United Nations

Image: A collage of SDG3 and SDG16 logos from the UN Website.

UN Chief Points to Fragility and Conflict as Major Obstacles to Sustainable Development Goals

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – “Challenges of Maintaining Peace and Security in Fragile Contexts” were the focus of Secretary-General António Guterres' remarks at the Security Council virtual open debate on January 6. The debate was organized by Mr Kais Saied, the Security Council's Presidency for the month of January.

He called for a Global Ceasefire, which he said, goes hand-in-hand with a flagship initiative of the African Union. The United Nations also remains committed to supporting the African Union’s ambitious Agenda 2063.

: Santo D. Banerjee; SUSTAINABILITY; Poverty; 08 January 2021

Photo: Men install solar panels for a hospital in Yemen. UNDP’s SPCRP project is equipping COVID-19 isolation centers with vital equipment such as solar energy panels. This allows the key healthcare facilities to function even with the chronic lack of electricity in the country. Photo: UNDP Yemen

Clean Energy Set to Grow in 2021

By Marcel Alers

The author is Head of Energy of the UN Development Programme (UNDP)

NEW YORK (IDN) – The energy sector, still dominated by fossil fuels, is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. We know people and nations need reliable sources of energy to power hospitals and light schools, and to safely cook, heat or cool their homes. We know we need to switch to sustainable energy.

: UN Bureau; SUSTAINABILITY; Affordable Clean Energy; 03 January 2021

Photo: Midwife lifts one of the very first babies born in Mali in 2020 at a Health Center in Segou, central Mali. © UNICEF/Seyba Keïta

Make 2021 A Fairer, Safer, Healthier World for Children

By Caroline Mwanga

NEW YORK (IDN) – More than 371,500 children would be born on the first day of 2021, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The agency's Executive Director Henrietta Fore said on the eve of the New Year day: "The children born today enter a world far different than even a year ago, and a New Year brings a new opportunity to reimagine it."

: Caroline Mwanga; SUSTAINABILITY; Health & Well Being; 01 January 2021

Photo: Musicians perform at a concert in India, in December 2019, prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: UNICEF/Srikanth Kolari.

Culture Struggling to Survive COVID-19 Impact

By Jaya Ramachadran

PARIS (IDN) – The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has urged adequate policies and actions to help the culture sector weather the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and its fallout. The sector employs more than 30 million people globally. It has been hit much harder than expected.

: Jaya Ramachandran; UN INSIDER; 01 January 2021

Let Us Make 2021 a Year of Healing!

The following is the text of 2021 United Nations New Year's message delivered by Secretary-General António Guterres.

NEW YORK (IDN) – 2020 has been a year of trials, tragedies and tears.

COVID-19 upended our lives and plunged the world into suffering and grief.

: UN Bureau; OPINION; 31 December 2020

Photo: A collage of UNGA President Volkan Bozkir (UN picture) superimposed on a detailed view of Assembly Hall (UN Photo/Cia Pak).

UN Assembly President Calls for Working Together for A Better Tomorrow

NEW YORK (IDN | UN News) – The President of the United Nations General Assembly has urged everyone around the world "to continue to work together" to end the coronavirus pandemic, and to build an inclusive and sustainable future.

In a message for the New Year, Assembly President Volkan Bozkir said that each individual, community, and country has a role to play, locally and globally, to reduce inequalities, protect the most vulnerable people, and create more just, safer societies.

: UN Bureau; UN INSIDER; 31 December 2020

Photo: The Tigray region faces some of the toughest development challenges in Ethiopia. (file photo). Credit: UNICEF/Zerihun Sewunet

UN Supplies Food for 25,000 Refugees in Tigray Region

Compiled by Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – For the first time since mid-October, some 25,000 Eritrean refugees, sheltering in two camps in the unsettled Tigray region of Ethiopia, have received desperately needed food aid, reports UN News.

"Families, women, men, children — even new-borns — have been cut off from supplies and essential services for many weeks, so this distribution was urgently needed," said Ann Encontre, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Representative in Ethiopia.

: Santo D. Banerjee; THE WORLD; Horn of Africa; 31 December 2020

Photo: Secretary-General António Guterres swears in Martha Helena Lopez as assistant secretary-general for human resources management, Aug. 23, 2017. New tensions have flared between the pension fund board, which she chairs, and UN staff representatives on the board. MANUEL ELIAS/UN PHOTO

Concern About the UN Pension Fund's Administration

By Loraine Rickard-Martin*, Passblue

NEW YORK (IDN) – At the $79.4 billion United Nations pension fund, continuing tensions came to a head this month when the UN participant representatives to the pension board — elected representatives of 85,000 active UN staff members — wrote on December 2 to the General Assembly body that oversees the fund about their concerns on a range of issues regarding the fund’s administration and governance.

: UN Bureau; UN INSIDER; 25 December 2020

Photo: The consultation event for the publication at the UN in February 2019. Credit: UN.

A New Handbook on Parliamentary Action for Disarmament

By Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA (IDN) – Nearly one-and-half years after UN Secretary-General António Guterres launched Securing Our Common Future: An Agenda for Disarmament in May 2018, a new handbook to support disarmament for security and sustainable development has been released. Its approach and focus draw primarily on the Agenda. Titled Assuring our Common Future, published by four international parliamentary organizations and two international policy bodies on November 5, 2020, the new publication offers background and examples of effective policies and parliamentary actions on a wide range of disarmament issues.

: Jamshed Baruah; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 20 December 2020

Photo: UN Chief addressing German Parliament. Credit. German Parliament/Schacht.

UN Chief Lauds Germany's 'Frontline Role'

By Aar Jay Persius

BRLIN (IDN) – As Germany and other western European countries struggled to combat the Corona virus, eagerly awaiting the advent of a vaccine to unfetter humanity from the scourge of the ruthless pandemic, UN Secretary-General António Guterres descended on Berlin and declared that the prophesied inoculum must be viewed as a global public good.

Guterres undertook the mission as Germany prepared to complete its two-year term as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council which is charged with primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. The visit came on the dawn of the last year of his first five-year term at the UN Secretary-General.