News

UN humanitarians continue to reach beleaguered communities stranded on the frontline in Ukraine. An inter-agency convoy delivered three trucks of aid to a community in the Kherson region on Wednesday – the ninth this year that has managed to get through.

The number of people experiencing catastrophic hunger has surged more than twofold in 2024, due largely to the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Sudan, according to new figures released by the UN on Thursday.

The global trend for shrinking pay packets in heavily industrialized economies could be driven – at least temporarily - by tech innovations in the workplace such as automation and AI, the UN International Labour Organization, ILO, said on Wednesday.

At a major UN conference on Wednesday, Asia-Pacific nations pledged to bridge the digital divide and foster inclusive digital economies, stressing the importance of enhancing digital trust and literacy across the region.

The UN Secretary-General on Tuesday called for global cooperation in sharing the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI), warning that unequal access could exacerbate global inequalities.

Aid organizations continue to provide emergency support to people impacted by recent deadly attacks across Ukraine, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said on Tuesday. 

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that 161,030 children under 10 have been vaccinated in central Gaza during the first two days of the UN-led mass vaccination campaign, surpassing the initial target of 156,000. The figure amounts to around a quarter of the total population they aim to reach - some 640,000 children.

More than 800,000 children and 120,000 pregnant women will be vaccinated in a nationwide campaign launched on Monday by the Government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) with the support of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The UN-led mass polio vaccination campaign entered its second day in central Gaza on Monday with pauses in fighting holding sufficiently for thousands more children to receive their dose, in addition to the 87,000 who received their first round on Sunday, UN agencies said. 

A humanitarian air service, which has been described by the World Food Programme chief as “giving help and giving hope” to the world’s most remote and disadvantaged communities, is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year.

UN aid teams have reached a tentative agreement with parties involved in the war in Gaza for humanitarian pauses to allow 640,000 children to be vaccinated amid an outbreak of the virus, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

The UN’s top relief official on Friday allocated $100 million from the Organization’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to bolster critically underfunded humanitarian operations in some of the world’s humanitarian hotspots.

Spotlighting crises roiling parts of eastern Africa, the UN deputy chief concluded a regional visit in Adré, Chad, on Friday, calling for global solidarity to tackle famine in Sudan, flooding and mass displacement while ensuring free-flowing aid for millions trapped in war zones and those fleeing for their lives.

Oksana, who is 26 weeks pregnant, described a harrowing scene in a Kyiv hospital in Ukraine during air raids, with staff scrambling to help patients and newborns into shelters.

The UN Security Council is due to meet at 3pm local time in New York on the continuing crisis in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Just ahead of the meeting, the World Health Organization (WHO) said agreement had been reached with Israel to allow a mass polio vaccination campaign to get underway through a series of humanitarian pauses to begin on Sunday. For UN New app users, follow live here.

The UN Secretary-General continued his historic visit to Timor-Leste on Thursday, emphasising the positive role the country can play on the regional stage to help resolve the crisis in war-wracked Myanmar.

Over 18 million people in Bangladesh have been affected by severe monsoon conditions, with more than 1.2 million families trapped as flash floods submerge vast areas of the country’s east and southeast.

As the crisis in the West Bank continues to escalate alongside the ongoing war in Gaza, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called for an “immediate cessation” of Israeli military operations in the occupied Palestinian territory.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres received a warm welcome in the capital of Timor Leste on Wednesday where he hailed the 25th anniversary of its vote for independence, praising the national unity of the past, and pledging the UN’s unwavering support in the future.

Senior UN officials warned the Security Council on Wednesday that the world cannot afford to lose focus on Syria, as the humanitarian and political crisis continues to wreak havoc on the country more than a decade after civil war erupted.

In flood-hit Myanmar, UN humanitarians said on Monday that aid teams have begun distributing emergency relief to families affected by monsoon rains in the Ayeyarwady Delta. Some 500,000 people in the key rice-growing region could be affected.

The level of the sea globally is rising faster and higher than ever before creating what the United Nations has described as a “urgent and escalating threat” to people around the world.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres issued a “global SOS” from Tonga in the Pacific on Tuesday, urging governments to step up climate action to “Save Our Seas” as two new reports revealed how rising sea levels are threatening the vulnerable region and beyond. 

The island nations of the Pacific are “showing the way” to protect the planet from the ravages of climate change and now the rest of the world needs to step up with more support, the UN chief said on Monday.

Protecting war-weary people in Sudan from a second deadly cholera outbreak is proving a huge challenge for aid teams after more than 16 months of heavy fighting, combined with flooding and ongoing access obstacles, they reported on Friday.

A 10-month-old girl paralysed by polio in Gaza has become the first confirmed case of the deadly disease to be detected in the war-ravaged enclave in 25 years.

The UN Deputy Secretary-General called for stronger efforts in women’s empowerment, gender equality, and climate action in remarks to the World Women's Forum in Mongolia this week. 

Years of underfunding of humanitarian aid and increasing needs have put millions of Haitians at risk of chronic vulnerability, according to a newly released UN report.

The Security Council met on Thursday to hear from top officials about the situation on the ground in the Middle East, a region roiling from the ongoing war in Gaza as the conflict enters its 11th month. Council members, along with the ambassadors of Israeli and Palestine, shared their positions during another heated discussion.

UN aid teams have warned that vital chorine supplies that are essential for purifying water are running out and deteriorating in Gaza, while humanitarians condemned new strikes on schools sheltering people displaced by the war.