UN Interviews

Some 3.2 billion people, or almost one third of the global population, are affected by desertification and land loss according to the UN’s most senior official dealing with the issue.

The loss of land through drought and desertification, which is being driven, in part, by climate change, can have huge impacts on agriculture, development, migration and national and regional economies and sometimes leads to conflict.

Ibrahim Thiaw is the Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

It has now been over 1,000 days since the Taliban, the de facto authorities in Afghanistan, banned education for girls beyond sixth grade, a figure described by the Executive Director of the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, as “a blatant violation of their right to education” resulting in “dwindling opportunities and deteriorating mental health”.

The UN’s digital technology agency (ITU) launches ‘UN Virtual Worlds Day’ on Friday a pioneering event designed to integrate the metaverse – ‘an integrated ecosystem of virtual worlds’ – to improve how societies and governance work to greater benefit the public. 

Virtual reality offers new opportunities for reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ITU experts believe, and the broader UN community sees tangible benefits if it’s used wisely.

Nuclear power has been a source of optimism and fear since the mid-Twentieth Century. 

On one hand, it evokes the destructive power of nuclear bombs, the catastrophic explosion of Chernobyl, the Fukushima disaster or, more recently Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, Europe’s largest, which has come under fire since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022.

Eight months into the war in Gaza, families have been forced to adapt to what humanitarians often call “negative coping strategies” to survive, as unemployment reaches a staggering 80 per cent.

For many in the Gaza Strip, this has meant sending their children out to work, despite the dangers, the UN labour agency, ILO, has warned.

Details of this worrying development the wider devastating economic impact of the conflict in Gaza and the West Bank are outlined in a new report from the agency.

The plastics industry needs to show more responsibility and put their money where their mouth is on cutting harmful waste and pollution, especially as it impacts small island States.

That’s according to Director General of the Pacific islands environment agency, SPREP, Sefanaia Nawadra of Fiji, who told UN News the outcome document adopted at last week’s SIDS4 conference in Antigua and Barbuda does not go far enough on ocean management and cutting pollution.

Sharks and dugongs serve as barometers of the marine ecosystem, but many people overlook their critical roles, perceiving sharks as menacing figures and dugongs as mythical creatures.

Ahead of World Oceans Day on 8 June, UN News’s Jing Zhang spoke with Gabriel Grimsditch, a programme management officer at the UN Environment Programme’s marine and coastal ecosystem unit based in Nairobi, Kenya.

A devastating war in Sudan has left 800,000 people trapped in El Fasher in the west of the vast country, UN humanitarians warned on Friday, as they reiterated calls for an immediate ceasefire to allow lifesaving aid in.

The development comes as disturbing details continue to emerge of an alleged attack on the village of Wad Al-Noura in Jazira state south of Khartoum which left more than 100 dead, including dozens of children.

UNICEF has released a new child nutrition report that highlights severe levels of child food poverty due to inequity, conflict, and climate crises.

The new report found that millions of children under five have difficulty accessing nutritious and diverse diets necessary for developmental growth.

UNICEF Nutrition Specialist, and a lead writer for the report, Harriet Torlesse, spoke to UN News and said one in four children globally are surviving on extremely poor diets, consuming just two or fewer of the major food groups.