SDGs

Tomato stand in market near Ramallah’s main mosque.
World Bank/Arne Hoel

‘Shared responsibility’ to stop 420,000 needless deaths from tainted food each year, UN, world leaders warn

12 February 2019
Global

Each year, food contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins or chemicals cause more than 600 million people to fall ill, and 420,000 to die worldwide, prompting a call from world leaders on Tuesday for greater international cooperation to make the food chain safer.

Girls studying science in Viet Nam. Globally, while more girls are attending school than before, girls are significantly under-represented in STEM subjects in many settings and they appear to lose interest in STEM subjects as they reach adolescence.
UN Women Viet Nam/Pham Quoc Hung

More women and girls needed in the sciences to solve world’s biggest challenges

11 February 2019
Global

Many of the world’s biggest problems may be going unsolved because too many women and girls are being discouraged from the sciences.

Five-year-old Kiara makes a sale in a commuter train car in Buenos Aires, the capital. She has been working in the Subte, the city’s mass transit system, selling hairpins and other cheap goods, since she was three years old.
UNICEF/ Sebastian Rich

As inequality grows, the UN fights for a fairer world

8 February 2019
Global

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – the UN’s blueprint for a better and more sustainable future for all – calls for a reduction in inequality between and within countries. Nevertheless, global inequality is increasing. So what can be done?

A girl being vaccinated against measles. Photo: UNICEF/Heather Papowitz
UNICEF/Heather Papowitz

Measles in Europe: infection rates highest in a decade, says UN health agency

7 February 2019
Europe

Although more children than ever before are being vaccinated against measles across Europe, overall infection rates are the highest in a decade, and a three-fold increase on last year, according to new data published on Thursday by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Khair (left) is the father of seven children, who is no longer able to feed them. The drought has destroyed his land in Daykundi Province, Afghanistan; and this year he harvested nothing. (June 2018)
UNICEF/Adrak

Guterres underlines climate action urgency, as UN weather agency confirms record global warming

6 February 2019
Global

In the wake of data released by the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO), showing the past four years were officially the ‘four warmest on record,’ UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for urgent climate action and increased ambition, ahead of his climate summit in September.

 

A joint ILO-UNICEF report is urging action to ensure that social protection reaches all children, like 6-year-old Mustafa who works with his father in an industrial area of Baghdad, and protects them from poverty and deprivation.
Photo: UNICEF/Wathiq Khuzaie

Nearly two-thirds of children lack access to welfare safety net, risking ‘vicious cycle of poverty’

6 February 2019

More than six in 10 children globally lack access to social protection, leaving them particularly vulnerable to falling into chronic poverty, the UN said on Wednesday, warning also that some governments are cutting State cash entitlements, amid continuing economic uncertainty.