UN deputy chief underscores women’s role in peace, security in Africa

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will not be possible without investing more in women. That’s the view of UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, who led a high-level group of women leaders to two African countries this month. Joining Ms Mohammed in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were the Executive Director of UN Women, the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, and the African Union Special Envoy on Women, Peace and Security. Dianne Penn reports.

Education, women’s empowerment “top priorities” for UN in India

In order to meet the challenges of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), India should prioritize women’s empowerment and education. That’s the view of UN Resident Coordinator based in Delhi, Yuri Afanasiev, who was at UN Headquarters for a forum to review progress made so far on the SDGs. He said that India’s progress was essential for the global effort to meet the goals on ending poverty and hunger, as well as providing universal education and quality healthcare. Mr Afanasiev, who is also the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP) Resident Representative, told Matt Wells that India was hard at work finding “scalable solutions” to “enormous” challenges in meeting the SDGs in just 13 years’ time.

Multilingual contest a platform for UK student’s fight for gender equality

The opportunity to deliver a speech in French on gender equality to the UN General Assembly has cemented a British student’s decision to push for more women’s representation in UK politics. Nicholas Bloom is among 60 students worldwide chosen as the winners of this year’s Many Languages, One World multilingual essay competition co-sponsored by the UN. Dianne Penn caught up with Nicholas when he and the other winners visited UN Headquarters this month.

Presenter: Dianne Penn

Production Assistant: Ana Carmo

Duration: 10'00″