The work of female humanitarians is hugely important and often comes at significant personal cost.

That’s according to Melissa Fleming, currently the communications chief for refugee agency UNHCR, but soon to take up her new post as head of Global Communications at the UN, who’s been speaking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson at a special World Humanitarian Day event in Geneva.

First, though, we’ll hear from Adiba Qasim, who was also at the event; she survived an ISIL massacre in Iraq in 2014 that claimed the lives of 70 family members.

Despite this trauma, she refuses to see herself as a victim and is now a human rights advocate. 

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Transformative change is needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – mobilizing civil society and individuals - but also through securing “national and a global leadership”. That’s according to the President of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA), Mr. Ola Elvestuen, who is also Norway’s Minister of Environment. In an interview with UN News’s Ben Malor, Mr. Elvestuen underscored the need to have environment challenges addressed urgently.