Category: Development

“There is no other time more critical to children’s lives than their earliest years”, said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director, “which is why we need a transformative shift in how businesses and governments invest in policies and practices that not only support healthy brain development, but also strengthen the bond between parents and their children – and reap huge economic… Read More

DR Congo Ebola outbreak now a Public Health Emergency, UN health agency declares The second worst Ebola outbreak of all time, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was officially declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on Wednesday, with the head of the World Health Organization calling for countries to ‘take notice and redouble our efforts”. With… Read More

Ending AIDS is possible if we focus on people, not diseases Gunilla Carlsson, acting Executive Director of UNAIDS The news comes in a new UNAIDS report, Communities at the centre, launched on Tuesday at a community event in Eshowe, South Africa, which also shows that the global resources available for the AIDS response have declined “significantly”, by nearly $1 billion.… Read More

Number of hungry people rising globally More people are going hungry around the world, a new UN report, the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2019, revealed on Monday. The news means that achieving the Zero Hunger target of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, will be an “immense challenge”. This year’s report, which… Read More

The studies from WHO Europe show that a high proportion of baby foods are incorrectly marketed as suitable for infants under the age of six months, when in fact much of it contains inappropriately high levels of sugar. WHO’s long-standing recommendation spells out that children should be breastfed, exclusively, for the first six months. Moreover, its 2016 global Guidance on… Read More

According to a joint study by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 10 countries accounted for 11.7 of the 19.4 million under and non-vaccinated youngsters in the world, in particular Nigeria (three million), India (2.6 million) and Pakistan (1.4 million).  At the same time, global protection against four diseases that are regarded as a gauge of overall coverage – diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis  and measles – has “stalled” at around 86 per cent since 2010, the study found.   95… Read More

New UN poverty report reveals ‘vast inequalities’ between countries There are vast inequalities across countries, and among the poorer segments of societies, says a new UN report published on Thursday. The 2019 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) from the UN Development Programme (UNDP), shows that, in the 101 countries studied – 31 low income, 68 middle income and 2 high… Read More

More than 150 countries use the UN’s Essential Medicines List, which contains around 460 drugs deemed critical to treat public health needs. This latest update adds 28 products for adults and 23 for children, and specifies new uses for 26 already-listed products, based on value for money, evidence and health impact. WHO added 12 tests to the WHO Essential Diagnostics… Read More

DR Congo: UN food agency triples aid in strife-hit Ituri province Food aid is being tripled for troubled Ituri province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), to respond to what the World Food Programme (WFP) has described as the world’s second largest hunger crisis in the world, after Yemen. In addition to worsening hunger, communities in north-east DRC… Read More

“Misinformation about vaccines is as dangerous as a disease”, said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. “It spreads fast and poses an imminent threat to public health”.  Over the last three decades, the world has seen significant improvements in the health and well-being of children, with vaccinations having contributed to a dramatic decrease in under-five deaths, according to UNICEF.    And… Read More