UN News

For this second episode of our new hit podcast from UN News, the UNcomplicators delve inside the biggest week of the year at UN Headquarters when world leaders come to town, and the key summits take place, that can shape policymaking for decades to come.

Sinduja and Jason speak to one of the world’s best interpreters about the challenges the team of more than 120 language experts face, covering the UN’s six official languages, during dozens of high-stakes speeches - where every word counts.

Welcome to the first edition of UNcomplicated, a new podcast from UN News, that grew out of a coffee shop conversation between UN staffer Sinduja Srinivasan and her friend Jason DeWall, who had never set foot inside UN Headquarters.

“The UN can seem intimidating and complicated”, our dynamic hosts told us. “We aim to make the United Nations accessible and straightforward”.

So, with the world leaders’ General Debate looming, which kicks off the latest UN General Assembly in a few days’ time, Sinduja and Jason set off with a microphone, to bring us this inaugural episode.

A major alert has been issued for hundreds of thousands of Myanmar youngsters who’ve been forced to seek shelter in what’s been described as a “hell on earth” of makeshift camps in southern Bangladesh.

UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) raised the alarm in Geneva.

Parental leave is smart for the economy and helps change minds

Legal vacuum “an obstacle to advancing gender equality”: UN Peacekeeper

An absence of laws is an “obstacle to advancing gender equality” because it doesn’t give women the support they need to report cases of gender based violence.

That was the reality confronting Assistant Inspector of Police Annah Chota when she got to Abyei, Sudan, to take up her post.

In response, she helped to start a new network that would allow women to speak out.

Through training workshops and campaigns, she helped to change the way communities there deal with rape, domestic violence and child marriage.

Unequal pay and lack of paid parental leave holds women back in the world of work.

That’s the economic reality underpinning a meeting organized by UN Women and the Nordic Council of Ministers which took place at UN Headquarters in September.

Norway began offering paid parental leave to mothers for a full year in the 1980s, and fathers are entitled to 14 weeks.

The “generosity and honesty” of women officers contributes to role of UN Police (UNPOL) in South Sudan, according to a female Rwandan officer working in the UN mission there.

The UN peacekeeping operation, UNMISS, has provided sanctuary to some 213,000 people in Protection of Civilians or POC sites around the conflict-affected country.

UNPOL plays a key part in making sure those civilians remain safe.