Just a few hours before the start of the crucial Transforming Education Summit, UN Children’s Fund UNICEF on Friday, warned that globally, only a third of 10-year-olds are estimated to be able to read and understand a simple written story. This shocking statistic represents a 50 per cent decrease from pre-pandemic estimates.
One of the centrepieces of the opening week of the new General Assembly session is an event aimed at focusing fresh attention on the global crisis surrounding learning, and proposing solutions to make education fit for the Twenty-First Century. Ahead of the event, UN News spoke to Leonardo Garnier, the Special Advisor charged with making the Transforming Education Summit a success.
As the number of weekly reported deaths from COVID-19 plunged to its lowest since March 2020, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that the end of the pandemic is now in sight.
Crimes against humanity and war crimes have intensified in the wake of the February 2021 military coup in Myanmar, the UN Human Rights Council heard on Monday.
Secretary-General António Guterres on Saturday reiterated that the needs in flood-ravaged Pakistan are enormous and called for urgent financial support, as he wrapped up a two-day trip aimed at raising awareness of the climate-driven disaster with flights over some of the hardest hit areas.
As the war in Ukraine “continues to rage,” the UN political and peacebuilding chief updated the Security Council, saying on Wednesday that 5,718 people have been killed, including 372 children.
A rise in the frequency, intensity and duration of heatwaves will not only increase wildfires this century but also worsen air quality – harming human health and ecosystems, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) launched on Wednesday, the International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies.
International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies, marked on 7 September, takes place in a world where almost all the air we breathe is polluted, and some seven million people die from air pollution every year. Ahead of the Day, UN News spoke to two experts about the scale of the problem, and the solutions that already exist.
As fighting continues in South Sudan, a new UN report released on Tuesday documents 173 civilian deaths over a four-month period along with widespread human rights violations committed without repercussion.
