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Government leaders and experts attending the Fifth UN Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDC5) and weighing the main challenges facing the world’s most vulnerable countries, have called for the LDCs to be supported through, among others, promoting agricultural investment and using modern technologies to achieve food security.

Dozens of youth delegates, representing some 226 million young people from 46 least developed countries (LDCs), took centre stage on Tuesday at a United Nations conference under way in Doha, Qatar, to spotlight a range of development issues affecting them and their vulnerable countries. 

In a new blow for equality in the 21st century workplace, UN labour experts said on Monday that women’s access to jobs, their employment conditions and a persistent pay gap, have barely improved worldwide in nearly two decades.

South Sudan sits at a critical crossroad, with swift action needed to quell chronic intercommunal clashes, ramp up assistance to ever more communities in need, and advance progress towards a durable peace, senior UN officials told the Security Council on Monday.

A United Nations conference under way in Doha, Qatar, has turned its attention to one of the world’s most nettlesome global challenges: closing the staggeringly wide digital divide between rich and poor nations. Fresh attention to this issue comes as a just-launched UN report finds that two-thirds of the population of the least developed countries (LDCs) is still offline.

One month on from the two catastrophic earthquakes that struck Türkiye and Syria, more than 850,000 children remain displaced after being forced from their damaged or destroyed homes amid millions in dire need of aid, UN agencies said.

In a new blow for equality in the 21st century workplace, UN labour experts said on Monday that women’s access to jobs, their employment conditions and a persistent pay gap, have barely improved worldwide in nearly two decades.

A United Nations conference under way in Doha, Qatar, has turned its attention to one of the most nettlesome global challenges: closing the staggeringly wide digital divide between the world’s rich and poor nations. Fresh attention to this issue comes as a new UN report finds that two-thirds of the population of the least developed countries (LDCs) is still offline.

World leaders are gathered in Doha, Qatar, for a major UN conference seeking to accelerate sustainable development where international assistance is most needed and to unlock the full potential of the world’s most vulnerable countries and help put them on the path towards prosperity.

Secretary-General António Guterres has congratulated UN member countries for finalizing a text to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, calling it a “breakthrough” after nearly two decades of talks.   

Seraphine Wakana, the UN Resident Coordinator in The Gambia, is coming to the end of her mandate. In this blog, she reflects on her experience over the last five years, which have seen the country emerge from a long period of authoritarian rule.

World leaders are gathered in Doha, Qatar, for a major UN conference seeking to accelerate sustainable development where international assistance is most needed to unlock the full potential of the world’s most vulnerable countries and help put them on the path towards prosperity.

Ahead of a major United Nations conference on the world’s most vulnerable countries, Secretary-General António Guterres on Saturday urged the international community – particularly wealthy nations – to step up and help the more than 1.1 billion people in these countries break out of “vicious cycles” and lift themselves out of poverty.

Three years after the world began to shut down as COVID-19 took hold, the UN and other partners will gather in Doha, Qatar, to deliver a historic new compact to support the countries whose vulnerabilities the pandemic most exposed.

Three years after the world began to shut down as COVID-19 took hold, the UN and other partners will gather in Doha, Qatar, to deliver a historic new compact to support the countries whose vulnerabilities the pandemic most exposed.

Leaders across the UN system have called for bolder action and more effective partnerships to protect endangered animals and plants, ahead of World Wildlife Day on Friday.

Cindy McCain will become Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) from next month, the agency announced on Thursday.

Niger announced on Thursday that it is to join a key UN water-sharing agreement with its Lake Chad neighbours in the increasingly drought-prone Sahel region.

As food rationing begins for Myanmar’s Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, a top UN-appointed independent rights expert on Thursday urged the international community to step in and reverse the policy as “a matter of life and death”.

UN rights chief Volker Türk has issued an urgent appeal to all countries to support people’s right to development, as a way out of the world’s current “destructive spiral”.

The number of children worldwide without access to social protection continues to rise, putting them at risk of poverty, hunger and discrimination, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a report published on Wednesday. 

Schools made of straw, can be transformed into tech-savvy classrooms fit for the future through cooperation and innovative problem-solving, the UN deputy chief declared on Wednesday, speaking at the site of a national tragedy in Niger, which has now become a beacon of hope.

The United Nations on Wednesday called for more action to protect one of the most widespread and important marine ecosystems on the planet, marking the first ever commemoration of World Seagrass Day.

The Secretary-General of the UN, António Guterres, is in Iraq for the first time in six years, expressing support for the country’s people, the new Government and its ambitious reform agenda.

Climate change and the economic downturn continue to fuel the crisis in Afghanistan, and there have been no “encouraging developments” towards getting girls back into classrooms, a senior UN official said on Tuesday. 

Top UN officials on Tuesday called on the Security Council’s strong support for Syria following the 6 February earthquakes, which worsened an already dire situation in the wake of 12 years of brutal civil war.

International demand for patents hit a record high last year, as innovators in China, the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Germany, sought to protect their inventions, said the UN agency that polices the process worldwide, on Tuesday.

Although cascading global crises are undermining hard fought development gains, “now is not the time for despair", UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told African ministers and policy makers meeting in Niamey, Niger, on Tuesday. 

Lifesaving aid is needed urgently to help millions of people enduring one of the  longest and most severe droughts on record in the Horn of Africa, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Tuesday, as the region enters its sixth consecutive rainy season with no rain.

Water is life, yet this vital natural resource is being depleted, polluted and mismanaged. Disruption to the hydrological cycle is also causing more water-related disasters. To tackle the challenges, the United Nations will convene in March one of the most important water events in history at its Headquarters in New York.