Together with governments and partners, UN country teams worldwide are working to help protect the safety and security of communities, particularly those facing humanitarian crisis. Teams are stepping up their effort to obtain more essential lifesaving supplies and shelter for those most at-risk. We highlight some of the coordinated efforts.
The conflict in Tigray erupted so suddenly as to catch thousands of Ethiopians unawares. To respond to the rapidly growing influx of refugees in Sudan, the UN and partners have finalized a humanitarian preparedness plan to assist nearly two million people.
Born into the privilege and comforts of a high-caste Brahmin family in Nepal, Ratna Khawas’s life changed drastically when she got married to someone outside her social class, in 1968. She and her new husband moved to his home village in Belbari, where there were no toilets or handwashing facilities. That shock set her on what became a lifelong quest to improve sanitation for her and her neighbours.
Global hunger and population displacement, which were already at record levels when COVID-19 struck, could “surge” as migrants and those reliant on a dwindling flow of remittances desperately seek work to support their families, a new UN report has warned.
The private sector in Thailand has a key role to play in helping the south-east Asian country to reach poverty reduction and sustainable development goals agreed by the international community. In this blog, Gita Sabharwal, the UN Resident Coordinator in Thailand and the Chairperson of the UN Global Compact Network Thailand, Suphachai Chearavanont, explain how, despite the global COVID-19 pandemic, progress is being made towards the goals.
Somewhere in Kenya, an early morning in July: A woman organizes a once-in-a-lifetime “ceremony” for her 11-year old niece: The girl’s genitals will be cut off as part of her cultural transition into adulthood. A few hours later, a telephone rings in an office in Nairobi. The phone is connected to the number 1195, the national helpline for gender-based violence. One of the girl’s relatives has called in to report the incident anonymously.
To track the UN response efforts, the UN development system established centralized data collecting and reporting systems: the new COVID-19 data portal and UN INFO. These systems allow teams to collect, analyze and report on key indicators of their work related to the SDGs and COVID-19 response, including the number of people served.
