Women from Brazil’s indigenous communities are particularly vulnerable to gender-based violence, but UN-backed initiatives, and a change in the law, are encouraging them to seek protection.
Children from a dozen countries met with the President of the General Assembly and toured the United Nations on a federal holiday in the United States honouring the late civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Martin Luther King Jr.
The Moroccan city of Fez, which recently hosted the Global Forum of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, has long been a melting pot of religions and cultures. Its 200-year-old Jewish cemetery symbolizes the centuries-long coexistence of diverse communities in the city.
People who do not have a legal identity, and cannot prove who they are, are likely to end up without opportunities, and very vulnerable in society. The UN’s Legal Identity Agenda Task Force aims to help more than 300 million people acquire a legal identity in their country by 2025.
Rising sea levels are threatening the very existence of Monkey River, a coastal village in south-east Belize. With the support of the UN, the community is trying to stem the tide, and protect what is left.
Sustainable tourism is proving to be a viable career option for women in the picturesque North Sulawesi region of Indonesia, where they are making the most of skills training provided by the UN.
In the last of our Year In Review features, we honour the work of activists helping to protect women’s rights, which once again, came under attack in many countries throughout 2022.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine creating global upheaval, and war, conflict, and unrest blighting all parts of the world in 2022. The UN stressed the importance of international dialogue, and announced plans for a new peace agenda.
Despite strong evidence that human activity played a role in catastrophic weather events, and the emergence of a fuel crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine, greenhouse gas emissions continued to rise. Nevertheless, the UN kept the climate emergency high on the international agenda, reaching major agreements on financing and biodiversity.
The UN warned that the COVID-19 pandemic is still a cause for global concern, and outbreaks of cholera, Ebola and Monkeypox (now renamed mpox) led to the mobilization of health and aid workers to contain life-threatening illnesses. The UN warned that the aim of eradicating HIV/AIDS by 2030 was under threat, but a new vaccine raised hopes that malaria can be beaten.