UN News Centre - Africa

Speaking at a Security Council meeting on the situation in Africa’s Great Lakes region on Wednesday, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy, Huang Xia, told ambassadors that the countries concerned now stand “at a crossroads”.  

State security forces in South Sudan have been responsible for imposing new and potentially arbitrary restrictions against the country’s most prominent civil society leaders, issuing “credible” death threats that have undermined peace efforts, UN-appointed independent rights experts said on Wednesday. 

Young people in South Africa changed their attitudes significantly and adopted safer sexual behaviour, after watching a TV show called Down South – which the UN initiative behind it describes as a tribute to the power of “edutainment”.   

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, is supporting the Government of South Sudan in assisting people hit hard by the worst flooding there in decades. 

Climate change contributed to mounting food insecurity, poverty and displacement in Africa last year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and partners said in a report published on Tuesday. 

The United Nations has received alarming reports of aerial attacks in the residential areas of Tigray’s capital, Mekelle, on Monday morning local time.  

The announcement last week of a unilateral ceasefire in the Central African Republic is among recent positive steps in the country, the top UN official there told the Security Council on Monday, urging continued support for peace and reconciliation efforts. 

Anastasie Obama, a Cameroonian woman who set up her own smoked shrimp business, has been recognized by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Agency (FAO) as a Food Hero, for her contribution towards unlocking the potential of selling shellfish locally and abroad.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has welcomed the declaration of a unilateral ceasefire in the Central African Republic (CAR), his spokesperson said in a statement issued on Saturday.

An Ethiopian farmer has been talking about how avocados have transformed the lives of not just his family but also of people living in his community.

Displaced families in Nigeria’s northeast are “knocking on the door of starvation”, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday.

An ambitious project to raise awareness about rising insecurity and mass displacement in the Sahel has resulted in an original musical score from Mali songwriter Vieux Farka Touré. 

Migrants and asylum seekers in Libya have been facing increasingly heavy-handed treatment from targeted security operations, that have resulted in at least one death and a steep increase in detentions. 

The United Nations on Friday welcomed the signing of a long-awaited Action Plan to withdraw mercenaries, foreign fighters and foreign forces from Libya, after years of fighting between warring factions across the oil-rich nation.

Following an in-depth analysis of the situation in Côte d’Ivoire, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, recommended on Thursday that countries hosting Ivorians end their refugee status, and help them to voluntarily repatriate, obtain permanent residency or began the naturalization process to remain.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday urged authorities in Ethiopia to allow vital humanitarian work there to continue, following the recent decision to declare seven of the Organization’s staff persona non grata and expel them from the country.

Africa’s film and audiovisual industries could create over 20 million jobs and contribute $20 billion to the continent’s combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the UN cultural agency, UNESCO, said on Tuesday in a new report highlighting this untapped potential. 

In northern Mozambique, worrying reports emerged on Tuesday that children as young as five have been shown how to handle weapons and indoctrinated to fight with insurgents.

The first round of food distributions to people in Afar and Amhara regions impacted by the spread of the conflict in northern Ethiopia has been completed, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday. 

Violence and access constraints in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continue to hamper humanitarian operations in a context where one in three people need assistance, the senior UN official in the country told the Security Council on Tuesday.