News

Immediate action needs to be taken by the international community to address conditions in Haiti, otherwise “it’s hard to imagine a decent future” for the Caribbean nation, said the head of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Thursday.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and four partner agencies have been tasked with leading a new push to help countries curb the land-based pollution of coastal areas and shorelines.

Syrians are facing an “ever worsening humanitarian crisis” amid the ongoing 12-year-long conflict, top UN officials told the Security Council on Thursday, ahead of the General Assembly’s vote on a draft resolution that would address the issue of more than 100,000 people still missing in the country.

Millions are facing hunger and children’s lives are on the line in north-eastern Nigeria amid a protracted conflict and climate change. UN’s humanitarian response in the region is underfunded, humanitarians told the press in Geneva on Wednesday. 

While no longer a global emergency, COVID-19’s long-term effects alongside such other threats as mpox and seasonal heat waves may challenge Europe through the summer months, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) regional office warned on Tuesday.

Humanitarian needs have soared among people displaced by fighting in Sudan, with the number of those fleeing expected to surpass projections while aid access remains extremely uncertain, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Tuesday.

Climate, armed conflict, high food prices and post-COVID-19 economic fall-out have caused record food insecurity in the Horn of Africa, with an estimated 60 million urgently in need of help, UN humanitarian agencies warned on Monday. 

Ukraine’s severely damaged agricultural sector will receive a boost from two UN agencies they announced on Thursday, partnering with a Swiss mine action foundation to help make land safe and productive again amidst the ongoing Russian invasion. 

Developing countries are buckling under high debt and exorbitant borrowing costs, that prevent them from reviving their economies, UN chief António Guterres said on Thursday.

Despite gains made in tackling terrorism and advancing the electoral process in Somalia, top UN officials warned the Security Council on Thursday that extra effort and funding are needed to address multiple threats, from climate shocks to spates of violence amid a looming food crisis.

Celebrating the union of body, mind and soul, hundreds of yoga enthusiasts - including UN officials and staffers - filled the green expanse of the North Lawn at UN Headquarters in New York on Wednesday to mark the ninth celebration of the International Day of Yoga, observed each 21 June.

Conflicts, climate change and financial turmoil are increasing the need for humanitarian aid, but a lack of funding is resulting in painful rollbacks, the UN chief told a meeting in Geneva on Wednesday looking at how to respond to the crisis.

The UN has worked to extend critical humanitarian assistance for the people of Ukraine since day one of the invasion, the Organization’s development chief told the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London on Wednesday.

The Secretary-General on Tuesday said he was disappointed by the “slowing pace of inspections” under the UN-brokered Black Sea Initiative – the grain and fertilizer deal which has allowed millions of tonnes of food exports to leave Ukraine.

UN humanitarians issued an urgent appeal on Tuesday to help millions of people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where chronic violence and displacement continue to fuel a dramatic hunger crisis.

A UN-led appeal for funding to help the people of Sudan raised $1.5 billion on Monday as UN chief António Guterres warned that the country was descending “into death and destruction” at breakneck speed.

Twenty-two percent of households in Ukraine are spending over a quarter of their monthly income on healthcare, according to a report issued on Monday by 12 UN agencies in the country. 

The UN’s 193 Member States adopted a landmark legally binding marine biodiversity agreement on Monday following nearly two decades of fierce negotiations over forging a common wave of conservation and sustainability in the high seas beyond national boundaries – covering two thirds of the planet’s oceans. Here are five key points on why it is important for the world.

Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s it was revealed on Monday, with extreme weather causing excess deaths and economic disruption.  

A senior United Nations relief official said on Sunday that Russia has so far declined requests to help residents of Russian-controlled areas of southern Ukraine impacted by the breach of the Kakhovka dam. 

From institutionalized racism to genocide, the roots are the same, according to people on the frontlines of change who shared their stories with UN News ahead of the International Day for Countering Hate Speech, observed on Sunday.

Just before noon in Satara, a remote village in Niger’s southwestern Tillaberi region, the thermometer is already hovering near 40°C.

With the conflict between rival militaries in Sudan entering its third month, the people of Darfur are “trapped in a living nightmare”, the UN’s top aid official has said.

Words are not enough to alleviate the multiple crises afflicting Haiti, said the President of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on Friday, in an appeal for urgent international action.

UN humanitarians continue bringing life-saving aid to survivors of the flooding from the Kakhovka Dam, but they’ve warned that hundreds of thousands more people in the country’s south face severe water shortages. 

Women’s land rights are in the spotlight ahead of the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, observed on 17 June, at events around the world, from Kenya to Viet Nam, including a high-level event at UN Headquarters in New York on Friday.

Sea ice is reducing at an unprecedented rate, prompting polar scientists to call for an urgent increase in research and observation, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Friday. 

As donors gathered in Brussels at an international pledging conference for Syria organized by the European Union on Thursday, UN chief António Guterres highlighted the immense suffering of the Syrian people, which he said “defies description”.

Nearly three million children, the highest number on record, need humanitarian support in Haiti, where they face staggering levels of violence that have exacerbated hunger and malnutrition in a country already mired in poverty and a resurgence of deadly cholera. 

Countries must phase out coal and other fossil fuels to avert climate “catastrophe”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Thursday in New York.