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Warning that none of the world’s development goals can be reached without significant progress in girls’ education, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today issued an urgent call for change in international development efforts which it says “are drastically short-changing” hundreds of millions of girls.

The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) today launched the Health Academy, a virtual school that aims to promote public health around the world by teaching people health information using Internet-based technology.

Two years ago, 15-year-old Shamim Cairo Atwine signed up for the Girls' Education Movement (GEM), an initiative launched in 2001 by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in her native Uganda, hoping to help other girls get into school, improve their study habits and gain the same confidence that she has learned from the club.

Climate change is affecting human health, causing 150,000 deaths worldwide in 2000, according to a United Nations report issued today, together with guidelines offering governments and organizations practical advice on how to respond to the problems.

Indigenous people today called on a United Nations-backed global information summit to put information and communications technologies (ICTs) into the service of economic and social development in their communities around the world.

The Road Map peace plan for the Middle East is in distress, but it is not dead, and a new mood in the region could inspire the leaders of Israel and the Palestinians to get back to the negotiating table, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today.

The senior United Nations official in Afghanistan said today he hoped lessons would be learned from the killing of 15 children in two raids by the United States-led Coalition forces in Afghanistan and “these tragic situations are not repeated.”

Noting that one out of every two people depend on mountain water in some form, and that 245 million people living in rural mountain areas in developing countries are threatened by food insecurity, the United Nations food agency held a series of events in Rome today to mark the first-ever International Mountain Day.

The States parties to an international treaty protecting the rights of 60 to 65 million workers and their families held their first meeting at United Nations Headquarters in New York, pledging to protect migrants from physical and sexual abuse, working in inhumane conditions and being denied freedom of thought and expression.

As dissatisfaction grows among the so-called "Group of 77" developing countries and China about the apparent lack of any economic or social payoffs when they liberalize their economies as demanded, the 135-nation coalition meets in Marrakech, Morocco, next week for a summit on economic and social cooperation.