Sustainable Development Goals

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...

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...

At Beabo Primary School in Ambovombe in the south of Madagascar, teams of students are in competition to cook the tastiest and most nutritional meal using locally available products which hopefully will encourage their parents and others to change to healthier diets. Fifteen-year-old Marie-Eliane is one of six junior chefs who have produced an impressive three-course menu bursting with varied flavours. School children prepare a three-course meal as part of the Tsikonina competition...

The Global teacher shortage alert was issued at a meeting on Monday of the International Task Force on Teachers for Education in Johannesburg, South Africa, where the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession announced a new set of recommendations to safeguard future learning for all. Quality education for ‘learning societies’ “Now, more than ever, we need to move towards learning societies. People everywhere need high-quality skills, knowledge and education. Above...

Global perspective Human stories UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay and Brazilian footballer Vinícius Junior, newly-appointed Goodwill Ambassador for Education for All during a ceremony at the Real Madrid training centre. During her visit, the UN education, science and culture body UNESCO‘s Director-General Audrey Azoulay presented the 23-year-old winger with a letter of appointment, acknowledging his exceptional achievements on the pitch and his unwavering commitment to...

25 January 2024Culture and Education Shakira has long helped raise awareness for the rights of the world’s most vulnerable children, so on the heels of the International Day of Education, marked annually on 24 January, we took a look at the Grammy-award winning singer’s work with the UN. The youngest ever Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 2003, Shakira Mebarak has since been actively engaged in promoting early childhood education and development. In 2015, when...

Sitting in a small, windowless room in a government building in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, Mohamed Yusuf Mohamed loops another audio tape onto the dilapidated machine and presses a few buttons. He’s beginning a time-intensive process to digitize some seven decades of unique historical recordings belonging to the government-run Radio Mogadishu. One down, a couple of hundred thousand to go After a few clicks, the antiquated device starts to whir, and its wheels spin. One tape down and...

Pramila Patten, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, called for the immediate, safe, and unconditional release of all those who remain in captivity. Ms. Patten met this week with the mother of one of the young women taken hostage who expressed the pain, despair and helplessness that families are facing as they wait for the return of their loved ones. Sexual violence risk “The toll of this war on innocent civilians, on both sides, is too high and...

6 December 2023Culture and Education The UNESCO committee that protects so called Intangible Cultural Heritage met in Botswana this week to add new entries to the UN culture agency’s list of world treasures, some of which must be “urgently” safeguarded. Convened in the town of Kasane, the Intergovernmental Committee is considering new entries to UNESCO’s Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage and on Tuesday night they unveiled dozens of different entries which have made the cut already...