Panel discussions exclusively made up of men, or ‘manels’ need to stop, says Valerie Julliand, the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Indonesia. Ms. Julliand has taken steps to promote gender parity by pledging that the UN will only participate in panels which include women’s voices.

To mark Valentine’s Day, the annual 14 February celebration of love and affection, Gita Sabharwal, UN Resident Coordinator in Thailand, and Patchara Benjarattanaporn, Thailand Country Director for UNAIDS, call for an end to discrimination against people living with HIV, and recognition of the contribution they make to Thai society.

Belarus has been rocked by mass demonstrations, and violent state crackdowns, since the disputed August presidential election that saw Alexander Lukashenko returned to power. In this blog, Joanna Kazana-Wisniowiecki, the UN Resident Coordinator in Belarus, explains what the unrest means for the Organization.

Mother of three, Mhee Saesong, a strawberry farmer from Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand, has always struggled alongside her husband to provide for her family. She describes how, in the past, when her two older children became sick, she was unable to afford to take them to hospital.