This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

Ukraine war: half of country’s children now displaced 

In Ukraine, more than half of the country’s children have now been displaced since Russia invaded, exactly a month ago.

UN Children’s Fund UNICEF, said that 4.3 million children are on the move.

This includes more than 1.8 million who have crossed into neighbouring countries as refugees and another 2.5 million who are now internally displaced inside Ukraine. 

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell described the development as a “grim milestone that could have lasting consequences for generations to come”.

And she warned that youngsters’ safety, wellbeing and access to essential services were all under threat from “non-stop, horrific violence”.

WHO publishes first-ever country estimates of unintended pregnancy and abortion

Data analysis on unintended pregnancy and abortion from 150 countries has revealed major disparities in accessing sexual and reproductive healthcare, the UN health agency, WHO, said on Thursday.

With partner organisation the Guttmacher Institute, the WHO said that the results would allow health authorities to better understand family planning needs in their countries, including contraception and abortion care.

According to the data – which represent the first such exercise at a country level - unintended pregnancy and abortion rates vary widely, even within the same region. 

The greatest variations are in Latin America, where unintended pregnancy rates ranged from 41 to 107 per 1,000 women, and in sub-Saharan Africa, where the range was 49 to 145women per 1,000.

Even in regions with low unintended pregnancy rates, it is still hugely important to invest in giving women and girls the information they need to choose whether they want to have children, said the Guttmacher Institute’s Jonathan Bearak, whose study appears in the journal BMJ Global Health.

“Sexual and reproductive health and rights are an essential part of universal health coverage and are required to end discrimination against women and girls,” the WHO said.

UNCTAD calls for IMF, World Bank measures as global downturn bites

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been the “main contributing factor” to the potentially devastating one per cent drop in projected global economic growth this year, UN development economists UNCTAD said on Thursday, in the body’s latest global economic update.

This year the world economy is forecast to grow by 2.6 per cent, down from the rosier3.6 per cent forecast made last September.

Rising inflation is making matters worse for developing countries already weighed down by a $1 trillion debt burden to pay back to creditors, the UN body said, adding that they’ve had insufficient supportto help them withstand exchange rate instability, rising interest rates and soaring food and fuel prices. 

Here’s UNCTAD Secretary-General, Rebeca Grynspan:

“We are asking for the strengthening of the measures that will help developing countries to cope with this situation…It’s very important to activate the immediate funding, the rapid funding instruments that the IMF has.”

UNCTAD noted that even relatively wealthy countries have already sought help from the international banking system, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Egypt.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.