A record 70.8 million people fled war, persecution and conflict in 2018, UN refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi said on Wednesday, appealing for greater international solidarity to counter the fact that “we have become almost unable to make peace”.
Unabating violence, destruction and a downward sprial in overall conditions for the desperate people trapped in north-western Syria’s Idlib were in the spotlight as the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator told the Security Council on Tuesday that “we are faced with a humanitarian disaster unfolding before our eyes”.
The 15 members of the United Nations Security Council adopted on Tuesday the very first ever resolution focused on the issue of missing persons in armed conflict. The aim is to encourage countries to fulfil their obligations, take action to step up prevention, and tackle the issue earlier, so that ultimately families separated by conflict can be reunited, or at least given answers as to the fate of their loved ones.
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”.
The digital future must be safer and more inclusive, says a new tech report, “the Age of Digital Interdependence”, released on Monday by the UN High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, almost a year after the Panel was launched by Secretary-General António Guterres.
An independent UN expert said on Monday that the failure of governments across the world to ensure clear air, constitutes a “violation of the rights to life, health and well-being, as well as the right to live in a healthy environment.”
This Wednesday, we cover: the dangers of smoking for World No Tobacco Day; China’s creative economy; sustainability through family farming, floating cities and #ClimateAction.
Although the Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continues to make headway thanks to the determination of health workers on the ground, insecurity is still hampering the response, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday. This has led the UN to establish a new coordination structure in the hopes that access to at-risk areas can be improved.
“We need to tax pollution, not people”, and “end subsidies for fossil fuels,” Secretary-General António Guterres told the World Summit of the R20 Coalition on Tuesday, a UN-supported environmental organization, founded by former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The head of the UN relief and works agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) warned on Wednesday that despite weathering a “truly existential crisis” over funding last year, money to continue operations this year in the Gaza Strip will only last until mid-June.
