What's New

On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, marked every year on 3 May, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Regional Office in Beirut (UNESCO Beirut) organized today a conference entitled, “Media for Democracy: Journalism and Elections in Times of Disinformation”. The event was held in partnership with the Ministry of Information and in collaboration with the United Nations Information Center in Beirut (UNIC Beirut), the Media Association for Peace (MAP) and JUSTICIA.

When women and girls are empowered with technology, the whole world benefits. That’s one key message from the International Day for girls in the field of information and communications technology, or ICT, marked on Thursday. 

The UN Security Council was told on Wednesday that people with disabilities “can’t wait any longer” for more of a say in how the world’s top diplomatic forum for peace and security, factors their needs into its work. 

Between 2010 and 2017, an average of 21.1 million children missed their first dose of the measles vaccine, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) revealed on Wednesday, stressing its importance to creating “an umbrella of immunity for everyone.” 

According to UNICEF, widening pockets of unvaccinated children have created a pathway to the measles outbreaks currently spreading around the world.  

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCO has long celebrated the power of International Book and Copyright Day, marked on 23 April, but this year, special attention is being paid to the protection of indigenous languages, many of which are threatened with extinction.

On Friday 15 April, a number of young Lebanese students gathered to share, compete and scale up SDGs action through innovative entrepreneurship projects in the yearly “Young Entrepreneur Contest”, jointly organized by the United Nations Information Centre in Beirut (UNIC Beirut) and the Modern University for Business and Science (MUBS) in Beirut since 2013.

For the fifth year in a row, the UN Information Centre in Beirut (UNIC Beirut) collaborated with the American University of Beirut (AUB) and Université Saint-Joseph (USJ) to organize the “AUB-USJ NGO Forum 2019” on the campuses of the two universities in Beirut.

Marking International Mother Earth Day, the UN on Monday debated how best to build “an equitable and sustainable future” for all, through enhanced education and climate action, on the road to a key international summit on the issue due to take place in September.

“Uneven growth, rising debt levels, possible upticks in financial volatility, and heightened global trade tensions” are hampering progress on reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), UN chief António Guterres told the Forum on Financing for Development on Monday, during what he called “a critical moment” to “accelerate action for sustainable development”. 

Two-thirds of the largely medieval roof of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris have “gone” after the devastating fire in Paris on Monday evening, but UN cultural experts are standing by to offer help where it is needed in rebuilding the iconic structure.

That’s what UNESCO World Heritage Centre Director Mechtild Rössler told UN News after visiting the site on Tuesday.

She described seeing people praying outside the stricken symbol of the city and the nation, still trying to take in the scale of the disaster: