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Regional authorities in Egypt, the host country of the 2022 UN climate conference (COP27), are ramping up initiatives designed to improve the country’s environmental credentials, and speed up its transition to a low carbon economy. The event will begin on 4 November, in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh.

Did you know that women represent just 38 per cent of all ocean scientists? A women-led community organisation in the Seaflower UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in the Caribbean, is working to restore some of the most important marine ecosystems in the world and paving the way for bigger women's representation in ocean science.

The scale of the humanitarian crisis in Pakistan is unprecedented, with a third of the country under water, UN humanitarians warned on Friday.

World food prices have fallen for a fifth consecutive month but are still nearly eight per cent higher than a year ago, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported on Friday. 

The queue of women grows steadily outside a government clinic in Kuppiyawatta, in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo. In just over half an hour the number swells to around 200. Pregnant women, some with children in hand, are waiting their turn to receive food vouchers from the UN World Food Programme (WFP) – part of its emergency food assistance response.

Hazards such as earthquakes, floods, heatwaves, and wildfires, can be prevented from becoming life-threatening disasters, according to the authors of a UN report launched on Wednesday.

Humanitarians have stayed and delivered in Afghanistan in the year since the Taliban takeover, and it is imperative that the international community continues to do the same while the de facto authorities must also do their part, the Security Council heard on Monday. 

The World Food Programme (WFP) is supporting Pakistan as the country takes stock of floods which have reportedly killed more than 1,000 people and displaced some 33 million, the UN agency said on Monday.

Myanmar is believed to be experiencing one of the highest rates of mangrove loss in the world. When a company bought land containing a mangrove forest in the  country’s Tanintharyi region, with plans to convert it into prawn farms, the local community fought back.

UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed highlighted the continued relevance of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), during a meeting with the President of Tunisia, Kais Saied, held on Sunday.

After successfully reclaiming her people’s territory in Northern Argentina, Celestina Ábalos turned to tourism to share and promote her indigenous culture.  UN entrepreneurship training during the COVID-19 pandemic helped her business to grow.

Exports of Ukrainian grain and other foodstuffs under a landmark UN-brokered agreement have surpassed one million metric tonnes, the Coordinator for the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Amir Abdulla, reported on Saturday. 

In Jordan, where many struggle to find enough to eat, young people are finding creative ways to tackle food insecurity, and create sustainable, environmentally friendly employment, with support from a UN innovation programme.

Torrential rainfall has triggered unprecedented flooding in Chad, affecting more than 340,000 people living in 55,000 households – surpassing last year's figure of more than 250,000 impacted, according to a report released on Friday by the UN humanitarian coordination office, OCHA.

As millions of people in the Greater Horn of Africa have already “suffered the longest drought in 40 years,” parts of the region are bracing for a fifth consecutive failed rainy season, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has reported.

Speaking from Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine, where shelling has intensified in the last week, the UN's top aid official in the country issued an urgent appeal on Friday for guarantees from Russia and affiliated forces, to allow humanitarians to deliver “absolutely necessary” relief items across the contact line. 

Groundwater, which sustains drinking water supplies, sanitation systems, farms, industries and ecosystems, is being overused, polluted and neglected, speakers warned at a World Water Week event on Thursday.

The robbery of over half a million tonnes of fuel from the World Food Programme (WFP) in Ethiopia’s Tigray region will make it impossible to continue operations that support millions of hungry people, the UN agency said on Thursday.

On Thursday, UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, warned of the danger faced by Afghan refugees who continue to be detained and deported from Tajikistan, reiterating that it’s illegal to force those fleeing persecution back to their homeland.

UN agencies and entities have underlined their continued support to Ukraine, as Wednesday marked six months since the start of the war devastating the country. 

Amidst deteriorating levels of malnutrition and Ethiopia’s worst drought in 40 years, 17 million people are being targeted for humanitarian assistance, the UN spokesperson said on Wednesday. 

This week marks five years since more than 700,000 ethnic Rohingya fled military persecution from Myanmar for neighbouring Bangladesh, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Tuesday, appealing to the international community for greater support.

On Tuesday, UN Children’s Fund UNICEF warned that children in the Horn of Africa and the vast Sahel region “could die in devastating numbers” without urgent intervention and support. In the last five months, the number of people in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia without reliable access to safe water, has risen from 9.5 million to 16.2 million

Completing his trip to Europe on Saturday, UN chief António Guterres oversaw the departure of two ships involved in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a UN-brokered operation to bring urgently needed hunger relief to the Horn of Africa.

As extreme weather events grow in intensity and frequency, nowhere is guaranteed to be safe from danger, as New Yorkers discovered on 1 September 2021, when Hurricane Ida struck, causing floods that led to some 29 deaths, and shutting down much of the subway system. Amrita Bhagwandin was at her home in the New York Borough of Queens on that traumatic day.

As the threat of famine looms in the Horn of Africa, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced on Friday that it is scaling up operations to support millions going hungry who “cannot wait” for assistance.

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths allocated on Friday, $5 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to respond to humanitarian needs triggered by gang violence in Haiti.

The hundreds of thousands of aid workers globally who dedicate their lives to assist people in need represent “the best in humanity”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in his video message to mark World Humanitarian Day on Friday. 

With Haiti’s highways increasingly in the grip of gangs, aid delivery by ship is becoming increasingly critical. Captain Madeleine Habib, a shipping officer working for the World Food Programme in Haiti, spoke about her experiences ahead of World Humanitarian Day, which is marked annually on 19 August.