Interviews

The Black Lives Matter movement that is sweeping the world, has its origins in the transatlantic slave trade of the 16th century, and new impetus today, to honour and preserve the resting places of those who were enslaved, and their descendants.  

Back in the 1990s, Peggy King Jorde was working as a designer in the New York City mayor’s office when she heard that a building slated for construction was due to be built on top of an African-American burial ground in lower Manhattan. 

Empowering girls in Africa can put them on the fast track to achieve their aspirations and basic rights to which they’re entitled, but too often denied.  

That’s according to the UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, who is on a two-week solidarity visit to West Africa and the Sahel to underscore the United Nations’ support for the region, during the on-going COVID-19 pandemic.  

As the UN’s first-ever Victims’ Rights Advocate, Jane Connors has to confront an uncomfortable reality: sexual abuse and exploitation – or SEA for short - carried out by UN personnel.

Her most recent report detailed eighty SEA cases at peacekeeping and political missions in 2019, and 95 allegations recorded at other UN entities.

The southeast Asian nation of the Philippines has been pummeled by the third major storm in three weeks, adding to the pain and suffering of thousands of families. 

Typhoon Vamco (locally known as Ulysses) made landfall on Wednesday night and although it is much weaker than Super Typhoon Goni, it brought catastrophic flooding across the capital Manila, a sprawling and densely populated city.  

The opening of two provincial offices for UN agencies operating in Papua New Guinea, reaffirms the Organization’s commitment to sustainable peace and development, senior officials there have said.  

The new offices are in Tari and Mendi, located in the remote Highlands Region, a mountainous and heavily forested part of the Pacific island nation that is difficult to access. 

Gianluca Rampolla is the UN Resident Coordinator for the country, often referred to by the acronym “PNG”. 

The COVID-19 pandemic could threaten food security across the entire world, if urgent action is not taken.  

That’s prompted the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to launch a new COVID-19 Response and Recovery Programme, which aims to mitigate the immediate impacts of the pandemic while also strengthening food systems and livelihoods in the long-term.  

In Pakistan, women are major contributors to agricultural production and food security for their families, but like many other nations, the COVID pandemic has exacerbated an already alarming gender gap there.

That’s especially true for rural women, where the amount of work and responsibility that they have to shoulder has gone up, leading to a decrease in living standards, as they’re forced to stay at home and care for others.

Ensuring forests retain their rich biodiversity and continue contributing to the health and safety of communities everywhere, can help boost recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

That’s the view Ewald Rametsteiner, Forestry Deputy Director at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) who points out that deforestation and degradation, is one way that dangerous viruses such as Ebola, have made their way into the human population in recent decades.

The announcement that the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize is being described as an “amazing day” for its workers in the field, who put their lives on the line to help at-risk communities. 

That’s the message from Matthew Hollingdale, head of the agency’s South Sudan operation. 

Sudan has been hit by devastating floods, the worst seen in decades, impacting more than 600,000 households across 17 of the country’s 18 states.  

With homes destroyed and farmland damaged just ahead of the harvest season, it’s been another shock amid multiple crises.  

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), urgent funding is needed to support a country already facing alarmingly high rates of hunger and food insecurity.