Sustainable Development Goals

Rokaya needed time to recover after illness forced her to quit as a live-in maid in Malaysia and return home to Indramayu, West Java. However, under pressure from her agent who claimed two million Rupiah for her initial placement, she accepted an offer of work in Erbil, Iraq. There, Ms. Rokaya found herself responsible for taking care of a family’s sprawling compound—working from 6 a.m. until after midnight, seven days per week. As exhaustion worsened the headaches and vision problems that...

28 March 2024Migrants and Refugees The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, and partners on Thursday appealed for $1.4 billion this year to support more than two million South Sudanese refugees in five African countries and local communities hosting them. Since the start of the conflict in South Sudan over 10 years ago, growing humanitarian needs compounded by dire food shortages, continued insecurity, and the impacts of climate change, have kept refugees in exile and prompted new displacement...

26 March 2024Migrants and Refugees One in three migrant deaths happens while people flee conflict, the UN migration agency, IOM, said on Tuesday. More than two in three migrants whose deaths have been documented remain unidentified. Last year was the deadliest on record, with 8,541 migrant victims. Nearly 60 per cent of deaths were linked to drowning. So far in 2024, the trends are just as alarming. Along the Mediterranean sea route alone – while arrivals this year are significantly...

23 March 2024Culture and Education In the face of escalating conflicts and humanitarian crises, UN Secretary-General António Guterres is set to embark on his annual Ramadan solidarity trip, commencing this weekend in Cairo, Egypt. The trip, which coincides with the holy month of Ramadan, takes place amid turbulent times, particularly with the ongoing conflict in Gaza. In a tradition that started when he served as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to shine a light on Muslim...

21 March 2024Culture and Education On World Poetry Day, marked on 21 March, and #ThrowbackThursday, we looked at some poetry in motion in the General Assembly’s Third Committee on social, humanitarian and cultural affairs. UN rumour has it that the unofficial tradition began almost 40 years ago, when a delegate from the United Kingdom requested the floor to make a point of order at the end of an intense months-long session. The now annual tradition is flush with ribald diplomatic...

They live in the village of Ankilinanjosoa in Anosy, a region which has suffered a series of droughts leading to the failures of multiple harvests. Twenty-five women formed a grower’s association which has access to water as part of a project supported by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Tenefo Votsirasoa is a member of a women’s growers association in the village of Ankilinanjosoa. It’s hoped a reliable way to irrigate their crops will not only help to build their resilience to the...

In an alert, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said that this increase had been fuelled by the growing number of people forced to work illegally, but also by higher profits. ILO senior research officer Federico Blanco told journalists in Geneva that traffickers and criminals make close to $10,000 per victim, around $1,700 more than they did in 2014. “The human toll is also incalculable. These illegal profits represent wages, resources, livelihoods, effectively stolen from...

The new resolution, tabled by Pakistan, calls for, among other things, concerted action to fight ongoing violence against Muslims and requests the UN Secretary-General to appoint a special envoy to combat Islamophobia. The world body created the International Day through a resolution adopted following attacks on two mosques Christchurch, New Zealand, that left 51 people dead on this day in 2019. Prior to adopting the new resolution, by a vote of 113 in favour to none against, with 44...

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 needs collaborative solutions from the humanitarian community, the UN’s emergency relief chief said on Wednesday. Martin Griffiths was speaking at a review of humanitarian efforts to help people...

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 poorest nations continue to languish below their pre-COVID crisis levels. The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite of statistics measuring such factors as per capita income, educational...