What's New

The crisis in north-west Syria has reached a “horrifying new level”, the UN Humanitarian Affairs chief warned on Monday.

Mark Lowcock also said that since 1 December, some 900,000 people have been uprooted by violence, the vast majority of whom are women and children.

“They are traumatized and forced to sleep outside in freezing temperatures because camps are full”, he stated.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Sunday began a three-day visit to Pakistan, recognizing the country’s decades of “outstanding generosity and solidarity” as one of the world’s largest hosts of refugees, and highlighting its commitment to climate action.  

Urgently-needed aid deliveries to embattled civilians in north-west Syria have started again after a day-long break in distributions caused by escalating hostilities, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday. 

Millions of people worldwide will get to share their views on climate action through a UN campaign launched on Thursday aimed at connecting them with Governments and policy makers. 

The Mission 1.5 campaign is built around an internet and mobile video game that educates people about climate policy and allows them to vote on possible solutions. 

On the International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers, UN Secretary-General António Guterres emphasized the need to integrate child protection into peace processes during a high-level Security Council briefing on Wednesday.

Promoting education for adolescent girls is an “indispensable foundation for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals”,  Secretary-General António Guterres declared at the launch event of the Drive for 5 education initiative at UN Headquarters on Tuesday, hosted by the Irish Mission to the United Nations.

Rising tensions and instability across the globe, particularly in the Middle East, underscore the need to resolve the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, the UN Secretary-General told the Security Council on Tuesday.

Fewer than 30 per cent of the world’s scientific researchers are women: that’s just one of the statistics showing how many challenges remain for women and girls in the scientific field, as the world marks the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, on Tuesday.

Governments should continue to treat containment of the coronavirus as a priority, the head of the UN health agency, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Monday.

After earlier describing cases of infection in people with no travel history to China as possibly the “tip of the iceberg”, the World Health Organization Director-General warned in Geneva that while the spread of the respiratory disease appeared to be slow, it could accelerate.

The UN chief on Saturday called on the international community to recognize the need for African counter-terrorism operations, backed by the UN Security Council,  to tackle the growing threat of extremist violence across the continent, and “predictable funding, guaranteed by compulsory contributions”.