Global perspective Human stories

Interviews

UNDP

New UNDP initiative shows Afghan people they ‘have not been forgotten’ 

In the past few weeks, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), under an agreement with the Global Fund, has quietly extended a lifeline to Afghanistan’s health system and all the families that depend on it, providing $15 million to avoid the collapse of the entire sector. 

Over 23,000 health workers, in nearly 2,200 health facilities across 31 provinces, have received wages since the scheme got underway. UNDP has also paid for medicines and health supplies. 

Audio
10'54"
© FAO/Alessio Romenzi

UN steps up wheat planting support, as Afghans face catastrophe

Afghanistan may have dropped out of the news headlines since the Taliban takeover in mid-August, but the situation there is heading towards catastrophe, UN humanitarians have warned. 

What the country’s most vulnerable communities need most urgently are food, and seed for next year’s harvest and livestock, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), which is ramping up support to reach the poorest families there. 

Here’s the agency’s representative in Afghanistan, Richard Trenchard, speaking from the capital Kabul, with UN News’s Daniel Johnson.  

Audio
11'35"
© UNICEF/Christine Nesbitt

UN rights office report: Tigray situation is unbearable

When you hear about war and conflict as a news consumer, it can be easy to overlook the human toll; but not in Ethiopia, where a hard-hitting UN rights office report has uncovered the very real impact on ordinary people in Tigray. 

That’s where Government troops and their supporters have been fighting regional opposition forces since November 2020, and it’s led to serious rights violations that may amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes. 

Audio
7'19"
Dubai 2020 Expo

Solidarity echoes throughout Dubai 2020 Expo

Messages of solidarity rang across Expo 2020 in Dubai as participants celebrated UN Day on Sunday. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed called on the world “to hold on to the hopefulness of the future of mankind and its home, the planet”.

EXPO 2020, which runs through March, includes a UN Hub where visitors can learn about the Organization’s mission for peace, development, human rights and human dignity.

UN News’s Jessica Jiji spoke to the deputy UN chief about the significance of commemorating UN Day at Expo 2020.
 

Audio
4'19"
© WFP/Tsiory Andriantsoarana

WFP: Madagascar families facing world’s first potential climate change famine

More than one million people in southern Madagascar are going hungry in what the World Food Programme (WFP) believes could become the first-ever famine brought on by climate change. 

Successive years of drought have forced people in rural communities to eat locusts, fruit and cactus leaves because they have been unable to plant or harvest sweet potatoes, tomatoes and other crops. 

Audio
9'56"
UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré

For head of Myanmar Mechanism, time is of the essence for accountability

For more than two years, a UN-appointed team of 59 people has been collecting and analyzing more than two million pieces of evidence about possible human rights violations in Myanmar.
The team of professionals are formally known as the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, (IIMM) or Myanmar Mechanism, and was created in 2018 by the Human Rights Council.
In an extensive interview with UN News, the head of the Mechanism, Nicholas Koumjian, explains the importance of preserving this evidence before it is potentially lost.

Audio
10'17"
Courtesy of the artist

Song for the Sahel aims to spread message of peace, says Mali maestro

It’s not very often at the UN that we get the chance to talk to talented musicians whose work can help to promote the Organization’s goals of peace, human rights and development; but that’s exactly what happened when Mali songwriter Vieux Farka Touré agreed to tell us all about his brand new composition, A Song For The Sahel

Audio
12'11"