UN #SDG News

While COVID-19 has wiped out important development gains in mere months, with extreme poverty rising for the first time in decades, the pandemic could spark the transformations needed to achieve stronger social protection systems, the UN Secretary-General said on Tuesday.  

More than three billion people live in agricultural areas with high levels of water shortages and scarcity, the UN agriculture agency said in a new report launched on Wednesday. 

With the COVID-19 pandemic precipitating one of the world’s worst health, socioeconomic and humanitarian crises in over a century, the UN chief told a high-level discussion on Tuesday to seize the opportunity “to make real, foundational, and necessary change”. 

The global community is marking World Children’s Day on Friday, calling for societies to “reimagine a better future” for every child, where each one has the opportunity to thrive. 

The pandemic has redefined the world economy in ways that will deepen inequality and can only be reversed if a global transformation in attitudes towards trade and development allows the whole world to recover together, the UN trade body UNCTAD said, in a report published on Thursday. 

Asian and Pacific nations are increasingly leveraging space technology and geospatial information to respond to challenges on the ground, including in their efforts to contain the spread and mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new United Nations report. 

The fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement and the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) “go hand in hand”, the UN chief told a major development bank conference on Thursday.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told Member States on Monday that efforts to tackle climate change and poverty had been set back by a lack of global unity since major agreements were struck five years ago, and welcomed the chance to work with the presumptive new US administration of president-elect Joe Biden.

Cities will be critical for the world to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the worst recession for decades, according to the latest report published by UN-Habitat, the UN agency working on urban issues. 

Top UN officials have highlighted the “extraordinary” contributions of grassroots communities in towns and cities across the world in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, and urged that their unique efforts be built on, during recovery.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is leading a push for the world to scale up efforts to restore landscapes and forests over the next decade, with eyes on a target to salvage 350 million hectares of degraded and deforested lands, an area bigger than India in total. 

In a year that has cast darkness upon many, the 2020 UN Global Climate Action Awards, announced on Tuesday, shone a light on the positive action that many across the globe are taking, to combat climate change.

Africa needs to prepare better for climate change by responding to a wide range of potential risks, a multi-agency report led by the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Monday, the first in a series of continent-by-continent assessments.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has welcomed Japan’s announcement on Monday that it would reduce carbon emissions to zero, by 2050, as part of the global effort to slow the worldwide rise in temperatures, and prevent the most damaging effects of human-made climate change. 

The world is at risk of suffering “a generational catastrophe” as COVID-19 wreaks havoc on the education of students globally, the UN chief said on Thursday. 

Around 15 per cent of deaths in the Mediterranean are attributable to preventable environmental factors, a new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report released on Wednesday has revealed.

Current, reliable and trusted data help us to “understand the changing world” in which we live, the UN chief said on Tuesday in his message for World Statistics Day.

An estimated one in six children – or 356 million globally – were living in extreme poverty before the COVID-19 pandemic began, and this is set to worsen significantly, according to a new World Bank Group and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) analysis released on Tuesday. 

Hunger is rising, due to factors including conflict, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, which is putting a strain on food systems that are already failing in many countries. In today’s LIVE blog, marking World Food Day, we will look at some of the many issues and possible solutions. Highlights •    UN chief video message •    What is sustainable agriculture? •    Food and the COVID-19 pandemic •    The business of food •    UN commits to transforming food systems

More than half the population of the vast Asia and Pacific region lack any social protection coverage, leaving populations vulnerable to ill-health, poverty, inequality and social exclusion, a new UN report has found.