SDGs

A Palestinian herder takes sheep to a rehabilitated cistern for water.
©FAO/Marco Longari

Address water scarcity ‘immediately and boldly’, urges UN agriculture agency chief 

26 November 2020

More than three billion people live in agricultural areas with high levels of water shortages and scarcity, the UN agriculture agency said in a new report launched on Wednesday. 

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) and partners arranged the delivery of biosecurity equipment, face masks and food kits to indigenous communities in Cauca, Colombia.
UNDP Colombia/Jurany Carabani

‘Foundational and necessary change’ needed to heal post-COVID world

24 November 2020
Global

With the COVID-19 pandemic precipitating one of the world’s worst health, socioeconomic and humanitarian crises in over a century, the UN chief told a high-level discussion on Tuesday to seize the opportunity “to make real, foundational, and necessary change”. 

A girl writes on a blackboard at a school in Fada, eastern Burkina Faso, after returning to her class. Schools in the country had been closed for months due to COVID-19 mitigation measures.
UNICEF/Dejongh

This World Children’s Day, ‘reimagine a better future’, for every child

20 November 2020
Global

The global community is marking World Children’s Day on Friday, calling for societies to “reimagine a better future” for every child, where each one has the opportunity to thrive. 

The port of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's coastal capital.
World Bank/Rob Beechey

Development funding and trade transparency needed, to stop COVID-19 dividing the world

19 November 2020

The pandemic has redefined the world economy in ways that will deepen inequality and can only be reversed if a global transformation in attitudes towards trade and development allows the whole world to recover together, the UN trade body UNCTAD said, in a report published on Thursday. 

A night Earth observation photograph taken from the International Space Station, as it passes over Japan. Such images provide important information on atmospheric and ground-level conditions.
Scott Kelly/NASA

Backed by space technology, Asia-Pacific countries power sustainable development

18 November 2020
Asia Pacific

Asian and Pacific nations are leveraging space technology and geospatial information to respond to challenges on the ground, including in their efforts to contain the spread and mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new United Nations report. 

The UN chief underscores the importance of rebooting economies to put them firmly on the path to a sustainable future, particularly in developing countries, like Nepal (pictured).
© World Bank/Aisha Faquir

COVID disruption will ‘pale in comparison’ if world fails to act on climate change, SDGs

12 November 2020
Global

The fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement and the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) “go hand in hand”, the UN chief told a major development bank conference on Thursday.

A park in Brooklyn, New York, has marked out circles in order to enforce social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
UN News/Daniel Dickinson

WHO’s Tedros says it is time for the world to heal, pushing back on ‘misguided nationalism’ 

9 November 2020
Global

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told Member States on Monday that efforts to tackle climate change and poverty had been set back by a lack of global unity since major agreements were struck five years ago, and welcomed the chance to work with the presumptive new US administration of president-elect Joe Biden.