WFP airdrops food to prevent catastrophe in South Sudan
7/7/2025: The UN's World Food Programme is delivering emergency food assistance to South Sudan’s Upper Nile State, where surging conflict has forced families from their homes. More than one million people across Upper Nile are facing acute hunger, including over 32,000 people already experiencing catastrophic levels of hunger, on the brink of famine.
Source: World Food Programme
UN rights review should call for urgent reform in Vietnam
7/7/2025: As the UN Human Rights Committee approaches its periodic review into civil and political rights in Vietnam, Human Rights Watch alleges that repression in the country has worsened. Rights activists and bloggers who criticize the government face police intimidation. And Vietnam is the world’s third largest jailer of journalists.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Green Climae Fund approves record $1.2 billion for projects
7/7/2025: Despite the Trump administration rescinding $4 billion in pledges, the Green Climate Fund aims to approve at least $3 billion in funding to organizations this year. It has adopted sweeping reforms to accelerate its accreditation system for organizations applying for funds.
Source: Devex
Takeaways from the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development
7/7/2025: The Conference coincided with dark times for global development, as foreign aid budgets are slashed, sovereign debt escalates and the US refiused to participate. Nonetheless, the Sevilla Commitment attempted to map out a way to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, while the Sevilla Platform for Action — a string of more than 100 initiatives launched throughout the conference — aimed to bring that map to reality.
Source: Devex
As Trump wields the axe, who will fight to save the UN?
6/7/2025: The biggest contributor, at 22%, to the UN’s core budget is about to conclude a review of its membership. The US is not the only country falling short in its obligations to the UN. Will the global democracies fight to stop these rogue states dismantling the world’s best defence against a thrid workd war?
Source: The Guardian
UNAids chief warns that US cuts that will mean millions more deaths
4/7/2025: The head of the global agency tackling Aids says she expects HIV rates to soar and deaths to multiply in the next four years as a direct impact of the “seismic” US cuts to aid spending.
Source: The Guardian
Top Latin American court upholds right to “healthy climate”
4/7/2025: The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has issued a landmark advisory opinion on climate change, urging states to regulate fossil fuels and corporate emissions. The ruling may influence the higher International Court of Justice in delivering an advisory opinion on the legal obligation of states to limit climate change later this year.
Source: Climate Home News
Why the world needs a UN Special Rapporteur for Democracy
2/7/2025: While the UN investigates everything from torture to toxic waste through specialised rapporteurs, democracy – supposedly a core UN principle – receives no systematic international oversight. This is a blind spot civil society wants to change.
Source: Inter Press Service
UN concern at withdrawals from landmines treaty
2/7/2025: The UN’s top human rights official has expressed grave alarm that six European countries are either in the process of or are considering withdrawing from the international treaty prohibiting anti-personnel mines. The number of civilians killed and injured by mines increased by 22 per cent in 2024.
Sharp increase of Afghan returns in adverse circumstances from Iran
28/6/2025: The UN Refugee Agency reports that over 640,000 Afghans have returned from Iran since the implementation of a deadline by the government on 20 March. The Agency warns that returns on such a scale have the potential to destabilise the fragile situation in Afghanistan.
Source: UN Refugee Agency