More than a billion people – one in five globally – lack electricity to light their homes or conduct business, according to a recent World Bank report. Nearly three billion rely on dangerous, polluting fuels – such as wood, charcoal and animal dung – to cook and heat their homes.
This is a critical year for development as countries hammer out a new, post-2015 development agenda. At the 13th Crime Congress, taking place in the Qatari capital of Doha - from 12 to 19 April 2015 - policymakers and experts from around the world have joined forces with the UN, inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations to chart a new course for crime prevention and rule of law in support of sustainable development.
Conflict, disease, human rights abuses and food insecurity combined to make 2014 a year marked by untold human misery. From the rise of violent extremism to the spread of Ebola, from war in Gaza to unrest in Ukraine, UN peacekeeping, diplomacy and humanitarian capabilities were pushed to the limit
Edward Mortimer is an ardent believer in the need to change the way in which the Secretary-General of the United Nations is selected, and he is hopeful that this can happen.
The United Nations is telling its own history and spotlighting major global issues through a compilation of nearly 70 years of archival history – photographs, posters, videos and recordings – with an exhibit at a former carriage house near the Organization's Headquarters in New York
Sir Brian Urquhart, who celebrates his 94th birthday in February, is a living chronicle of a large chunk of 20th-century history.
Throughout his four decades of service to the United Nations, starting as one of its very first staff members and ending as an Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs, he also helped shape history-making moments. He was present for the birth of the United Nations in 1945, and was witness to many of the Organization’s – and the world’s – seminal milestones.
Sir Brian Urquhart, who celebrates his 94th birthday in February, is a living chronicle of a large chunk of 20th-century history.
Throughout his four decades of service to the United Nations, starting as one of its very first staff members and ending as an Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs, he also helped shape history-making moments. He was present for the birth of the United Nations in 1945, and was witness to many of the Organization’s – and the world’s – seminal milestones.
Ban Ki-moon has begun his second term as UN Secretary-General by pledging to harness the “power of partnerships” to respond to the planet’s biggest challenges, such as climate change, poverty and women’s empowerment.
Edmond Mulet recently returned to his former post of Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, after more than a year in Haiti as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) – his second time in those roles. He was deployed to Haiti in the aftermath of the tragic earthquake which devastated parts of the Caribbean country, killing many Haitians and UN staff, including his predecessor Hedi Annabi. Mr. Mulet was educated in Guatemala, Canada, United States and Switzerland. Born in Guatemala in 1951, he is married and has two children.
