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...
21 February 2024Economic Development
Today’s multilateral arrangements – global and regional organizations and major development banks – are “not up to the job” of helping countries achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the deputy UN chief said on Tuesday.
The 11th Asia-Pacific...
Adopted by world leaders in 2015, the 17 Goals focus on ending extreme poverty and hunger, ensuring access to clean water and sanitation, and providing quality universal education, among other targets, by 2030.
The 2024 SDG Progress Report, launched by the UN Economic and Social Commission for...
Addressing the General Assembly with a list of priority areas for action, António Guterres underscored that the UN was founded on the pursuit of peace.
“Peace is our raison d’être. Yet, as I scan the landscape of today’s world, the one thing missing most dramatically is peace,” he said.
From...
Speaking at a conference on addressing development challenges of middle-income countries (MICs), in Rabat, Morocco, Amina Mohammed said recent crises have laid bare inequalities and exposed stark contrasts.
“While developed countries have been able to protect and swiftly support their...
“The agency will no longer have funding as of the end of February, so that means our operations would come to a halt during March,” said Dorothee Klaus, UNRWA Director in Lebanon, describing the “severe impact” of fresh budget cuts.
The funding crisis stemmed from Israel’s allegations that a...
Goal 8
World News in Brief: Artificial Intelligence pledge, child abuse online, Sudan crisis deepens
Lenovo Group, LG AI Research, Mastercard, Microsoft, Salesforce, Telefonica, GSMA network of mobile phone operators, and INNIT have pledged to “integrate the values and principles” of UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of AI when designing and deploying AI systems.
The announcement came at...
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...
31 January 2024Migrants and Refugees
Yul Brynner was a charismatic and engaging star of stage and screen, and in 1959, the United Nations asked him to lend his talents to support efforts to aid the world’s refugees.
The Russian-born actor, filmmaker and photographer was appointed a special...
1 February 2024Migrants and Refugees
Yul Brynner was a charismatic and engaging star of stage and screen, and in 1959, the United Nations asked him to lend his talents to support efforts to aid the world’s refugees.
The Russian-born actor, filmmaker and photographer was appointed a special...
IOM underscored the need for regular migration pathways at a one-day summit in Rome hosted by Italy to boost development in Africa and curb migration flows.
The A Bridge for Common Life conference represented a critical opportunity to examine “unified and sustainable mechanisms to stop further...
Goal 8
World News in Brief: ICJ to release emergency measures over Israel genocide allegations, Libya flood repair bill, leprosy stigma continues
Since 7 October when Israel launched its military campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the militant group’s terror attacks in southern Israel that left some 1,200 dead and more than 250 taken hostage, Gaza health authorities have reported at least 25,700 killed and some 63,740 injured.
In...
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...
Goal 10
World News in Brief: Pandemic treaty in jeopardy, historic IOM appeal, ‘enormous obstacles’ facing Iran’s lawyers
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was addressing the World Health Organization (WHO) Executive Board when he said that “several outstanding issues” still needed to be resolved by governments and that time was “very short” to find consensus.
“A failure to deliver the pandemic agreement and the...
That’s according to Juliette Touma, Director of Communications for UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees, who spoke in depth to UN News’s Conor Lennon on Monday about her most recent visit to the Strip.
The interview has been edited for clarity and length.
“This was my second trip since...
Sri Lankan migrants who paid their life savings to people traffickers for perilous and unsuccessful sea crossings in an attempt to find a better life overseas have returned home thanks to the support of the UN migration agency, IOM.
The report paints a bleak picture of socio-economic conditions since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, with the erosion of women’s rights and a banking system near collapse, identified as major areas of concern.
The Afghan economy has not recovered from the cumulative 27 per cent...
10 January 2024Economic Development
Global unemployment is expected to rise this year, with growing inequality and stagnant productivity also a cause for concern on the economic horizon, the UN labour agency ILO said on Wednesday.
Just over five per cent of the world’s workforce is without...
The flagship forecast launched in New York on Thursday indicates that last year’s stronger-than-expected GDP growth coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic masked short-term risks and structural vulnerabilities in the world economy.
The sombre short-term outlook is based on persistently high...
The COVID-19 pandemic affected hundreds of millions of lives, caused millions of deaths and inflicted devastating impacts on humanity.
After three years of unprecedented global efforts, on 5 May the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an end to COVID-19 as a public health emergency...