SDGs

Fresh fruit and vegetables are set out for cooking in a village in Muzaffargarh district in Pakistan.
UNICEF/Giacomo Pirozzi

Fruits and vegetables crucial for healthy lives, sustainable world: Guterres

21 December 2020
Global

The United Nations is marking 2021 as the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables, spotlighting their vital role in human nutrition and food security, as well as urging efforts to improve sustainable production and reduce waste. 

UN Secretary-General António Guterres addresses the Bundestag, the German parliament in Berlin.
United Nations/Florencia Soto Nino

Global challenges require global solutions, UN chief tells German parliament

18 December 2020
Europe

UN Secretary-General António Guterres addressed the Bundestag, the German parliament, on Friday, where he warned of a deficit of international cooperation and underscored that global challenges require global solutions. 

A girl carries a basket of fruits through a flooded street in Cotonou, a large port city in Benin.
UNICEF/Oliver Asselin

People, planet on ‘collision course’, warns UN Development Programme

15 December 2020
Global

Countries must redesign their development pathways to reduce damage to the environment and the natural world, or risk stalling progress for humanity overall, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has warned in a major new report. 

Children in El Muelle neighborhood Bilwi, Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua.
UNICEF/Tadeo Gómez

COVID-19 can spark new generation of social protection measures: UN chief

1 December 2020
Global

While COVID-19 has wiped out important development gains in mere months, with extreme poverty rising for the first time in decades, the pandemic could spark the transformations needed to achieve stronger social protection systems, the UN Secretary-General said on Tuesday.  

A Palestinian herder takes sheep to a rehabilitated cistern for water.
©FAO/Marco Longari

Address water scarcity ‘immediately and boldly’, urges UN agriculture agency chief 

26 November 2020

More than three billion people live in agricultural areas with high levels of water shortages and scarcity, the UN agriculture agency said in a new report launched on Wednesday. 

A girl writes on a blackboard at a school in Fada, eastern Burkina Faso, after returning to her class. Schools in the country had been closed for months due to COVID-19 mitigation measures.
UNICEF/Dejongh

This World Children’s Day, ‘reimagine a better future’, for every child

20 November 2020
Global

The global community is marking World Children’s Day on Friday, calling for societies to “reimagine a better future” for every child, where each one has the opportunity to thrive. 

The port of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's coastal capital.
World Bank/Rob Beechey

Development funding and trade transparency needed, to stop COVID-19 dividing the world

19 November 2020

The pandemic has redefined the world economy in ways that will deepen inequality and can only be reversed if a global transformation in attitudes towards trade and development allows the whole world to recover together, the UN trade body UNCTAD said, in a report published on Thursday. 

The UN chief underscores the importance of rebooting economies to put them firmly on the path to a sustainable future, particularly in developing countries, like Nepal (pictured).
© World Bank/Aisha Faquir

COVID disruption will ‘pale in comparison’ if world fails to act on climate change, SDGs

12 November 2020
Global

The fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement and the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) “go hand in hand”, the UN chief told a major development bank conference on Thursday.

Members of the Korail Bon Bazar Community Centre in Bangladesh, have supported local families during the COVID-19 pandemic.
© UN-Habitat/Kirsten Milhahn

Sustainable urbanization critical to COVID-19 recovery, better quality of life

31 October 2020
Global

Cities will be critical for the world to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the worst recession for decades, according to the latest report published by UN-Habitat, the UN agency working on urban issues. 

A residential building in Nairobi, Kenya. According to UN estimates, by 2050 about 68 per cent of the world’s population will be living in urban areas.
UN-Habitat/Kirsten Milhahn

World Cities Day: Value communities, today and for the future

29 October 2020
Global

Top UN officials have highlighted the “extraordinary” contributions of grassroots communities in towns and cities across the world in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, and urged that their unique efforts be built on, during recovery.