UN News Centre

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that “our health systems are inadequate”, the UN chief told a ministerial meeting on Thursday, citing weak structures and unequal access to healthcare as “major reasons” why the coronavirus has killed one million people and infected more than 30 times that, globally.

Armed conflict has a disproportionate impact on women and girls – a key reason why women’s “full, equal and meaningful participation” in UN peacekeeping is such a priority, the Secretary-General said on Thursday. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has forever changed the way consumers shop online, the UN trade and development body, UNCTAD, said on Thursday, announcing results of a survey of some 3,700 consumers across nine countries. 

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has strongly condemned an attack, on the night of 4 October, targeting a convoy carrying internally displaced persons in Burkina Faso, in which 25 people were killed.

A stillborn baby is delivered every 16 seconds, which translates into nearly two million infants over the course of a year that never took their first breath, according to a new UN report published on Thursday. 

Across the world, girls as young as 12 are being forced or tricked into marrying men who exploit them for sex and domestic work, in what the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has called an “under-reported, global form of human trafficking”. 

Given the history of intercommunal violence in Guinea, two high-level UN Officials voiced concern on Tuesday over the risk of “incitement to hostility, discrimination or violence” as the country gears up for elections on 18 October.

The United Nations has strongly condemned Saturday’s suicide attack on a government building in Nangarhar province, eastern Afghanistan, and underlined that the perpetrators must be brought to justice. 

An ambitious plan to make one of the world’s largest and most complex railway networks a net zero carbon emitter by 2030 is moving full steam ahead, although without the steam, thanks, in part, to support from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

Luis Jose Faife, a UN refugee agency (UNHCR) worker from Mozambique, survived the devastation of Cyclones Idai and Kenneth, which killed more than 600 people in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, and displaced some 2.2. million people, in March 2019. Now COVID-19 is posing a new challenge to humanitarian workers, and they people they help.

With strong leadership and comprehensive strategies it’s never too late for countries to change the trendlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, despite passing the tragic milestone of one million deaths this week amid regional surges in infections, said the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday.

The UN human rights office OHCHR, called on Friday for urgent action to address the “unimaginable horrors” faced by migrants attempting to cross the central Mediterranean Sea in search of safety in Europe.

The elimination of nuclear weapons is vital to the “survival of life on this planet”, the UN chief told the final major event of the General Assembly’s high level week on Friday.  

UN-appointed independent rights experts have urged the Iraqi authorities to investigate the murder of a female human rights defender, and the attempted killing of another, targeted “simply because they are women”.

Catastrophic flooding and rising food and health costs in Sudan, have driven up the number of people in need, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday. 

The UN Secretary-General repeated his call for a global ceasefire on Friday, commemorating the International Day of Non Violence, which is taking place this year in the shadow of the devastating human and socio-economic impacts resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. 

The UN Secretary-General has called for parties in the Central African Republic (CAR) to prioritize national dialogue and consensus-building ahead of elections scheduled to begin in December. 

We must “commit” to building a more inclusive and sustainable world, the UN chief underscored in his annual report on the Work of the Organization, launched on Thursday.

Unless countries act now, the COVID-19 pandemic could erase recent “fragile progress” towards gender equality, the UN Secretary-General warned on Thursday, urging governments to put women at the centre of recovery and response. 

An educator and rights defender who has spent more than 20 years rescuing exploited and trafficked children in Colombia, represents “the best of us”, the UN refugee chief said on Thursday, as she was named the winner of this year’s Nansen Refugee Award.