United Nations chief António Guterres and senior members of the UN, have embarked on a three-day visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where civilians are facing insecurity and ongoing health crises, including a year-long Ebola epidemic which has claimed more than 2,000 lives.
After a two-week sail across the Atlantic, youth climate activist Greta Thunberg arrived in the Big Apple on Wednesday to take part in two major climate summits to be held at UN Headquarters next month.
Partnerships with civil society and youth are essential to achieving the goals of key UN-backed international agreements, such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the Paris Agreement on climate change, María Fernanda Espinosa, the President of the United Nations General Assembly, told delegates at the UN Civil Society Conference on Wednesday.
Although Iraq is “hard at work building on progress made to date”, a top United Nations official told the Security Council on Wednesday that decades of trouble continue to impact the present, but cautioned “we have not seen the end of it yet”.
Despite ISIL’s territorial defeat in Syria, the terrorist group, also known as Da’esh “continues to aspire to global relevance”, the United Nations top counter-terrorism officials told the Security Council on Tuesday.
Tangible steps “can, and must, be taken” to urgently reverse the “negative trajectory” of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and revive the peace process, a senior United Nations envoy told the Security Council on Tuesday.
“Important developments” under way in Sudan since midsummer, including a pledge to end the country’s outstanding conflicts, and the establishment of a new transitional government, could serve to edge the country’s people closer to stability, Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix said, briefing the UN Security Council on Monday.
A surge in “deliberate” attacks against students, teachers and schools in West and Central Africa has led to a tripling in school closures in the last year and left almost two million youngsters “robbed of an education”, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday.
Changing patterns and worsening impacts of natural disasters in Asia and the Pacific, coupled with environmental degradation and climate change, are not only making efforts to predict such catastrophes more difficult, but are also a “sign of things to come”, the United Nations development arm in the region has warned.
The scars of terrorism “run deep”, and while they may fade with time, “they never disappear”, the United Nations chief said on Wednesday, in his message for the second International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism.
