As the world marks the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, one man who has spent many years working to end poverty among the world’s poorest populations is calling for action now, by investing more in the rural poor.
A major global conference, aiming to set a ‘New Urban Agenda,’ which, in the words of the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, will “help us to rethink how we plan, manage and live in cities,” begins this weekend, in the Ecuadorian capital, Quito.
Nicholas Haysom has experience in challenging political situations. His service with the United Nations has seen him serve as Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s top political advisor at UN Headquarters in New York – but has also involved service in some of the toughest field assignment locations, such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
One week after Hurricane Matthew slammed into Haiti, United Nations agencies are continuing the massive relief effort under way on the ground, scrambling to fend off the threat of cholera, delivering life-saving supplies and rehabilitating damaged infrastructure, such as schools.
Residents in Pilate, a remote town of some 40,000 inhabitants located on a mountain in northern Haiti, were treated to an unusual site recently: uniformed, foreign men hard at work laying concrete foundations for a well near the local hospital and school.
From a decades-long conflict which has seen an ever-growing number of civilians killed to rooting out corruption among government bodies, Afghanistan has been facing a range of challenges with the international community’s assistance – and many of these topics will be discussed at a two-day gathering starting on Tuesday, 4 October, in the Belgian capital of Brussels.
On 22 August 2014, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that he had appointed Mr. Espen Barth Eide of Norway as his new Special Adviser on Cyprus, replacing Mr. Alexander Downer of Australia, who had stepped down four months earlier, in April.
“A woman of firsts” is perhaps only a summary description of Dame Margaret Anstee, the first woman to serve as a United Nations Under-Secretary-General.
“I took my piano and made it everything: my work, and my studies at university; to teach children music,” begins Aeham Ahmad, in an interview with United Nations Radio, ahead of a UN summit on large movements of refugees and migrants on 19 September 2016.
On 15 June 2015, the United Nations General Assembly elected Mogens Lykketoft – a Danish national – to serve as the President of its seventieth session. At the time of his election, Mr. Lykketoft was the Speaker (President) of the Danish Parliament, a position he had held since 2011. Born on 9 January 1946, it was a fitting coincidence that he would turn 70 during his term as President of the 70th Session of the UN General Assembly– a personal fact he highlighted during his acceptance speech to the world body upon his election.
