What's New

The Organization and its 12 peacekeeping missions around the world must fully embrace new technology in the face of ever-changing challenges, the UN chief said on Wednesday as he outlined to the Security Council his Strategy for the Digital Transformation of UN Peacekeeping.

During Wednesday’s World Health Organization briefing on COVID-19, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for funding to fight the spread of the deadly Delta variant while also asking wealthy countries to suspend plans to provide booster shots. 

Reliable fuel and electricity supply are urgently needed in Lebanon to avert a potential “humanitarian catastrophe”, the top UN aid official in the country warned on Tuesday. 

Najat Rochdi, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon, said fuel shortages are threatening provision of essential health and water services, putting thousands of families at risk. 

Some 30,000 Palestine refugees registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in south Syria have become increasingly vulnerable, following recent clashes in and around the Dera’a Governorate, the UN agency warned on Sunday.

The damage to people and livelihoods caused by climate change is happening at a scale that “people on the front lines cannot manage”, according to the UN’s humanitarian office, OCHA.

OCHA says that “time is running out for millions of people who are already losing their lives, their homes and their livelihoods” due to “extreme weather” that is “decimating” communities across the globe.

Expressing alarm over “rampant police brutality against peaceful protesters worldwide”, more than 40 UN-appointed human rights experts on Friday called for an end to the violence, urging Governments to promote dialogue, tolerance and diversity. 

A group of UN-appointed experts on Thursday called for a moratorium on the sale of surveillance technology, warning against the danger of allowing the sector to operate as “a human rights-free zone.” 

Their recommendation comes in the wake of the Pegasus spyware scandal targeting hundreds of journalists, activists and politicians. 

A young peace campaigner from Cameroon who turned his back on the violence prevalent in his hometown and became a youth civil society activist, has been telling the United Nations about how he is helping other young people to reject conflict, and take a greater role in building peace in the country.

Christian Achaleke spoke to the UN ahead of International Youth Day, which is marked annually on August 12th.

Young people are on the “frontlines of the struggle to build a better future”, the UN chief said on Thursday, International Youth Day.

With 40 per cent of the global population under 25, the international community has a special responsibility to ensure young people can share their perspectives and concerns about existential threats to current and future generations, UN disarmament chief Izumi Nakamitsu said on Thursday.