The risk of the world’s major powers engaging in conflict is at its highest level since the Cold War, and the possibility of nuclear war breaking out is greater today than it has been for several decades.
On the final episode of Focus on the Future, Conor Lennon and Ben Malor from UN News concentrate on international peace and security, and how the Pact for the Future could help to reduce tensions.
In the Pact for the Future UN Member States pledged to do more to fight the climate crisis, a subject that has dominated several sessions at UN Headquarters this week.
On Thursday’s episode of Focus on the Future, Conor Lennon and Sachin Gaur discuss some of the big climate-related events, including a General Assembly meeting on sea level rise.
Reforming the Security Council, to make it more representative of today’s world, has been under discussion for decades. The subject made it into the Pact for the Future, adopted earlier this week. Does this mean that it is more likely to happen?
Global governance is the key theme of today’s show, which is dominated by the opening of the General Debate, when Heads of State, Prime Ministers and Presidents gather for speeches and backroom talks and deals.
Crippling debt burdens are holding many African countries back: some of them are paying more on repayments than on health, education and infrastructure.
On today’s show Conor Lennon is joined by Sachin Gaur from the UN News Hindi Unit, to cover the events focused on sustainable development and rethinking the entire international financial architecture. The big question is, how we can make it fairer?
Also, star wattage has been lighting up Headquarters. Edward Norton and Meryl Streep were among the artistic talents at HQ, advocating for the environment and Afghan women.
On the first episode of Focus on the Future, our mini-series running throughout High-Level Week of the UN General Assembly, Conor Lennon and Shanaé Harte explain what the Summit of the Future is all about, how to bring back trust between countries and why UN HQ was full of young people all weekend!
Contact us: thelidison@un.org
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The future of UN peacekeeping and the “new models” it needs to create to remain relevant in the 21st Century are set to be discussed at the landmark Summit of the Future taking place in New York from 22 September.
There are currently 11 UN missions around the world, mainly in Africa and the Middle East.
Their goal is to help countries torn by conflict to create the conditions for lasting peace.
Participants at the Summit of the Future will discuss, the global architecture for international cooperation, which includes peacekeeping.
A Ugandan man, some of whose family and friends were abducted in the East African country, tells the story of his journey from war-torn childhood to becoming the youngest ever African nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Victor Ochen grew up in northern Uganda at a time when the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, was terrorising the region with violent abductions, forced child soldier recruitment, and widespread atrocities against civilians.
For 21 years the focus of his life was survival, struggling to find enough to eat in a variety of internal displacement camps.
Like many island economies, Dominica experiences high youth unemployment, and recent events, in particular Hurricane Maria and the COVID-19 pandemic, have combined to make the search for work even harder.
A UN-backed initiative designed to improve the employment options for young Dominicans, Work Online Dominica, has been successful in helping them to overcome the barriers they face on a small, remote island.
This episode of The Lid Is On focuses on cutting edge online technology, and the UN’s role in making sure that it benefits humanity, rather than causing us harm.
Proponents of AI point to the immense benefits these tools could bring to society, but the clamour for robust regulation of AI is growing louder. Similarly, the car industry is forging ahead with plans to ramp up autonomous driving technology, promising a safer future on the roads, but fears surrounding driverless “robot cars” persist.
With the world currently recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, and reeling from the economic fallout of the war in Ukraine, progress on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals remains slow.
So, can we pick up the pace in the seven years we have left in this decade, and get closer to realizing the Goals? And can Youth Leaders make a difference?
