UN News Centre

With the chief of the UN’s gender empowerment agency declaring that women are still “sitting in the corridors when men are inside at the table negotiating peace”, the historic Generation Equality Forum in Paris concluded on Friday with new commitments designed to address that, and other injustices.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday urged leaders to push back against daunting new COVID surges through increased vaccination efforts and public health measures, warning that with Delta quickly becoming the dominant strain in many countries ‘we are in a very dangerous period of the pandemic’.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has resumed operations in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, after fighting halted the emergency response last week, although the agency warned on Friday that “serious challenges” continue to threaten the entire humanitarian response.  

Leading figures from government, business and civil society are preparing to take part in this year’s High Level Political Forum on sustainable development (HLPF), where they will discuss ways to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and turn the deadly crisis into an opportunity for a major shift towards a more sustainable global economy.

The UN’s Pause campaign, which encourages social media and other news consumers to stop and check the validity of information they share, received a major endorsement on Thursday after a study from a leading research institute in the United States concluded that it has helped encourage the behavioural change needed to stop the spread of misinformation online.

Without an urgent injection of cash, billions globally are at risk of still being without lifesaving access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene services by 2030, according to a new UN report published on Thursday. 

Although the COVID-19 pandemic had triggered the roll-out of an “unprecedented number” of new and often innovative social protection measures, it was unable to stem a widening gap between rich and poor countries, according to a new UN report released on Thursday.

Upholding human rights online must be part of global efforts to recover better following the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of UN independent experts said on Friday. 

Independent UN human rights experts on Friday urged Canadian authorities and the Holy See of the Catholic Church to conduct prompt “full-fledged investigations” into a mass grave found in British Columbia containing the remains of over 200 children at a residential school for indigenous students, who had been forcibly taken from their homes.

Heads of Government, religious leaders, activists and artists joined the United Nations on Friday in a rallying cry to heal the planet, launching the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. 

Amidst the triple environmental threat of biodiversity loss, climate disruption and escalating pollution, Secretary-General António Guterres launched “an unprecedented effort to heal the Earth”, on the eve of World Environment Day. 

Some two billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been distributed globally but only 0.5 per cent have reached low-income countries where frontline health workers and the elderly have yet to receive a shot, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

There has been no further investigation into the state of the FSO Safer, a stricken tanker anchored just 4.8 nautical miles off the Yemen coast, meaning the risk of a massive oil leak continues to grow with each passing day, a senior UN official told the Security Council on Thursday.  

Until those responsible for any and all chemical weapons use in Syria are held responsible, the global community will continue sending a message of impunity, the senior UN disarmament official warned the Security Council on Thursday.

The head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has called for “clear and unequivocal guarantees” over the safety and security of staff working to restore critical services in Gaza, following last month’s conflict between Israel and militant group Hamas, which controls the occupied enclave.

With factors contributing to transnational corruption becoming increasingly complex, the UN launched an initiative on Thursday to “empower all countries” to find practical solutions and better tools to track, investigate and prosecute the scourge.   

An independent UN expert has deplored a recent spate of attacks against human rights defenders in Nicaragua and called on Thursday for the Government to immediately halt them. 

Critical health facilities across Africa risk being overwhelmed by surging COVID-19 infections, the UN health agency said on Thursday.

An area of land roughly the size of China needs restoring if the planet’s biodiversity and the communities who rely on it are to be protected, UN agencies said on Thursday.

Elderly people often have to give up cycling, due to a fear of injury, but Cycling Without Age, a movement which began in Denmark, is allowing them to regain mobility, and the pleasures of cycling, in safety.