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From grassroots activists to presidents and from top UN officials to international sport stars, the SDG Blog brings together the insightful, surprising and inspiring ideas on how we can achieve humanity’s shared objective – prosperity for all on a healthy planet.
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...
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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...
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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...
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Adopting a United States-led draft resolution without a vote, the Assembly also highlighted the respect, protection and promotion of human rights in the design, development, deployment and the use of AI. The text was “co-sponsored” or backed by more than 120 other Member States. The General...
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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...
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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)...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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“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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Nearly 8,600 people on the move died in 2023, a 20 per cent increase from 2022, according to the UN agency’s Missing Migrants Project online platform. It details the global movement of people risking their lives to escape conflict, economic crisis and natural disasters, including drought and...
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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...
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Their journey begins in the open fields every morning in search of these plants, which include cheeseweed – known locally as khubeezeh – which have been eaten by Palestinians as side dishes for generations. Now they have become a major food source for Gazans. Living conditions in the besieged...
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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...
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Civil aviation organization ICAO said that the numbers for the first quarter of 2024 indicate that airlines will sustain the return to profitability recorded in 2023. “The commitment of Member States to aligning their pandemic responses with the guidance developed by the ICAO Council has been...
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27 February 2024Economic Development The mobile phone industry has pledged over $9 billion towards the goal of connecting the world, said the chief of the UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on Monday, addressing the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. “Universal meaningful...
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In a new study, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimated that over the past two months, the volume of trade through the Suez Canal has fallen by a whopping 42 per cent. “With major players in the shipping industry temporarily suspending Suez transits, weekly container ship...