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The United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, Ms. Jayathma Wickramanayake, joined a townhall meeting with over 200 young people to listen to their experiences, challenges, and hopes for the future in an event hosted by the Ministry of Youth, UNICEF and Generations for Peace in Amman.

The oceans are not only under “unprecedented pressure” due to climate change, but “half of all living coral has been lost in the past 150 years”, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday, addressing the latest gathering of nations which are party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Some 2.2 billion people around the world do not have safely-managed drinking water, while 4.2 billion go without safe sanitation services and three billion lack basic handwashing facilities, according to a new report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Global problems require global solutions that rely on “essential” partnerships, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council on Thursday, stating that “our cooperation with the League of Arab States is pivotal”. 

Conflict prevention and mediation are two of “the most important tools at our disposal to reduce human suffering” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Wednesday.  

“When we act early, and are united, we can successfully prevent crises from escalating, saving lives and reducing suffering – fulfilling the most fundamental mandate of the United Nations”, he continued. 

More than one-in-five people living in conflict-affected areas suffers from a mental illness, according to a new report based on UN figures, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to call for increased, sustained investment in mental health services in those zones.

Around 22 per cent of those affected, suffer depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, according to an analysis of 129 studies published in The Lancet – a United Kingdom-based peer-reviewed medical journal.

The digital future must be safer and more inclusive, says a new tech report, “the Age of Digital Interdependence”, released on Monday by the UN High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, almost a year after the Panel was launched by Secretary-General António Guterres.

By Joyce Msuya, Acting Executive Director, UN Environment Programme

In India, a young entrepreneur is turning hundreds of tons of flower waste from temples into organic incense sticks, made by women. A simple, cost-effective innovation is helping generate employment, protecting our water bodies and encouraging more research into environment-friendly alternatives. In Burkina Faso, an initiative to repurpose plastic waste into clothes and other items has reduced plastic waste in dumpsites in the city of Koudougou by one-third and improved sanitation.

Women are engaged in all aspects of interaction with our ocean, yet their voices are often missing at the decision-making level, the head of the United Nations cultural agency said on World Oceans Day, emphasizing that “we must ensure diversity and gender inclusiveness at all levels” to set a balanced course for humanity and foster innovative solutions for the ocean.

New firsthand reporting by UN staff in Syria reveals “increasingly horrific brutality” by all parties in the de-escalation area of the country’s northwest, causing “significant civilian causalities” and hundreds of thousands displaced, a senior humanitarian official said on Thursday. 

“Three million people in Idlib need protection”, Najat Rochdi, Senior Humanitarian Adviser to the UN Special Envoy for Syria, said in a statement, adding that there was “grave danger” of a “humanitarian catastrophe” if the violence fails to end.