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The top United Nations humanitarian official wrapped up a four-day visit to Chad today during which he called for stronger action to restore stability and rein in criminal activity besetting nearly half a million refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the strife-torn east.

The United Nations should twin its efforts to combat ozone depletion and climate change to reap the greatest economic and environmental benefits, governments concluded at a recent global gathering.

More than one in every 10 Central Africans in their country’s northwest is acutely malnourished, the United Nations humanitarian wing reported today as it called on international donors to support more than 100 separate projects that aim to tackle conflict, disease and malnutrition in the impoverished and strife-torn nation.

A United Nations fund that seeks to end violence against women is awarding more money this year than the sum of all its grants since its inception in 1996, earmarking $19 million to 23 projects in 29 countries.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has lauded Iran’s long record of generosity in hosting uprooted Afghans and called on the international community to do more to ensure they can finally go home and rebuild their lives.

Some 3,000 prisoners, staff and their families in Kenya will have access to clean water and basic sanitation thanks to a new United Nations-backed programme.

Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro has warned that glaring gender disparities experienced by African countries will undermine efforts to achieve sustainable development across the continent, adding that climate change and economic turmoil impact women’s lives disproportionately.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged Israel and the Palestinians to continue their negotiations, as well as to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, despite the goal of reaching a peace treaty between the Israelis and the Palestinians by the end of this year now seeming unlikely.

The United Nations today set in motion further elements of the African regional component of its $7-billion annual humanitarian appeal, seeking help for millions of people suffering from drought, floods, high food prices and displacement in the eastern and western regions of the continent.

Welcoming a workshop at which the parties to a recent Somalia peace accord tackled the challenge of impunity, the top United Nations official for the strife-torn country has called on the international community to support them in the endeavour, which could include a commission of inquiry and an international court.