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The world must act now to reverse the situation in Africa’s central Sahel region, where humanitarian needs are at “a breaking point”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told a high-level conference on Tuesday, to address the burgeoning crisis. 

Unless access is urgently granted to humanitarian organizations, thousands in the Central Sahel will be “pushed into further destitution”, the UN emergency food relief agency warned on Monday.  

The private sector in Thailand has a key role to play in helping the south-east Asian country to reach poverty reduction and sustainable development goals agreed by the international community. In this blog, Gita Sabharwal, the UN Resident Coordinator in Thailand and the Chairperson of the UN Global Compact Network Thailand, Suphachai Chearavanont, explain how, despite the global COVID-19 pandemic, progress is being made towards the goals.

Parties to the conflict in Yemen must do more to protect civilians, a senior UN humanitarian official in the country has said, as the number of civilian deaths has witnessed a sharp rise over the last few weeks in the war-ravaged country. 

A surge in armed violence, coupled with the economic and social fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, are contributing to worsening conditions for children in the Central Sahel, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported on Friday. 

Hunger is rising, due to factors including conflict, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, which is putting a strain on food systems that are already failing in many countries. In today’s LIVE blog, marking World Food Day, we will look at some of the many issues and possible solutions. Highlights •    UN chief announces Food Systems Summit  •    Lid Is On food waste podcast •    Food and the COVID-19 pandemic •    Food and climate change  

An “airlift of hope” agreed by Yemen’s warring parties to return more than 1,000 detainees to their families has been welcomed by UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths, who has urged both sides to agree to further peace-building measures.  

More than half of the people living in Asia and the Pacific lack any social protection coverage, leaving populations vulnerable to ill-health, poverty, inequality and social exclusion, a new UN report has found. 

Thousands of people have been displaced and critical health services interrupted, after fighting erupted on 11 October in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, the UN humanitarian office has reported. 

The UN Secretary-General has called for solidarity with all people living in poverty, during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only led to a “dramatic loss” of human life but also constitutes an “unprecedented challenge” to public health, food systems and employment, a group of leading UN agencies said on Tuesday. 

Farmers in Malawi who are struggling with the dual threats of climate change and an economic crisis worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic, are learning how to more accurately predict the weather and prepare for the eventuality of natural disasters, thanks to a project supported by the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

In the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic and its continuing impact, the global economy could see a “somewhat less severe, though still deep” recession through 2020, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected in its latest global economic outlook. 

Extreme weather and climate events have increased in frequency, intensity and severity as result of climate change and hit vulnerable communities disproportionately hard, a new UN report has said, calling for greater investment in effective early warning systems to strengthen countries’ resilience. 

With nations facing multiple crises simultaneously and extreme weather events witnessing a dramatic rise over the past few decades, the UN Secretary-General has called for strengthening disaster risk governance to build a safer and more resilient world. 

In reviewing, assessing and acknowledging the effects of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, enslavement and colonialism, the groundbreaking Durban World Conference of 2001, represented a “milestone” in the common fight against racism, xenophobia and related intolerance, the UN human rights chief said on Monday. 

The need for the World Food Programme, the recipient of the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize, to exist is starker than ever. From conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to flooding in South Sudan, and the civil war in Yemen, man-made and natural disasters are leaving tens of millions of people unsure if they will have enough food for themselves and their families to survive on.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that “our health systems are inadequate”, the UN chief told a ministerial meeting on Thursday, citing weak structures and unequal access to healthcare as “major reasons” why the coronavirus has killed one million people and infected more than 30 times that, globally.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forever changed the way consumers shop online, the UN trade and development body, UNCTAD, said on Thursday, announcing results of a survey of some 3,700 consumers across nine countries. 

Belarus has been rocked by mass demonstrations, and violent state crackdowns, since the disputed August presidential election that saw Alexander Lukashenko returned to power. In this blog, Joanna Kazana-Wisniowiecki, the UN Resident Coordinator in Belarus, explains what the unrest means for the Organization.

Global trade is showing signs of bouncing back from a deep, COVID-19-induced slump, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has said, with the caveat that any recovery could be badly disrupted by the future course of the pandemic and how societies react. 

Economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean will be slower than the return to productivity following the subprime mortgage crisis more than a decade ago, the head of the UN’s office for the region, ECLAC, said on Tuesday. 

Thousands of children continue to suffer grievously as unrelenting violence persists across eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday, expressing deep concern.  

Violent protests sparked by the murder of a high-profile legal scholar are threatening to push Haiti into a spiral of instability, Special Representative Helen La Lime told the Security Council on Monday, as she outlined UN efforts to help overcome the impasse engulfing the country.

Commemorating World Habitat Day, on Monday, top UN officials called for urgent action to provide low-income families and vulnerable populations with affordable housing with security of tenure and easy access to water, sanitation, transport and other basic services. 

An ambitious plan to make one of the world’s largest and most complex railway networks a net zero carbon emitter by 2030 is moving full steam ahead, although without the steam, thanks, in part, to support from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

Luis Jose Faife, a UN refugee agency (UNHCR) worker from Mozambique, survived the devastation of Cyclones Idai and Kenneth, which killed more than 600 people in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, and displaced some 2.2. million people, in March 2019. Now COVID-19 is posing a new challenge to humanitarian workers, and they people they help.

An educator and rights defender who has spent more than 20 years rescuing exploited and trafficked children in Colombia, represents “the best of us”, the UN refugee chief said on Thursday, as she was named the winner of this year’s Nansen Refugee Award.

Regularly updated coverage of the UN Summit on Biodiversity, where activists and senior UN officials are calling for urgent action on biodiversity for sustainable development.  

The economic and social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic “are as bad as we feared”, the UN Secretary-General said, as he warned that the international community must act now if it is stave off a global recession, which could wipe out decades of development gains.