Briefing ambassadors at the UN Security Council, Hans Grundberg voiced his disappointment at the failure to achieve key milestones that ordinary Yemenis have been demanding, by Ramadan.
“As I briefed last month, the mediation space has grown more complex. This continues to be the case,” he...
And yet, we know women continue to contribute enormously to the economy, directly and indirectly. One out of three businesses are owned by women. Women provide the bulk of unpaid care work, spending 2.8 hours more a day than men do.
If we are not ambitiously proactive, women’s economic...
“Women’s rights are human rights” has echoed throughout the UN Commission on the Status of Women for decades, including at its current session that runs from 11 to 22 March at UN Headquarters.
Global perspective Human stories
A group of displaced people hosted in a school in the centre of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
13 March 2024Humanitarian Aid
The number of internally displaced people around the world is at a record high – well over 70 million – it’s a global crisis that...
We know that we are meeting in troubled times – for the world and particularly for women and girls.
The Sustainable Development Goals are off track – including Goal five: gender equality.
At our current rate, 340 million women and girls will still be living in extreme poverty by 2030. We...
“After decades of progress, women’s rights are being undermined and reversed,” said Secretary-General António Guterres.
Pointing to several ominous examples, he said women’s rights are severely restricted in Afghanistan, sexual violence is being reported during the ongoing Israel-Palestine...
The 2023 Human Development Index stands at a new high following steep decline during 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP).
Rich countries experienced unprecedented development, the Human Development Report details, yet half of the world’s...
Ms. Boucly spoke to Khaled Mohamed from UN News as news emerged of fresh Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, and an UNRWA report that more children have been killed there in recent months than in four years of conflict worldwide.
On Wednesday, the agency reported that at least one of its staffers had...
13 March 2024Peace and Security
A Russian missile strike on a multi-storey apartment block in central Ukraine that left three dead and around 40 injured on Tuesday has been strongly condemned by the UN’s top aid official in Kyiv, Denise Brown.
“I am appalled to know that families were just...
The lack of goods and resources is worsening an already precarious economic situation, with water and basic services being “stretched to the limit”, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said.
The UN Secretary-General called on all Haitian stakeholders to act responsibly and expressed appreciation...
In the Middle East, Sudan, Myanmar, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, women and girls bear the brunt of conflicts and of wars they did not start.
In all conflicts, we unequivocally condemn all acts of gender-based violence, and all forms of violence...
Addressing the opening of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the pivotal forum dedicated to promoting and safeguarding the rights of women and girls worldwide, Secretary-General António Guterres stressed the disproportionate impact of wars on women.
“In conflict zones around the...
“Equality is overdue; to achieve it, we must match rhetoric with resources,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “We must invest in women and girls, turbocharge progress and build a better world for us all.”
His new UN System-Wide Gender Equality Acceleration Plan “commits to placing...
Conflict is inherently violent, but for women and girls ever more so, including in sexual and gender-based ways. This is intolerable. No woman or girl anywhere, ever, should experience sexual violence or any form of violence. UN Women, alongside everyone here, condemns it unequivocally.
The...
8 March 2024Women
More than 230 million girls and women alive today have been subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM); an increase of 30 million or 15 per cent compared with figures from 2016, new UN estimates revealed on Friday.
Released on Friday, coinciding with International...
On International Women’s Day, we celebrate women and girls around the world, and we applaud all they have achieved in the fight for equality.
Women and girls have made great gains – demolishing barriers, dismantling stereotypes and driving progress towards a more just and equal world.
Yet they...
“This year’s theme – invest in women – reminds us that ending the patriarchy requires money on the table,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement for the International Day.
“This all depends on unlocking finance for sustainable development so that countries have funds...
Kanni Wignaraja, Director of UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, who recently visited the country, told correspondents in New York that 69 per cent of Afghans are “subsistence insecure” – meaning they do not have enough basic resources.
“Something that really hit me … was the harsh...
7 March 2024Economic Development
The benefits of cutting-edge technology remain out of reach for around 2.6 billion people globally who are still waiting for an Internet connection, the head of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) said on Thursday, outlining the agency’s plans to...
New York, 8 March 2024 – On International Women’s Day, UN Women calls for the world to “Invest in Women, Accelerate Progress” as the best way to accelerate economic growth and build more prosperous, equitable societies.
This is particularly urgent when war and crisis are eroding the...