Week in Review

The United Nations on Friday paid tribute to 22 staff members killed in the bombing of its headquarters in Iraq 20 years ago, one of the darkest days in the Organization’s history.  

Conflict and insecurity in countries such as South Sudan and its neighbour to the north are set to make 2023 another year of high death tolls and and injuries for aid workers in the field, the UN warned on Thursday. 

A former member of staff of the World Food Programme (WFP) has been talking about the “immense psychological injuries” he has suffered following the deadly terrorist attack on the UN offices at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq in 2003.

The head of the UN agency that champions gender equality on Tuesday urged the international community  to continue pressing for change in Afghanistan, accusing the Taliban of imposing “the most comprehensive, systematic, and unparalleled assault on the rights of women and girls” across the country.    

The UN is standing by the people of Niger as border closures increasingly impact the movement of lifesaving supplies into the country which has been wracked by the fallout from last month’s military takeover.

That’s according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Representative in the country, Stefano Savi, who issued a plea for restrictions to end, allowing aid stranded at logistics hubs such as polio and measles vaccines, into the landlocked West African nation.

Florence Westergard from our UN News French service began by asking him to outline the needs faced by vulnerable Nigeriens today.

The UN fund that ensures children can continue learning during emergencies and protracted crises, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), launched a campaign on Tuesday to elevate the voices of young Afghan girls deprived of their basic right to education.  

As Afghanistan’s widespread economic crisis drags on and jobs become scarcer, the women of Dogabad village are finding innovative ways to support their loved ones, even as their own lives seem grimmer than ever. In this impoverished neighbourhood of Kabul, against all odds, women are taking the lead.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called on Friday for Niger’s democratically elected officials to be released “at once”, following their detention in the attempted coup last month.  In a statement released on Friday, Mr. Türk urged the generals to restore constitutional order immediately. 

Sudan’s continuing military showdown has had “massive humanitarian consequences” including allegations that some fighters from the powerful and long-standing RSF militia have been using rape systematically to terrorise communities they control, said a group of independent human rights experts on Thursday.

Arms and ammunition transfers to Ukraine have increased rapidly in recent months, alongside concerning reports of deliveries of banned cluster munitions, the UN’s top disarmament official told the Security Council on Thursday.

Continuing ‘severe, widespread and long-standing” violations against citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) by their own Government, must not be viewed in isolation from wider peace and security issues on the Peninsula, said the UN human rights chief on Thursday.

In briefings to the Security Council on Wednesday, two senior UN officials highlighted the need for progress towards peace in war-torn Yemen amid ongoing political, economic and humanitarian challenges. 

Heatwaves sweeping large parts of the world offer yet another reminder that extreme weather events boosted by human-induced climate change have become “the new normal”, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned on Friday.

Young climate advocates will tell leaders at a UN summit next month that they are out of options: government and big business must work together on ambitious climate action that pushes the world faster towards sustainability and empowers youth with the ‘green skills’ that will secure our future.

A spike in conflict and displacement in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is pushing children into the worst cholera crisis since 2017, warns UNICEF.

The first global Traditional Medicine Summit convened by UN health agency WHO, got underway this week in the Indian city of Gandhinagar focused on sharing evidence and best practices in this field.

African economies should seize the opportunity to better integrate into technology-intensive global supply chains and boost prosperity, but this depends on their ability to harness key market and investment trends, the UN’s trade and development body UNCTAD said on Wednesday.

Farmers in the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan on the island of Borneo are adapting their agricultural techniques with a more climate-friendly approach by ending the burning of land thanks to an initiative by Indonesia’s Peat and Mangrove Restoration Agency (BRGM), with support from the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS).

A Venezuelan woman has been talking about how she made a perilous journey across the Caribbean Sea to the tourist island of Curaçao and how she is now forced to live a secretive existence due to her illegal status.