Education is always the first public spending to be cut in a crisis and the last to be restored, according to the UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown. But on Thursday he announced a new $1.5 billion commitment to invest in education for those children and youth most in need, powered by the game-changing International Finance Facility for Education. The former British Prime Minister told UN News’s Ben Malor the cash injection would help get tens of thousands of students back to...

With 70 years of experience in the safe commercial use of nuclear energy, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says all countries need to follow internationally agreed safety standards, and that safety is the absolute priority. That’s according to Rafael Mariano Grossi, IAEA’s Director General, who is taking part in the High-Level Week of the UN General Assembly in New York. In an interview with UN News’s Nargis Shekinskaya, Mr. Grossi said an apparent willingness by Iran’s new...

“We need quick reform of the international financial architecture. It simply doesn't work in terms of addressing the financing and the debt challenges that Africa is having.” That’s the view from Claver Gatete, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), taking part in a discussion organized by Africa Renewal earlier this week. UNECA brings countries together alongside the African Union to boost key development issues such as financing, climate action and new...

With an alarming uptick in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) worldwide, stakeholders will be gathering on Thursday for a High-Level Meeting to discuss ways of combating the growing superbug scourge. UN News’s Felipe de Carvalho caught up with Yvan Hutin, Director of Surveillance, Prevention and Control at the AMR Division at the World Health Organization (WHO), who’s in New York for the summit. One key concern is the impact that the brutal wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan are having on the...

Children make up half of Gaza’s entire population of over two million, but none have been able to attend school since the 7 October attacks triggered nearly a year of devastating war. Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the UN Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA, told UN News during an interview in New York on Tuesday that the longer the fighting goes on, the greater the chance of losing an entire generation. For 75 years, UNRWA has provided free basic education to millions and the agency...

Devastating Israeli airstrikes on communities in southern Lebanon on Monday sent thousands fleeing with little but the clothes they were wearing, according to the UN peacekeeping force in the country, UNIFIL. Amid fears of an all-out war in Lebanon not seen since 2006, UN News’s Nancy Sarkis has been speaking to UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti, to find out what he’s been hearing about this new escalation that’s linked to the ongoing war in Gaza.

“Imagine if every decision we made, we had to think about future generations,” Anne-Marie Slaughter said, discussing the Pact for the Future at UN Headquarters on Sunday. The former White House policy chief was part of the high-level advisory board for the Pact – adopted by world leaders that day – put together by Secretary-General António Guterres, which formed the centrepiece of the Summit of the Future. She told UN News’s Julia Foxen that the General Assembly was becoming an increasingly...

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the youth volunteer movement in the war-torn country has been growing and is now ten times larger than before hostilities began. That’s according to 20-year-old Tetiana Kravchuk, who is a member of the Young People Advisory Board of the UN Children's Fund, UNICEF, in Ukraine, where she advises on the 2025-2030 Country Programme and youth development projects. UN News’s Evgeniya Kleshcheva caught-up with her in the margins of the...

Haiti is facing a “catastrophic and cataclysmic” human rights situation according to the UN’s designated expert on rights issues in the Caribbean island nation, William O’Neill. Attacks by gangs, executions, kidnappings for ransom, violence against women – including  rape – as well as corruption, inmates dying in jail and a paralyzed judicial system, are just some of the rights challenges the country is facing. And now Haitians are becoming frustrated at the slow pace of international...

Amid intensifying strikes either side of the Israel-Lebanon border linked to the war in Gaza, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that some 1,500 people are still in hospital from this week’s extraordinary attack on mobile communication devices, reportedly targeting the Hezbollah armed group.  Dr. Abdinasir Abubakar, the UN health agency’s Representative in Lebanon, said that almost 3,000 injured people were rushed to hospitals after the pager and walkie-talkie explosions....

Myanmar’s civil war has escalated to include systematic atrocities, including attacks targeting civilians, torture and sexual violence, according to a new report on Tuesday from the UN human rights office. Since the military seized power on 1 February 2021, at least 5,350 civilians have been killed, and more than 3.3 million displaced. Over half the population is living below the poverty line mainly due to violence perpetrated by the national armed forces. The situation is particularly...

Some 4.5 million children are not attending school in Yemen, where Government forces, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, and Houthi rebels have been at war for a decade. Peter Hawkins, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Representative in Yemen, said the “catastrophic situation” is a “time bomb” as the country could possibly have a generation of citizens who are unable to read and write.  He told UN News’s Khaled Mohamed that UNICEF has been working to rehabilitate damaged schools and to support...

A series of crises is making it difficult for Haiti’s most vulnerable farming households to work their land, recover from natural weather events and build their livelihoods according to a senior representative of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Extreme weather, including hurricanes, as well as the effects of climate change and now rampant insecurity have dramatically impacted successive growing seasons leaving around five million Haitians hungry. The Caribbean island nation...

Amid the brutal war in Gaza and fears of famine, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is providing Palestinian livestock holders with veterinary kits to keep their animals healthy and disease-free. This is just one example of the UN agency’s work to ensure food security and economic stability in conflict zones, including the West Bank, Ukraine and Sudan. To find out more about these efforts, UN News’s Nancy Sarkis in Geneva spoke to FAO Deputy Director Beth Bechdol. 

Over half a million people have been severely impacted by unprecedented flooding and windstorms in Yemen. The UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) has been working in the hardest-hit areas providing emergency shelter, cash assistance, and clean water. But the agency is facing significant challenges, including limited resources and ongoing conflict, which complicates relief efforts, according to Matt Huber, IOM’s Acting Chief of Mission in Yemen Talking to UN News’s Abdelmonem...

More work needs to be done to ensure the success of the multinational security support mission which has deployed to Haiti to help the national police address chronic levels of violence and instability. That’s according to Bob Rae, Canada’s Ambassador to the UN and the newly elected president of the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The mission, which is not a UN peacekeeping operation, began deploying in June and has experienced some notable gains including shifting the area of...

This is Daniel Johnson for UN News. Superbugs – or bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics – continue to be a major worry for the medical community and health authorities, because if they emerge and spread globally, life-saving drugs will no longer work. As part of the global effort to prevent such antimicrobial resistance, the UN World Health Organization on Tuesday launched the first-ever guidance for manufacturers of antibiotics on what to do with their wastewater. The guidance has been...

The fighting hasn’t stopped in Gaza but that hasn’t prevented tens of thousands of parents from making sure that their children are given the first of two polio vaccines. The UN-led initiative inoculated 15,000 youngsters in one school-turned-shelter in central Deir Al-Balah on Monday, according to Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA. Talking to Daniel Johnson from UN News on Monday, she described the challenge of rolling out the campaign where, to...

The UN human rights office, OHCHR, on Wednesday condemned Israel’s military escalation in the occupied West Bank, calling for attacks by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to stop, along with settler violence and the forcible transfer of Palestinians. Ajith Sunghay, Head of OHCHR in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told UN News that as the situation deteriorates even further - against the backdrop of war between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza - people live in fear”. He told Abdelmonem...

Civilians in Lebanon - particularly in the volatile south - are grappling with constant threats of violence, high levels of displacement and economic deprivation, as the standoff between Israel and Hezbollah militants continues in the shadow of the Gaza war. Fadel Saleh, from the UN aid coordination office (OCHA) in Lebanon, told UN News that tens of thousands of people are unable to access basic services such as water facilities – while crucial civilian infrastructure such as markets and...

Acute malnutrition is rapidly increasing among young children in Government-controlled areas in Yemen, UN agencies and partners warned in a report published this week. The ongoing conflict between Government forces, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, and Houthi rebels, is driving the surge, along with other factors such as economic collapse, displacement and social disruption.   The report warned that all 117 districts in Government-controlled areas surveyed will experience “serious” levels of...

The recent confirmation of famine at the Zamzam camp in Sudan is “also a canary in a coal mine”, the new Representative of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the country has warned. Sheldon Yett said the situation is an indication that “terrible things” are happening there. He also recalled that food security experts report conditions are “equally bad” at more than a dozen other locations across the country, where rival militaries have been battling for more than a year. Speaking from Port...

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and partners are preparing to launch a campaign this month to vaccinate thousands of children in Gaza against polio after the disease was detected in sewage samples in two locations. Boys and girls caught in the war wonder when the fighting will end, said UNICEF communications officer Salim Owais, who spent eight days in the enclave. Mr. Owais visited several hospitals where he met children suffering from various diseases and war injuries amid the ongoing lack...

The World Food Programme’s (WFP) Spokesperson in Sudan says the world “cannot give up hope” of averting widespread famine across the war-torn country, despite evidence of it spreading on the ground in Darfur and increasing problems accessing those in desperate need who are caught between rival armies. Leni Kinzli told UN News’s Abdelmonem Makki that international action now could avert many deaths, including for around 90,000 facing catastrophic hunger in the devastated capital, Khartoum.

The UN continues to monitor fast-moving developments in Bangladesh after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country on Monday following weeks of student protests that left hundreds dead. Young people took to the streets to demand an end to a quota system for civil servant jobs, which was later withdrawn. To find out more about the crisis, UN News’s Anshu Sharma in Delhi spoke to the UN Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh, Gwyn Lewis, who said the mood in the country is hopeful, with “a...