News

Economic recovery in Afghanistan hinges on international support for boosting productivity and reinstating women’s rights, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said in a new report released on Thursday. 

Medicines for Israeli hostages were reportedly allowed into Gaza for the first time on Thursday along with a consignment of relief supplies for Palestinians, under an agreement brokered by Qatar and France.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is continuing to do all it can to deliver critical medicines, supplies and fuel to Gaza hospitals, where the health system is collapsing, an agency official said on Wednesday. 

The head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Wednesday appealed for the international community to provide an urgent boost in funding and commitment to address Sudan’s escalating humanitarian crisis, now entering its tenth month.

The UN Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza is in Egypt this week in efforts to scale-up assistance to the enclave, where more than 100 days of war between Israel and Hamas militants have left most of the population in dire need of food, water, medicines and other basic items. 

Unremitting conflict in Gaza has already sparked regional insecurity and is clear evidence that the international community needs to throw its weight behind a two-State solution in the Occupied Palestinian Territory to resolve the enduring crisis “once and for all”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Wednesday.

The Israeli authorities have continued to block lifesaving aid from reaching northern Gaza 102 days since Hamas-led terror attacks triggered the war, UN humanitarians have insisted, just as UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that “the long shadow of starvation” stalks the people of Gaza.

Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, has allocated $10 million from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to support men, women and children fleeing the conflict between rival militaries in Sudan, across the border into neighbouring South Sudan.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday launched a $1.5 billion emergency appeal to provide care to more than 87 million people this year in 41 ongoing crises, including in the occupied Palestinian territory, Ukraine, Sudan, Syria and the Horn of Africa. 

Nearly two years since Russian forces launched a “full-blown war and occupation” of Ukraine, UN relief chief Martin Griffiths on Monday issued an urgent appeal together with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) for $4.2 billion.

After more than 100 days of war in Gaza and no let-up in sight, senior UN humanitarians issued a rare joint appeal for greater aid access on Monday, expressing renewed fears of death due to famine and disease unless there is a “fundamental step change” in procedures. 

Despite the immense dangers and obstacles, the UN continues to deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid in Gaza. Here is an overview of the humanitarian efforts in the occupied territory.

With the annual average global temperature fast approaching the critical threshold of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, last year officially smashed the global temperature record, the UN weather agency (WMO) confirmed on Friday.

The UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said on Thursday that it is “deeply concerned” over a recent spate of arbitrary arrests and detentions of women and girls by Taliban officials for alleged non-compliance with the Islamic dress code.

Recurring denials and severe access constraints continue to paralyze aid teams trying to respond to the immense needs in northern Gaza, the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, has warned. 

The new year has brought no respite to Ukraine, with recent weeks seeing some of the worst attacks of the nearly three-year war, the UN political affairs chief told the Security Council on Wednesday. 

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.

Repeated refusals by Israeli authorities to allow UN aid teams to deliver desperately needed humanitarian relief inside Gaza have effectively cut off five hospitals in the north from access to “lifesaving medical supplies and equipment”, the UN aid coordination office (OCHA) has warned.

The European climate agency on Tuesday reported that record global heat last year showed an overall increase of 1.48°C above pre-industrial levels – just a fraction below the 1.5-degree threshold laid out by the historic Paris Agreement on climate change.

The immediate priority in Gaza must be saving civilian lives said the President of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, as Member States gathered to debate the use of the veto by the United States in the Security Council last month. 

With no let-up in fighting across Gaza, the UN health agency pleaded on Tuesday for better access across the enclave, where relief is arriving “too little...too late” to help civilians caught up in the ongoing conflict. 

On day 93 of the war in Gaza, amid reports of relentless and heavy Israeli bombardment, UN humanitarians issued new reports of “significant casualties, particularly among women and children”, and pleaded for overwhelmed medical teams to be allowed to continue their lifesaving work. 

The UN’s relief chief on Friday warned that “Gaza has simply become uninhabitable” and demanded Israeli forces and Palestinian militants start meeting their obligations under international law to protect civilian lives.

Hospitals in Gaza and other vital medical infrastructure have been attacked nearly 600 times since war erupted in the enclave in response to the Hamas-led terror attack in southern Israel, the UN health agency said on Friday.

The international community must take “decisive and immediate action” to bring nearly nine months of brutal civil war in Sudan to an end and boost humanitarian relief, the UN relief chief Martin Griffiths said on Thursday.

The UN’s World Economic Situation and Prospects report for 2024 projects a slowdown in global growth from an estimated 2.7 per cent in 2023 to 2.4 per cent in 2024.

Amid reports of continued Israeli airstrikes overnight in southern and central Gaza and more rocket fire into Israel from the enclave, UN teams said on Thursday they have been unable to deliver urgently needed aid to civilians beyond central areas and further north for the past three days.

Continuing airstrikes were reported across Gaza on Wednesday and “intense ground battles” between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters in refugee camps in central areas that have reportedly left many dead.

Critical food aid support is to be stepped up for many hundreds of thousands of Myanmar refugees sheltering in neighbouring Bangladesh, the UN World Food Programme, WFP, announced on Tuesday.

UN humanitarians repeated dire concerns for civilians caught up in the war in Gaza on Tuesday, amid reports of continued Israeli bombardment of the southern towns of Deir al Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah, direct clashes on the ground and the firing of rockets overnight by Palestinian armed groups into Israel.