The head of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations has wrapped up a visit to Lebanon with a call on leaders from Lebanon as well as Israel to take advantage of the role UN peacekeeping can play in finding political solutions to conflict.
Southern Africa’s water sources and crops are under serious pressure as a long dry spell and high temperatures have taken hold in the region, the United Nations agriculture agency said Tuesday, warning that after record maize production in 2017, food shortages are set to worsen this year.
Against the backdrop of the fast approaching wet season in Bangladesh, United Nations relief agencies are working flat out to strengthen vital infrastructure and boost resilience among hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees living in rudimentary shelters as well as for local communities hosting them.
Warning that nuclear weapons pose catastrophic risks to human life and the environment, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday called on the international community to make a reinvigorated push to rid the world of such weapons.
Urgent efforts are needed to keep the “hard-won” gains in Burundi from eroding, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council on Monday, noting that while the security situation is calm, there is still the potential for volatility as political tensions persist.
The United Nations is launching a 24-hour helpline to enable staff to call out sexual harassment in the workplace, Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday.
Amid growing insecurity in Lake Chad, a senior United Nations relief official on Monday said the international community and the Government of Cameroon must step up support for humanitarian action in the country, which is most affected by regionwide violence sparked by Boko Haram.
Syria’s war-battered east Ghouta, the troubled Kasais region in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Northern Rakhine state in Myanmar, where violence has sparked a major exodus of Muslim Rohingyas, were all in the spotlight as the Geneva-based Human Rights Council opened its session today, with UN officials warning that these situations spiraled into crisis “because not enough was done, early and collectively, to prevent the rising horrors.”
One year after famine was declared in parts of South Sudan, three United Nations agencies warned on Monday that without sustained humanitarian assistance and access, more than seven million people in the crisis-torn country– almost two-thirds of the population – could become severely food insecure in the coming months.
Eighty five per cent of Syrian refugee children in Jordan are living below the poverty line and a staggering 94 per cent of those under five in “multidimensional” poverty, meaning that they are deprived of some of the most basic needs such as education, health or protection, an assessment by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has revealed.
