Category: Development

New mothers and their babies are facing systems in crisis, including overwhelmed health centres; supply and equipment shortages; and a lack of skilled birth attendants, including midwives.  “Millions of mothers all over the world embarked on a journey of parenthood in the world as it was”, said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director.  “They now must prepare to bring a life… Read More

“But these are not just numbers – every single case is a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, a brother, sister or friend”, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director-General. The global caseload for COVID-19 has surpassed 3.5 million, with nearly 250,000 deaths. “As more & more countries consider how to ease so-called lockdown restrictions, I want to reiterate… Read More

“We are deeply concerned about the spiraling economic crisis, and the effect this has had on people’s ability to subsist from one day to the next”, three UN Special Rapporteurs asserted. “The Government must immediately explain how it intends to support people, many of whom are teetering on the brink of survival”. Lift sanctions They acknowledged that while the Government… Read More

New analysis from the agency shows that the crisis is having an impact on the lives of trafficking victims before, during and even after their ordeal. “With COVID-19 restricting movement, diverting law enforcement resources, and reducing social and public services, human trafficking victims have even less chance of escape and finding help”, said Ghada Fathi Waly, the UNODC Executive Director. As… Read More

Kanni Wignaraja, who runs the UNDP’s Asia-Pacific bureau, spoke to UN News and started by explaining why the idea of universal basic income (where governments give a minimum sum of money to all citizens, based on work status or income) is starting to gain traction. Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, United Nations… Read More

Even under normal circumstances, people with disabilities are less likely to access education, healthcare and income opportunities, or to participate in their communities, according to Mr. Guterres. They are also more likely to live in poverty, and to suffer higher rates of violence, neglect and abuse. “The pandemic is intensifying these inequalities — and producing new threats,” he revealed. Mr.… Read More

That’s according to top experts from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), who outlined the implications of the new coronavirus pandemic during a digital briefing on Tuesday to correspondents in Geneva. “Digital new society already came into our life, but we never imagined that we could be forced to stay at home and to use the digital worlds to connect ourselves… Read More

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was updating journalists about the outcome of the funding conference for the recently launched ACT Accelerator to speed up production of treatments to beat the disease. “Recent advances in science are enabling the world to move at incredible speed to develop these tools. But the true measure of success will not only be how fast we can… Read More

António Guterres upheld the importance of impartial news media at a time when harmful health advice, hate speech and wild conspiracy theories are rising, and “blatant lies” are being spread online at a dizzying rate. “The antidote to this pandemic of misinformation is fact-based news and analysis. It depends on media freedom and independent reporting”, he said. The online dialogue… Read More

In a strongly-worded personal message, UN Secretary-General António Guterres welcomed donor countries’ contributions to a more than $8 billion fund, to speed up the production of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines to end the new coronavirus threat. But he said that five times that amount will likely be needed to put us all on “a path” to a world free of the disease.… Read More