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The coronavirus pandemic and its fallout will likely push 47 million more women into poverty, reversing decades of progress to eradicate extreme poverty, new data released on Wednesday by the UN has revealed. 

The study, commissioned by UN Women and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), points to a 9.1 per cent increase in the poverty rate for women.  

The world has “entered a volatile and unstable new phase” in terms of the impact of COVID-19 on peace and security, the UN chief told a virtual meeting with world leaders on Wednesday.

Contamination from hazardous chemicals, landfill sites at capacity, and water pollution, are among the most urgent challenges faced by the Lebanese authorities and UN teams tackling the huge task of clearing up Beirut, following the massive explosion in the city’s port on 4 August.

In a press briefing on Tuesday, Jihan Seoud, Energy and Environment Program Manager at the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP) Lebanon office, described the impact of the explosion as a major concern, particularly as Beirut’s environment was already “in a dismal state” before the disaster.

Without harnessing the energy, tech savvy and optimism of young people, the world has no hope of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or the Paris Agreement on climate change, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday.

UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet has urged all countries to do more to protect journalists, especially during the COVID-19 crisis, as their work helps save lives.

Speaking at an event in support of press freedom in Geneva, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights noted that around 1,000 journalists have been killed in the last decade – and that nine in 10 cases “are unresolved”.

Eight months into the COVID-19 pandemic, countries want to “get their economies going again”, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday, advising on the measures that governments, communities and individuals should take, to do so safely.

Highlighting the disproportionate and devastating socio-economic impact of COVID-19 on women and girls globally, The UN chief António Guterres called on Monday for a major push to prevent “years, even generations” worth of progress on women’s empowerment, from being lost to the pandemic. 

Syrian opponents meeting in Geneva as part of efforts to find a peaceful end to nearly a decade of conflict in their country have found common ground on which to pursue further discussions, UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen said on Saturday.

The first-ever guidelines on access to justice for people with disabilities are an “indispensable contribution” towards ensuring justice for all, UN human rights experts said on Friday. 

The document will help countries dismantle the barriers that block people with disabilities from being able to use justice systems worldwide. 

More than a human rights violation against an individual, enforced disappearances have frequently been used as a strategy to spread terror within the whole of society, the United Nations said on Sunday, the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance.