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With Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar continuing to face torrential rains and worsening floods, United Nations agencies are scaling up relief efforts to assist those affected and displaced in the southern African countries.

Women and children make up the vast majority of the latest wave of refugees fleeing violence in northern Nigeria, the United Nations Children’s Fund warned today, spotlighting its ongoing efforts to provide basic assistance, including safe water, nutrition, health, education and protection services to affected children in the region.

The head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) today condemned the deaths and injuries that occurred when protests turned violent on Monday in the streets of the country’s capital, Kinshasa.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the United Nations Security Council today expressed grave concern about the deteriorating situation in Yemen, calling for an immediate ceasefire and the restoration of full authority to legitimate Government institutions.

Despite a sharp decline in oil prices, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its latest economic outlook today lowered growth expectations for this year and the next for most countries due to slowdown in investment, and urged governments and central banks to pursue economic stimulation policies and structural reforms to boost growth.

The United Nations human rights office today confirmed that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has established unlawful, so-called ‘shari’a courts’ in the territory under its control that have been carrying out cruel and inhuman punishments against men, women and children.

While the Ebola epidemic shows its first signs of slowing and confidence grows about stopping the outbreak and reaching the target of zero new cases, a new World Bank Group report on economic impacts of the disease says its effects will continue to cripple the economies of hard-hit Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

One year has passed since Ebola began spreading in West Africa, ravaging villages and local economies, and yet, amid dramatic improvements in the three most affected countries, the United Nations can now report progress in the fight against the deadly virus, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced today as he urged the global community to help the region regain its footing following the unprecedented outbreak. Updated: 3.29 p.m.

The United Nations today applauded Somalia’s ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) – a move which was praised as being an “important step” towards protecting and promoting the rights of all children in the war-torn nation and an explicit commitment towards improving the lives of its youngest citizens.

An extra 10 million people worldwide are likely to be unemployed by 2019, a new United Nations report has said today, pointing to slower growth, widening inequalities and economic turbulence as reasons behind the trend.