudan, UNHCR, which is doing everything it can to provide what they need, as spokesperson Axel Bisschop tells UN News’s Daniel Johnson. 

• UN chief urges restoration of law and order after Darfur killings 
• Libya talks in Geneva break deadlock with agreement on interim leadership deal 
• UN rights office calls for release of Russian dissident Navalny 

The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to hamper the efforts of developing countries to adapt to the climate crisis. This is the analysis of UN climate mitigation expert, Dr. Henry Neufeld.

Dr. Neufeld warns that, whilst the pandemic should have allowed governments to invest more use of green technologies, and bounce back stronger than before, there is little evidence so far that this is happening.
 

Migration is part of the modern world, and it is not going away despite a COVID slowdown, a UN official has told UN News.

Jorge Bravo from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), explained to Conor Lennon from UN News that the longer-term trend is showing an increase in the numbers of people leaving their countries of origin to live elsewhere.

This week’s show features the week’s news headlines, an interview with the World Food Programme (WFP) on the poorest of the poor in Madagascar, some of whom are eating mud and leaves to survive, and insight from regular guests from the UN Geneva team, Solange Behoteguy-Cortes and Alpha Diallo.

• Indonesia quake: eight confirmed dead, hundreds injured in Sulawesi emergency 
• Child labour scourge still affects one in 10 children, warns UN labour agency 
• CAR displacement reaches 120,000 after election violence: UNHCR 

• UN emergency relief chief warns over fallout of U.S. Yemen Houthi terror label
• Four UN peacekeepers killed, five wounded in attack in Mali
• Countries urged to speed up climate change preparation to protect against shocks

Compared to last year, everything is in place to successfully fight the devastating desert locust swarms that have been threatening food supplies and livelihoods across the Horn of Africa region, according to the senior UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) official, in charge of forecasting the pest’s movements.

Charlotta Lomas spoke to Keith Cressman, who said that $80 million was still needed to control the scourge, through the coming months.

What progress is the world making in adapting to the changing climate? And can nature itself provide the answers? This is the focus of the first episode of the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) State of the Planet podcast.

Valerie Kapos, from  the UNEP’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre, discusses the findings of the latest UNEP Adaptation Gap report with host Tim Albone.