What's New

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting recession are set to trigger the first increase in global poverty in three decades, pushing 265 million people to the point of starvation by the end of the year, the UN’s top humanitarian official warned on Friday.

Mark Lowcock called on the world’s leading industrial nations, the G20, to step up support, as he released an updated $10.3 billion appeal to fight coronavirus spread in 63 low-income countries.

The world was off track in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, even before the COVID-19 crisis erupted, but can get back on course by increasing investment in public services, showing solidarity on financing, and “reshaping” how people work, learn, live and consume.

How to adapt and move forward in the new reality of a COVID-19 world was the focus of a UN webinar on Wednesday, which considered how young people can maintain good mental health and a sense of wellbeing.

Disruptions in the delivery of immunization services resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic threaten to unravel global gains in reaching more children and young people with a wider range of vaccines, two UN agencies warned on Wednesday

An independent UN human rights expert is calling for greater scrutiny of emerging digital technologies which she said are being used to uphold racial inequality, discrimination and intolerance.

Special Rapporteur on racism, Tendayi Achiume, presented her concerns in a report delivered on Wednesday to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has generated an unprecedented global health, humanitarian and development crisis, it has also revealed the power of women’s leadership, according to the UN Deputy Secretary-General.

“Over the past months, people around the world have come to see what many of us already knew: women’s leadership makes a profound difference”, Amina Mohammed said on Tuesday.

A ‘business as usual' approach is no longer an option, the head of the UN agriculture agency said on Tuesday, launching a new plan to move past the coronavirus pandemic.

“Concrete, bold and implementable solutions” are needed to turn the tide on the many challenges the world is facing, including the COVID-19 pandemic, Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday, on the biggest day so far for the UN’s key international forum on sustainable development.  

UN-Habitat Lebanon has designed, produced and implemented the first communal handwashing stations in Lebanon. Implemented in four vulnerable urban neighbourhoods in Beirut (Sabra and Daouk Ghawash) and Mount Lebanon (Maraach and Nabaa in Bourj Hammoud), beneficiaries include vulnerable Lebanese, refugees and migrants in poor urban neighbourhoods. The handwashing stations will provide water and hygiene services to almost 30,000 host and refugee populations, to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 and other similar health risks.

Global advocates for refugees are pushing to ensure the COVID-19 pandemic does not derail efforts for displaced children and young people to continue learning and eventually return to a real classroom.

During a roundtable discussion held online on Monday, top UN officials, education ministers, and young refugees, together with representatives from the private sector and non-governmental organizations, highlighted growing needs on the ground - during the crisis and beyond.