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The full scale of the multiple earthquake disaster in Türkiye and Syria is still unfolding, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday, as they stressed the critical need to step up search and rescue efforts for victims and ensure that lifesaving aid reaches all those who need it.

A lack of job opportunities is the leading factor driving people to join fast-growing violent extremist groups in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new report released by the UN Development Programme on Tuesday.

Addressing the opening of the Commission for Social Development’s latest session, the president of the UN Economic and Social Council on Monday said it was imperative to put people first, if the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are to be realized by the 2030 deadline.

The UN’s Humanitarian Affairs chief warned the Security Council on Monday that efforts must improve to reach nearly 18 million in need in war-torn Ukraine, since Russia’s full-scale invasion last year.

After a massive earthquake hit southern Türkiye and northern Syria in the early hours of Monday, prompting fears of a humanitarian crisis, UN aid agencies have scrambled to help many thousands of reported victims, including those still believed to be buried under the rubble. The initial 7.8 magnitude quake struck close to Gaziantep, followed by another 7.5 magnitude tremor several hours later. 

A UN-supported refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who was left for dead after being attacked by armed men, has baked his way back to a new life off the breadline, in Burundi.

Global food prices dropped for the tenth consecutive month in January, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said on Friday.

Countries will review progress towards transforming food systems worldwide at a three-day meeting in Rome this July, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed and Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister announced on Friday, in the Italian capital. 

Two UN aid convoys have reached communities with acute needs near the contact line in Ukraine’s war-shattered east this week, relief coordinators reported on Friday.

UN humanitarians on Thursday reported that aid access in the north is continuing to improve with aid operations expanding following last November’s ceasefire agreement, but some civilians in the battle-scarred region “remain hard to reach.”

As crowds in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) thronged on Thursday to hear Pope Francis’s message of hope and solidarity on day three of his official visit to Central Africa, UN humanitarians warned that aid agencies face growing demands and shrinking funds in DRC - Africa’s biggest hunger crisis.

Although coastal and freshwater wetlands – such as swamps, mangroves and marshes - contain 40 per cent of all plant and animal species, many are polluted or degraded due to climate change and human development. 

A UN-led plan to tackle climate change by radically improving the way heat-trapping atmospheric pollutants are measured all over the planet, is being given serious consideration by governments and the international scientific community, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday.

The global economy is set to slow down this year before bouncing back in 2024, a senior official with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said, citing China’s sudden re-opening following the end of its “zero-COVID” policy, and a mild winter, in Europe as factors. 

Increasing numbers of Rohingya refugees have been arriving in Southeast Asian countries by sea and land, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported on Tuesday as it scales up support in the region. 

Youth empowerment and employment figured heavily in discussions between Saudi officials and the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), held in the kingdom last weekend. 

A series of interconnected crises are expected to have a huge impact on children in 2023. A report from the UN children’s agency (UNICEF), released on Tuesday, details the trends that will shape their lives over the next 12 months.

A UN-led group of humanitarians are hoping that the Taliban will allow Afghan women to again work with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on the ground following last month’s ban, four senior aid officials told journalists in New York on Monday. 

The head of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), speaking in Damascus, has called on the world to boost investment in Syria’s people and communities to help ease the highest levels of hunger in 12 years.

The head of the UN migration agency IOM, and leading climate justice activist, Greta Thunberg, called on Friday for immediate action to help tackle the impacts of climate change on those forced to flee their homes, or leaving in search of a better life.

While describing maintaining peace as core to the UN – its very reason for being - Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed warned the Security Council on Friday that it was a mission now “under grave threat”

  Some 21.6 million people in Yemen – that’s two-thirds of the population – are going to need some kind of humanitarian assistance and protection services during the course of 2023, according to the UN’s Humanitarian Response plan published on Wednesday.

Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean “can and must step up” to tackle rising levels of hunger, poverty and inequality, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO, said on Wednesday. 

Senior UN economists warned on Wednesday that intersecting crises are likely to add further damage to the global economy, with growth set to slow from three per cent in 2022 to 1.9 per cent this year.

A combination of determination, a vision, and UN support is transforming the fortunes of remote villages in underdeveloped regions of Eastern Indonesia, and boosting the livelihoods and prospects of local farmers.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) appealed on Tuesday for $1.6 billion to fund core operations this year, as the people it helps face hitting “rock bottom”.

Amid worsening security, economic, and humanitarian crises, the third Lake Chad Basin High Level Conference has begun, aimed at addressing a range of long-standing issues and the needs of the population, including some 11 million people, who are in need of assistance.

Two-and-a-half billion dollars: that’s how much funding the UN World Health Organization (WHO) will need across its operations this year, it said on Monday, to help a record number of people facing disease and starvation. 

On the last day of his visit to Cabo Verde, UN Secretary-General António Guterres addressed the Ocean Race Summit Mindelo, saying that “ending the ocean emergency is a race we must win.” 

The Secretary-General spent Sunday travelling through the diverse and varied landscapes of Santo Antão, where, after five years of intense drought, several development projects supported by the United Nations are helping to transform the agricultural sector of this westernmost island of Cabo Verde.