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The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is setting up a partnership with the confectionery conglomerate Cadbury to support cocoa-farming communities in Ghana, India, Indonesia and the Caribbean by helping them to boost their crop yields, find new sources of income and improve local infrastructure.

The top United Nations envoy to Nepal strongly condemned today’s bomb attack at a rally promoting the upcoming Constituent Assembly elections, saying violence and intimidation are inconsistent with the country’s transition to democracy.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is assisting 37,000 people affected by floods in Bolivia, a spokesperson for the world body announced today.

The recent troubles in the Middle East illustrate “the gap between the aspirations of the political process and the grim realities of the situation on the ground,” the United Nations political chief told the Security Council today, warning that the current crisis is overshadowing efforts to find a long-term peace settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir have agreed on the need to accelerate the deployment of the hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission (UNAMID) to the war-wracked Darfur region and to finalize the status-of-forces agreement for the new missions.

Expressing its deep concern over the ongoing dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Security Council voted today for a six-month extension of the mandate of the United Nations peacekeeping mission monitoring the 2000 ceasefire that ended the border war between the two countries.

The Security Council today heard a closed-door briefing on the situation in Kenya, where post-electoral violence has claimed hundreds of lives, including dozens in recent days, while forcing more than a quarter of a million others to flee their homes.

Welcoming the peace agreement between the Government and armed groups in the violence-torn eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Security Council today urged all sides to respect the ceasefire and other agreements reached “in good faith.”

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is asking donors for more than $90 million to fund the agency's programmes assisting people who have fled within the borders of six conflict-torn countries this year.

Despite 17 years of crisis in Somalia, the economy there is stronger than that of many countries in Africa in terms of gross domestic product and imports and exports, participants at a United Nations-backed meeting held in Dubai said today.