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Global perspective Human stories
UN News
Global perspective Human stories

UN General Assembly 73rd Session

Special Coverage of the 73rd General Debate
25 September-1 October 2018

As world leaders gather in New York in the coming days, the curtain will rise on the busiest diplomatic season of the year at United Nations Headquarters.

Here, UN News gives you a front row seat to all the action during the General Assembly’s annual; high-level segment, known as the general debate. Follow monarchs, presidents and prime ministers, as they define global responses to many of today’s pressing challenges, including climate change, international migration, protracted conflicts, and extreme poverty and hunger.

A child waits as UNICEF-supported emergency humanitarian supplies are distributed in Hudaydah, Yemen in June 2018.
© UNICEF

Yemen: Tackling the world’s largest humanitarian crisis

Humanitarian Aid

With three-quarters of the population requiring some form of basic assistance to survive, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, now in its fourth year, has reached unprecedented levels of need. On Monday, ahead of the United Nation’s 73rd General Assembly high-level debate, a special event will focus on the humanitarian response across the country, its major achievements and its daily challenges, in an attempt to galvanize more international support.

Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, briefing the Security Council on 12 September 2018.
UN Photo/Manuel Elías

‘We need support’: UN Peacekeeping chief

Interviews

UN peacekeepers are facing increasing threats: fatalities are the highest in a generation, equipment is often inadequate, and political processes in many places are fragile or absent. 

Within this context, the Secretary-General launched the Action for Peacekeeping Initiative (A4P) earlier this year.

It is designed to renew political support for UN peacekeeping, and to make operations more effective, safer and better designed to advance political settlements.

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6'19"
A sign outside the UN General Assembly building highlights the hashtag for attendees to use to promote the general debate.
UN Photo/Kim Haughton

6 things to know about the General Assembly as UN heads into high level week

UN Affairs

Every year, in September, global leaders and change-makers gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York for two weeks, to discuss the burning issues of our time and set the global agenda for the year ahead. The 73rd session of the UN General Assembly opened this week and the body’s annual high-level segment – formally known as the ‘general debate’ – begins on Tuesday, 25 September, where every country’s leader gets to address the world.

Dr. Tereza Kasaeva, Director, Global TB Programme at the World Health Organization (WHO), at the presentation of WHO's 2018 Global Tuberculosis Report on 18 September 2018.
UN Photo/Cia Pak

Senior WHO official calls for ‘urgent action’ to end tuberculosis by 2030

Interviews

Countries are not doing enough to end tuberculosis – the world’s deadliest infectious disease – by 2030, warned the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday, at the release of the latest Global Tuberculosis Report.

The report shows that worldwide, tuberculosis (TB) cases are falling too slowly to meet the targets set by WHO’s End TB Strategy.

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7'34"
María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, then President-elect of the 73rd session of the General Assembly addresses the media at UN headquarters in New York. June 2018.
UN Photo/Manuel Elías

INTERVIEW: ‘Dare to deliver’ more for the world, underscores General Assembly President

SDGs

In June, the 193-member United Nations General Assembly, elected Ecuadorean Foreign Minister María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, the President of its 73rd session. Ms. Espinosa is only the fourth woman to hold that position in the history of the world body, and the first woman ever from the Latin America and the Caribbean region to preside over the Assembly.