A call to expand the international right to education
6/6/2022: Leading humanitarians have signed a statement calling for the key target in the Sustainable Development Goal for education to be cemented in international law. This would ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality pre-primary education, and free, equitable and quality secondary education.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Overlapping crises raise risk of famine in six countries
6/6/2022: UN food agencies are concerned that the perfect storm of global crises is undermining relief operations in the world's hunger hotspots. Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia all have areas at risk of the most catastrophic conditions, with up to 750,000 people facing starvation.
Source: UN News
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