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.
After six months of lockdown, the Namibian government ended travel restrictions and curfews, in light of a drop in new COVID-19 cases. But Namibia’s economy, which depends heavily on wildlife tourism, has taken a major hit during the period, and the future of the country’s wildlife reserves is far from certain.
Drug trafficking has long been a problem in the Golden Triangle, the region where Thailand’s Chiang Rai province meets Myanmar and Laos. Gita Sabharwal, UN Resident Coordinator in Thailand, and Jeremy Douglas, UNODC in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, explain how the UN and the Thai government are working together to tackle the issue.
75 years on from the founding of the UN, young people are being enlisted to share their visions of a better planet, and help decide the next chapter of the Organization.
