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In August 2014, amid a rapidly growing outbreak of Ebola, Dr. David Nabarro was tasked with providing strategic guidance for an enhanced international response, and galvanizing essential support for affected communities and countries. As the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Ebola, Dr. Nabarro played a key role in responding to the outbreak, which mainly affected Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and claimed more than 11,300 lives to date.

The United Nations and the Government of Singapore today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate on the development of an information management tool in support of UN peacekeeping operations that can aid in enhancing situational awareness, trend analysis and early warning capacities in field missions.

Hailing Mongolia’s recent abolition of the death penalty, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, commended the move as a “welcome step in the fight for the human rights of all.”

Against the backdrop of one person dying every 10 minutes from rabies and that treatment for those bitten can cost 40 days of wages in some countries, the United Nations announced today a new framework to eliminate human rabies and save tens of thousands of lives each year by ensuring ready availability of vaccines and treatment, and emphasizing mass dog vaccinations to tackle the disease at its source.

The ongoing El Niño weather pattern in the Asia and Pacific is likely to be one of the strongest since 1998 and will continue into early 2016, according to a new United Nations advisory, which urges regional cooperation for early warning, in-season mitigation, and long-term adaptation strategies to curb climate risk.

The world economy has fallen below forecasts of even six months ago and will grow only modestly over the next two years due to “cyclical and structural headwinds,” including low commodity prices and stagnant investment, the United Nations reported today, urging steps to ensure stronger growth.

More than 50,000 people forced to flee in the wake of attacks on islands of Lake Chad are living in “precarious conditions” in need of food, drinking water, shelter, health care and other services in a situation exacerbated by chronic drought, the top United Nations relief official in Chad says.

Braving fighting, airstrikes and checkpoints to bring life-saving aid to Yemenis living in dire conditions under a virtual state of siege, United Nations convoys have reached the central city of Taiz with enough food for nearly 145,000 people for a month, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) reported today.

Marking this year’s Human Rights Day amid extraordinary global challenges, the United Nations is calling on the world to recognize and guarantee fundamental freedoms – long recognized “as the birthright of all people” – freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom of speech and freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) condemned the Taliban initiated attack at Kandahar airport on 8 December, which reportedly killed 39 civilians, including four children and injured at least 23 civilians.