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The private sector has a key role to play in lifting countries out of both the COVID-19 and climate crises, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told international business leaders on Monday. 

The sheer scale of the numbers involved in the COVID-19 pandemic can “make us numb to what they represent”, the UN health agency chief said on Monday, reminding journalists in his latest briefing, that each one stands for “a person, a story”. As of late Monday, confirmed cases were nearing 99 million, and yet another grim milestone as 100 million cases looms. 

The UN Secretary-General on Monday called for urgent scaling up of funds for climate change adaptation and resilience building programmes, so they can offer real and lasting protection against the impact of major events such as droughts, floods and rising sea-levels. 

“Adaptation cannot be the neglected half of the climate equation”, Secretary-General António Guterres said at the Climate Adaptation Summit. 

Since September, the devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic has deepened, infecting close to 100 million people, costing more than $3 trillion in lost wages and intensifying obstacles for peace and security around the world, the UN political chief told the Security Council on Monday. 

Trafficked and sexually exploited women and girls can find themselves facing prosecution and conviction for those very same crimes, in some countries, a new UN report shows. The study aims to help prosecutors to better handle these complex cases, and protect the genuine victims.

To mark the third International Day of Education on Sunday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres paid tribute to the resilience of students, teachers and families in the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic that, at its peak, forced almost every school, institute and university to close its doors.

Marking its 75th anniversary amid the most serious economic and health crisis the UN has ever faced, the Organization’s Economic and Social Council “has the mandate and the responsibility to respond to these challenges,” the body’s President, Munir Akram, said on Saturday.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday announced the signing of an advance purchase agreement securing up to 40 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine, under the UN-led COVAX equitable vaccine supply programme. 

The UN chief announced on Thursday that he has set up an independent Senior Advisory Panel on strengthening the mechanism whereby humanitarian workers and sites are better protected from attack in Syria, according to a statement released by his spokesperson.&n

After a decade of conflict, economic collapse compounded by COVID-19, corruption and mismanagement, the UN Syrian envoy told the Security Council on Wednesday that “a slow tsunami” is now “crashing across Syria”. 

“Today, millions inside the country and the millions of refugees outside, are grappling with deep trauma, grinding poverty, personal insecurity, and lack of hope for the future”, Special Envoy Geir Pedersen said via video link.