Seeking to improve the national and international response to major humanitarian emergencies in parts of Africa, a top United Nations relief official arrived on the continent today for talks with government officials and civil society groups.
United Nations efforts to respond to humanitarian emergencies worldwide are being severely hampered by a funding shortfall which has left more than half of all projects without resources, a senior UN official reported today.
Senior United Nations officials today condemned the detention in the Sudan of over a dozen health workers, calling the incident a "major setback" to the world body's effort to eradicate polio in the region.
The security situation in the key Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif is "fragile but improving," paving the way for the return of international relief personnel, a United Nations spokesman said today.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today launched its first air operation from Tajikistan into Afghanistan in an effort to bring urgently needed aid to more than 274,000 desperately hungry people in remote locations across the northeastern part of the country.
Humanitarian supply logistics systems must be effectively coordinated in order to better help people in disasters or emergency situations, a panel of experts assembled by various United Nations relief agencies has concluded.
Just days before the current phase of the United Nations humanitarian "oil-for-food" programme for Iraq is set to expire, speakers in the Security Council today continued to debate the issue in open session.
