What's New

Rich countries must share their supplies of COVID-19 vaccines quickly, in line with recommendations made earlier this year by an independent panel appointed by the World Health Organization (WHO), the former co-chairs said on Tuesday.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former President of Liberia, and Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, expressed deep concern over the slow pace of vaccine redistribution from high-income to low-income countries.

With one million species at risk of extinction, UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday called for greater leadership and political will to end the biodiversity crisis.

In remarks to a high-level virtual meeting to develop a new global framework to address biodiversity loss, he underlined the need for commitment, ambition and credibility.

Ensuring the right to a nationality and eradicating statelessness is more pressing than ever, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Monday, as it marked the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

As the school year begins for millions of children in Europe and Central Asia, UN health and child experts on Monday issued a series of COVID-19 risk reduction measures to ensure that in-person lessons can go ahead, despite rising infection rates.

The top UN envoy for the Middle East peace process told the UN Security Council on Monday that three months after the deadly escalation in violence between Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip, the situation there remains tense.

The global phase-out of leaded fuel represents a “milestone for multilateralism”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday, marking the end of a 20-year campaign to eliminate a major threat to the health of people and the planet.

“Lead in fuel has run out of gas – thanks to the cooperation of governments in developing nations, thousands of businesses and millions of ordinary people,” he said.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has urged countries to fulfil their obligations to prevent and prosecute cases of enforced disappearance, a “cowardly practice” which the COVID-19 pandemic has made even more difficult to combat.

The global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines is progressing at “two alarmingly different speeds”, UN agency leaders said in a statement on Friday, noting that less than two per cent of adults are fully vaccinated in most low-income countries compared to almost 50 per cent in high-‑income nations. 

Countries which have not yet ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) are urged by UN Secretary-General António Guterres to do so without delay.

The UN chief made the appeal in his message for the International Day Against Nuclear Tests, observed on Sunday, 29 August.

The UN has verified 266,000 cases of grave violations against children in more than 30 conflict situations across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America over the past 16 years, two top UN officials said on Thursday – marking 25 years since the Organization released a groundbreaking report on the issue.