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The COVID-19 pandemic could help turn the tide on the well-being of oceans in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a UN report published on Wednesday.

A United Nations project to promote energy efficiency among Ukrainian homeowners has found a second life – informing 1.8 million of the nation’s citizens on how to combat the COVID-19 virus.

A new report by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) unveiled on Tuesday, proposes that governments ensure immediate temporary cash transfers to help millions of people struggling to meet basic needs, as the massive fallout from COVID-19 ripples across the region’s economies.

As COVID-19 upends lives and livelihoods across the planet, the UN on Monday held a wide-ranging policy discussion stressing a range of multilateral solutions to ease the pandemic, while also getting back on track towards achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

As the world continues to grapple with the coronavirus, decades of advances made in the battle against HIV are under threat, noted two UN agencies on Monday, point out that disruptions to treatment could cause hundreds of thousands of HIV-related deaths.  

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and other challenges, significant gains have been made against Desert Locust encroachment in East Africa and Yemen, with an estimated 720,000 tonnes of cereal saved from the swarms of migratory pests across 10 countries: enough to feed five million people a year, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Monday.

The UN food agency, FAO, warns that hunger and fatalities could rise significantly in urban areas, without measures to ensure that poor and vulnerable residents have access to food. In Latin America, cities are finding ways to keep food supplies flowing, despite the current restrictions on movement and supplies.

A fashion designer and stylist in New Orleans, one of the early epicentres of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, has said that she was left “stifled and confused” by the disruption caused by the pandemic, but recognizes there are opportunities to grow creatively and serve the community by making face masks, with some fashion flair.

The COVID-19 outbreak could trigger a humanitarian catastrophe in Haiti, endangering many years of hard-won progress in the Caribbean nation, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) said on Friday.

Humanitarians are seeking nearly $7 billion to protect millions of lives and halt the spread of COVID-19 in more than 60 of the world’s most fragile countries.

The COVID-19 pandemic is not only a health crisis, but it is also proving to be an economic disaster for huge numbers of people worldwide. A senior UN official with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) is calling for countries to provide citizens with a universal basic income, to help the millions who have lost their jobs, because of measures to curb the virus, combined with increasing levels of inequality.

As the COVID-19 pandemic reshapes the way in which we work, keep in touch, go to school and shop for essentials – across the world – it has never been more important to bridge the digital divide for the 3.6 billion people who remain off-line.

Well over 40 million people across West Africa face desperate food shortages in coming months, with COVID-19 restrictions a new factor adding to people’s vulnerability, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday.

The “most massive public health effort in history” is needed to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, the UN chief said on Monday, addressing a European Union pledging conference in Brussels.

The COVID-19 pandemic which has swept across the developed and developing world is “exposing the frailties and inequalities of our societies,” according to the UN Deputy Secretary-General.

In normal times, the world’s airlines would be carrying nearly 2 billion international passengers this year. That’s 5.7 million a day. But with the COVID-19 pandemic gripping the planet, these are not normal times. In its latest analysis of the economic impact of novel coronavirus on global commercial aviation, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) warns of a potential overall reduction of 872 million to just over 1.3 billion international passengers – if signs of recovery emerge in late May.

Help is needed urgently to distribute vaccines worldwide amid dramatic shortages because of COVID-19 restrictions, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday. It has warned that youngsters’ lives “are at stake” owing to the dramatic decline in commercial flights and limited availability of charters.

Amidst the destruction of the of COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations chief expressed concern over a lack of “sufficient solidarity” with the world’s developing countries, that need support in responding to the worst economic and social crisis in generations. 

A third of all nations lack laws to protect their citizen’s online data and privacy, despite an 11 per cent uptick in the global adoption of data protection and privacy legislation since 2015, the United Nations’ trade, investment and development body (UNCTAD) said on Wednesday.

Women around the world can act as “agents of change” and find solutions to the challenges provoked by the global climate crisis, according to the UN’s specialized gender agency, UN Women.  

Some 1.6 billion people employed in the informal economy – or nearly half the global workforce - could see their livelihoods destroyed due to the continued decline in working hours brought on by lockdowns to curb the spread of COVID-19, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said on Wednesday.

Sudan’s efforts to stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, are delaying the deployment of fresh United Nations police units in Abyei and the border regions between Sudan and South Sudan, the UN’s peacekeeping chief told the Security Council on Tuesday

To combat the COVID-19 pandemic and the “looming existential threat of climate disruption”, the only credible response is “brave, visionary and collaborative leadership” anchored in mutilateralism, the UN Secretary General António Guterres, said on Tuesday, during an international discussion focused on climate change.

Marking the World Day for Safety and Health at Work, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has urged States to take action to prevent and control COVID-19 in the workplace.  

Against the backdrop of the unprecedented global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the deputy UN chief briefed journalists on Monday about a new women-led initiative that mobilizes support to save lives and protect livelihoods.  

An upsurge in military action against armed groups in West Africa’s vast Sahel and Lake Chad regions has prompted the United Nations refugee agency to call on all warring parties to protect people caught up in the violence.

An expected drop in greenhouse gas emissions linked to the global economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is only “short-term good news”, the head of the UN weather agency said on Wednesday. 

In his message for International Mother Earth Day this Wednesday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres acknowledged that all eyes are on the COVID-19 pandemic, which he flagged as “an unprecedented wake-up call”

The COVID-19 pandemic will herald the worst economic contraction in the history of Latin American and the Caribbean, with a projected -5.3 per cent drop in activity this year, according to a report by the UN office for the region, ECLAC, published on Tuesday.

The world is not only facing “a global health pandemic but also a global humanitarian catastrophe”, the UN food relief agency chief told the Security Council on Tuesday via video link.