SDGs

Action, ambition and political will are the driving forces behind the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
UN Photo/Manuel Elías

Gender equality, education and the environment at the forefront of new SDG Advocate campaigns

14 August 2019

Back in May, six innovative public figures joined the battle to push the world towards reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Each of the new official SDG Advocates committed themselves to pursue the 17 goals on behalf of “peace, prosperity, people, planet, and partnerships.”

As we inch closer to the SDG Summit in September, UN News caught up with some of them.

Desertification threatens the village of Tantaverom. Mbo Malloumu has taken the initiative to plant acacia seedlings to rehabilitate the land. In the past 50 years, Lake Chad basin shrank from 25,000 square kilometers to 2,000square kilometers.
UNDP Chad/Jean Damascene Hakuzim

World food security increasingly at risk due to 'unprecedented' climate change impact, new UN report warns

8 August 2019

More than 500 million people today live in areas affected by erosion linked to climate change, the UN warned on Thursday, before urging all countries to commit to sustainable land use to help limit greenhouse gas emissions before it is too late.

Sun drying tomatoes by local women in Luxor, Egypt, as part of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) activities on reducing food loss along the tomato value chain.
© FAO/ Egypt

World ‘off track’ to meet most Sustainable Development Goals on hunger, food security and nutrition

18 July 2019

Key parts of the Global Goals agenda linked to achieving zero-hunger are “off-track”, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Thursday, in an appeal for much greater public investment in farming.

A woman boat-driver in Mekong Delta, Vietnam. (23 July 2014)
ESCAP/Taufan Wijaya

Asia and Pacific on course to miss all Sustainable Development Goals, says UN region chief

18 July 2019
Asia Pacific

Unless progress is accelerated, Asia and the Pacific are on course to miss all of the 17 Goals of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Executive Secretary of the UN regional commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), told UN News at the Organization's Headquarters on Wednesday.

A child rests on a table in the classroom where her family is sleeping at a school used as a collective centre for internally displaced people in Oicha, Beni territory, North Kivu.
© UNHCR/N. Micevic

Tuesday’s Daily Brief: #GlobalGoals progress, essential meds, updates from Cox’s Bazar, Sudan and DR Congo

9 July 2019
Global

This Tuesday’s UN top stories are: high-level discussions on the progress made towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals; falling behind on universal education dream; the UN list of essential medicines updated; life-threatening floods in Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh; and human rights in Sudan and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Three-month-old Monluck Saesong is among 128,000 children in Thailand who benefit from a UNICEF-promoted child support grant. (file 2016)
© UNICEF/Metee Thuentap

Strawberries and child support; a Thai partnership

1 July 2019
Global

Mother of three, Mhee Saesong, a strawberry farmer from Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand, has always struggled alongside her husband to provide for her family. She describes how, in the past, when her two older children became sick, she was unable to afford to take them to hospital.

UN-GLOBE marches in the 2019 World Pride parade in celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning/queer and intersex (LGBTQI) people everywhere.
UN-GLOBE

World Pride underscores that all people are born ‘free and equal’ in dignity and human rights

30 June 2019
Global

The empowering message straight from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and human rights" resonated on Sunday from UN-GLOBE members who participated in the World Pride parade in New York City.

World leaders meet at the G20 Osaka Summit on 28 June 2019.
G20 Osaka Summit 2019

Amidst ‘high political tension’, UN chief appeals to G20 leaders for stronger commitment to climate action, economic cooperation 

28 June 2019
Global

The annual G20 summit of leaders from the largest and fastest-growing economies, got underway on Friday in Osaka, Japan, against a backdrop of what UN Secretary-General António Guterres described as “a moment of high political tension”.

A mother and her two sons wash clothes in Maharashtra, India (June 2019).
UNICEF/Sri Kolari

Billions globally lack ‘water, sanitation and hygiene’, new UN report spells out

17 June 2019
Global

Some 2.2 billion people around the world do not have safely-managed drinking water, while 4.2 billion go without safe sanitation services and three billion lack basic handwashing facilities, according to a new report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The Italian President Sergio Mattarella addresses the 108th International Labour Conference in Geneva on 10 June 2019.
ILO/Marcel Crozet

The future of work ‘with social justice for all’ tops agenda of centenary UN Labour conference

10 June 2019

The Centenary International Labour Conference got underway on Monday at the UN in Geneva, with ILO chief Guy Ryder, calling on hundreds of delegates from around the world to help “construct a future of work, with social justice for all”.