While the scale and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic is being felt in developing and developed countries alike, the President of the UN General Assembly maintained on Monday that the response must focus on “the two-thirds of the world’s population at risk of being left behind”.
In cities and communities across the world, citizens of all ages and backgrounds are getting the chance to literally play an important role in redesigning their public spaces, thanks to an innovative collaboration between the UN, and the company behind the popular computer game Minecraft.
The challenges facing cities, in an age of climate change and technological innovation, will be highlighted at the World Urban Forum, held in Abu Dhabi between February 8 and 13.
Before he left for the UN’s annual conference on the urban environment, Haoliang Xu, Director of the UN Development Programme’s Department of Policy and Programme Support, sat down with Matt Wells from UN News.
Mr. Xu revealed that there is a growing trend of city leaders looking to the UN to help solve an increasingly complex set of problems.
With 90 per cent of road-related injuries and fatalities occurring in developing countries, it is “absolutely essential” for those countries to put road safety on top of their agenda.
That’s the message from the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety, Jean Todt.