Is the UN effective only in humanitarian relief?
6/6/2022: The UN is struggling to contain the spread of violent conflicts across the world. But its declining role in geo-politics has been compensated by its increasingly significant performance as a massive humanitarian relief organization.
Source: Inter Press Service
China’s population is about to shrink
29/5/2022: After four extraordinary decades in which China’s population has swelled from 660 million to 1.4 billion, its population is on track to turn down this year, for the first time since the great famine of 1959-1961.
Source: The Conversation
South Sudan’s sluggish peace deal fuels further instability
30/5/2022: South Sudan’s transitional government is due to wrap up in less than 10 months. Yet the country’s future looks as bleak as it did in 2018 when rival parties signed a deal to end a crippling civil war that killed nearly 400,000 people.
Source: The New Humanitarian
Stockholm+50 calls for urgent environmental transformation
3/6/2022: The Stockholm+50 meeting has renewed international commitments to address global environmental concerns. The meeting celebrated the landmark 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment which led to multilateral actions to protect the planet.
Source: UN Environment Programme
Fifty years of the UN Environment Programme
1/6/2022: The UN Environment Programme is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Notable successes include protecting the ozone layer through the Montreal Protocol and establishing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Source: China Dialogue
Top UN Envoy hails two-month renewal of Yemen truce
2/6/2022: A truce between the Government in Yemen and Houthi rebels has been renewed for an additional two months, the UN Special Envoy for the country has announced. Over the past two months civilian casualties have dropped significantly and the parties have been meeting under UN auspices to discuss nationwide military de-escalation.
Source: UN News
Investors cash in on food commodities as the poor go hungry
2/6/2022: A significant increase in speculative investment in food commodity contracts could see prices decoupling from the fundamentals of supply and demand. Experts have called for measures to protect food systems against speculation. According to the World Bank, every one percentage point increase in food prices pushes 10 million more people into extreme poverty.
Source: DW
Food crisis underscores urgency of system-wide transformation
1/6/2022: International conflicts have been the primary cause of famine during the last half-century. Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the World Food Programme reported that 45 million people were on the brink of famine. The global community has a moral imperative to ensure that its response to the current crisis promotes a more resilient food system.
Source: Devex
Pandemic undermines 2030 goal of universal energy access
1/6/2022: According to the UN's 2022 Energy Progress Report, 670 million people will remain without electricity in 2030. The goal of universal access by that date has been impeded by recent crises in health and agriculture. Africa remains the least electrified region in the world.
Source: UN News
Davos 2022 was a missed opportunity over globalisation
1/6/2022: The world's poorest countries are bearing the brunt of globalisation’s failures - food and energy price inflation, and an intellectual property regime that left billions without Covid-19 vaccines. The recent meeting of the World Economic Forum, the traditional champion of globalisation, failed to engage in soul-searching about how and why things have gone so wrong.
Source: The Guardian