Interviews

During this week’s UN ECOSOC Youth Forum, young people have been gathering at UN Headquarters in New York, to discuss the importance of energy transition for a sustainable future.

They will be the ones left to deal with the consequences, if the necessary green energy transition fails to materialize, so they’ve been arguing for the right to be fully represented during this crucial climate change debate.  

Conditions for children caught up in Sudan’s military showdown are critical, with at least nine dead and over 50 injured, though the UN Children’s Fund fears that total is probably much higher.

Ammar Ammar, UNICEF’s Jordan-based regional chief of advocacy and communications covering Sudan, said only a lasting humanitarian truce can help restore shattered services, and for now it’s too dangerous for their lifesaving work to continue.

Ezzat El-Ferri of UN News Arabic, began by asking him to describe what UNICEF’s doing to help ease the suffering.

More resources are urgently needed for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) to meet the needs of thousands of refugees and internally displaced, who are fleeing the bloody showdown between rival military factions in Sudan.

That’s according to Faith Kasina, Regional Spokesperson for UNHCR who is based in Nairobi. Ezzat El-Ferri of UN News’s Arabic service began by asking her for the latest on the extent of internal displacement across the country so far.

The fashion industry has always been driven by esthetics, but its environmental and social impacts are now coming to the forefront. Growing awareness of fashion’s carbon footprint and evolving consumer attitudes are prompting some of its biggest names, to question their business models and embark on a sustainable transformation.

Climate change has continued to drive hunger and displacement in 2022, as ever more frequent extreme weather events – drought, floods, heatwaves – have been threatening the very existence of vulnerable communities.

In a new report, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) shows that last year, humanity’s “war on nature” – in the words of UN Secretary-General António Guterres – has resulted in several alarming records, while the years 2015 to 2022 have been the eight warmest ever.

A new report from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) shows that immunization rates are in crisis, with 67 million children missing out on life-saving vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases are now on the rise, and it’s getting harder to play catch-up, as a surge in misinformation has dented the public’s confidence in the importance and efficacy of childhood shots.

A senior World Health Organization (WHO) official has condemned the reported military occupation of at least one hospital in Sudan as a base for attacks, as “an incredibly concerning development.”

Dr. Richard Brennan, WHO Emergency Director for the Eastern Mediterranean region which includes Sudan, told UN News that the use of any health facility by either side in Sudan’s current military power struggle, would be a gross violation of international humanitarian law.

In April 1994, a sinister call was broadcast over radio stations across Rwanda, triggering the start of 100 days of genocide that left more than one million people dead. Henriette Mutegwaraba heard that call over the radio.

“Every time I talk about it, I cry,” she told UN News, describing how propaganda spread messages of hate that sparked a deadly wave of unspeakable violence. She lost 60 family members and friends in the genocide.