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 Nearly one-in-five children across the Middle East and North Africa – over 90 per cent of whom live in conflict-affected countries – need immediate humanitarian assistance, according to new analysis by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

“Conflict continues to rob millions of girls and boys of their childhood,” said Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF Regional Director, in a press statement.

As some 1.4 million people in Europe and Central Asia die prematurely each year from polluted environments, United Nations agency heads at high-level meeting call for regional leaders to scale up action to stem environmental deaths and diseases.

Efforts and policies to prevent extremism must encompass all segments of the society, in particular those who have suffered structural discrimination and marginalization, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said today, warning that measures which fail to do so could end up effectively “driving” people into the hands of terrorists.

Amid ongoing discussions towards the first-ever global compacts on refugees and migration, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) joined other United Nations agencies meeting in Berlin today stressing that all parties involved in these talks must work together to address the needs of migrant children, consistent with their human rights.

A major intergovernmental meeting got underway at the United Nations today, bringing together a wide range of stakeholders to ensure the full implementation of a landmark treaty on the rights of persons with disabilities.

After visiting refugee camps in Jordan, UN-backed schools in Gaza, municipalities in Kosovo and Youth Councils in Denmark, the UN’s Youth Envoy visited the Security Council on Wednesday with a simple message from the field that “young people care about peace”.

However, Jayathma Wickramanayake made clear that “young women and men still suffer from stereotypes, myths and policy panics that harm their agency and affect realizing their full potential for peace”. 

On the second anniversary of the tragic explosion at the port of Beirut on 4 August 2020, members of the International Support Group for Lebanon (ISG) express their solidarity with Lebanon and its people, particularly with the families of the victims and all those whose lives were affected by that event that shook Lebanon and the world. We remember the more than 200 dead, and the many thousands who were injured, lost homes or employment, and who suffered trauma.

Although some countries have begun to rectify their “heinous legacy” of discrimination against indigenous people, more action is still needed, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday. 

Despite a brief dip in global carbon dioxide emissions as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the planet is still heading for a global temperature rise in excess of 3 degrees Celsius this century, a new United Nations report has revealed. 

Speedy and strong climate action can, however, change the temperature trajectory, according to UN Environment Programme (UNEP)’s Emissions Gap Report 2020. 

In what leading campaigners are describing as “a new chapter for nuclear disarmament”, the ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will now come into force on 22 January, after Honduras became the 50th Member State to ratify on Saturday.