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Launching a two-year programme to help restore the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of survivors of last October’s devastating earthquake in Pakistan, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has announced the formation of a team of 23 expert mountain guides to fully assess damage and needs.

Seven East African countries meeting in Nairobi have committed themselves to the development of regional strategies to deal with their 11 million displaced persons, the UN refugee agency reported today.

Seeking to ensure fair globalization, the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO) today overwhelmingly adopted comprehensive new standards for the world's 1.2 million merchant sailors, setting out a host of rights to decent working conditions covering health, safety, minimum age and hours of work.

Seeking to promote the development of tourism in a way that helps eradicate poverty, advances economic and social goals and conserves natural and cultural environments, the international Tour Operators Initiative (TOI) network has transferred its secretariat to the Madrid headquarters of the United Nations tourism organization.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) today announced the establishment of a center to coordinate health, food, shelter and education aid for many of the 13,000 families affected by January’s severe floods in Bolivia.

Making his first visit to the drought-stricken Horn of Africa this week, the United Nations humanitarian envoy for the devastated region today emphasized the need to explore the root causes of food insecurity that have left 11 million people in five nations facing starvation.

The new top United Nations envoy in Afghanistan today called on opponents of the violence-racked country’s Government to stop attacking schools and teachers and pledged that the world organization would help to reopen schools that have been attacked as soon as possible.

The governing Executive Board of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today approved a two-year plan to build on the agency’s decade-long record of humanitarian assistance to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) by tackling nutritional deficiencies and chronic hunger.

Opening the annual session of the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization, Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette today called the successful referendum in the South Pacific atolls of Tokelau a welcome example of how all people in Non-Self Governing Territories must retain the right to choose their political futures.

Seeking to dramatically bolster the protection of human rights around the world, the President of the United Nations General Assembly today unveiled the draft blueprint for a new Human Rights Council with higher status and greater accountability than the much-criticized Commission on Human Rights that meets yearly in Geneva.