Interviews

“We can’t afford not to invest in prevention and peacebuilding” – that’s the view of newly-minted UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support, Elizabeth Spehar.

In an interview with UN News, she gave the example of the effectiveness of the Peacebuilding Fund in the Gambia, where UN agencies have supported nationwide consultations on truth and reconciliation. One beneficiary testified that Gambians “now aspire to live in peace in this country.”

Demonstrating the wide-ranging consequences of the climate crisis, the UN Human Rights Council has appointed the first-ever Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in the context of Climate Change. Ian Fry, who is of Australian and Tuvalu heritage, teaches environmental policy at the Australian National

University in Canberra. As UN Special Rapporteur, he will be tasked with studying how climate change affects the full enjoyment of human rights, and recommend ways to prevent these effects.

The war in Ukraine is having a “ripple effect” in South Sudan, where the World Food Programme (WFP) is working to feed millions of people battered by conflict, unprecedented flooding, and displacement.  

Food prices in the world’s youngest nation were already increasing because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the war has disrupted supply chains, resulting in rising costs for staples such as sorghum, maize and vegetable oil. 

Fuel prices have also skyrocketed, and WFP is now spending $1 million dollars more each month to keep its trucks on the road. 

How can we tackle the lack of digital access that many developing countries face?

And how can we use digital tools to save our environment, fight inequality and help all nations benefit from the online economy? These are some of the challenges that the UN trade and development body, known as UNCTAD, is focusing on during this year’s eCommerce Week, from 25 to 29 April.

Yessie Mosby is best known as one of the “Torres Strait Eight”, the activists from the islands north of the Australian mainland, who complained to the UN Human Rights Council that the government was not doing enough to protect them from the effects of the climate crisis.

In this interview with the UN’s Julia Dean, recorded earlier this month, Mr. Mosby described the devastating effects of the rising sea levels and extreme weather events in recent years, and his fears for the future.

In the West African country of Senegal, the most common form of human trafficking among children is forced begging.

Alline Pedra, a Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Officer with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), is working with authorities in Senegal on procedures to prevent, investigate and prosecute cases of human trafficking.

UNODC’s Louise Potterton spoke to the anti-human trafficking expert for UN News.

Ms. Pedra began by explaining why children were being victimized.

Repeated warnings of the effects of the war in Ukraine on developing countries reached a new pitch on 13 April, when UN humanitarian agencies said that millions of displaced families across eastern Africa will fall deeper into hunger, as food rations dwindle, amid a lack of sufficient funds, meaning more than 70 percent of refugees in need do not receive enough to eat.

Resilience among ordinary Ukrainians is remarkable but if the war goes on much longer, it threatens 20 years of development gains, the UN Development Programme (or UNDP), has warned.

From Lviv in western Ukraine, here’s Manal Fouani, UNDP lead in the country, describing to UN News’s Daniel Johnson the many and varied challenges that the country faces, seven weeks since the Russian invasion began.

As UN agencies warn of an impending famine situation in Somalia, a prolonged drought crisis in the entire Horn of Africa region is threatening to turn into a catastrophe.

A combination of the impacts of climate change, conflict and COVID-19 has created ‘the perfect storm of horror’, with the war in Ukraine pushing food and fuel prices up, according to UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, Mohamed M. Fall.

A new low in the war in Ukraine has made headlines around the world this week, with the discovery that hundreds of civilians have been killed in the city of Bucha, in areas previously controlled by Russian troops.

Early testimonies from survivors indicate that the victims were “directly targeted” and killed, according to the UN rights office, OHCHR. Responding to claims from Russia that the incident is nothing more than fake news, here’s spokesperson Liz Throssell, talking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.