The UN Secretary-General called on Wednesday for action to prioritize Africa, urging the world not to turn its back on the continent. 

As health emergencies multiply linked to the climate crisis, governments are joining forces with the UN to protect access to clean water, while data indicates that 118 million people in Europe alone live near healthcare facilities lacking basic sanitat...

Morning light spreads over Sikaiana, a remote atoll in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific where the ocean both sustains life and threatens it.  

Thousands of diplomats and climate experts are heading to Belém, in Brazil’s Amazon, for COP30 – the latest round of UN climate talks. Their task couldn’t be clearer: turn promises into action and agree on tougher plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions....

The crisis in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continues to worsen amid ongoing fighting that has driven tens of thousands of people from their homes and created acute hunger, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday.

Nearly 100 people in Syria have been abducted or forcibly disappeared since January, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Friday, calling for greater accountability from the authorities.

Independent UN human rights investigators have heard first-hand accounts of torture, unlawful detention and the forced transfer of civilians during their first visit to Ukraine in more than a year.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres is continuing his campaign to accelerate the global switch from fossil fuels to clean energy – “the cheapest source of new electricity in nearly every country.” 

Warnings of worsening humanitarian conditions in Sudan continue, despite reports of a ceasefire deal brokered by international mediators on Thursday.

From Gaza to Ukraine and beyond, conflict has caused widespread death and destruction, but it has also devastated natural resources such as water systems, farmland and forests. 

The United Nations said on Thursday that Israeli authorities have rejected more than 100 requests to bring relief materials into Gaza since the ceasefire began nearly a month ago.

The UN Special Adviser on genocide prevention has raised concerns over widespread allegations of war crimes committed in Sudan’s El Fasher last month, and plans to meet his African Union counterpart on Friday to discuss a coordinated response. 

Around 1.5 million Jamaicans have been impacted by Hurricane Melissa – the worst climate disaster in the Caribbean nation’s history, said the top UN development official in the region on Thursday.

The Security Council on Thursday adopted a resolution to remove Syria’s transitional President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Interior Minister Anas Khattab from sanctions measures targeting members and supporters of terrorist groups ISIL and Al-Qaida.

Leaders, policymakers and civil society representatives have gathered in Doha for the Second World Summit for Social Development, with the aim of renewing global commitments to inclusion, dignity and social justice. UN News is on the ground, bringing y...

The Second World Summit for Social Development concluded in Doha on Thursday with calls for countries to move swiftly from commitments to implementation, ensuring that the Doha Political Declaration delivers measurable progress on poverty reduction, de...

As world leaders gather in Brazil for the COP30 climate summit, UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday called for urgent action to drive down global temperatures and keep the 1.5°C goal within reach.

The Second World Summit for Social Development wrapped up on Thursday with nations warning that global progress on poverty and inequality will stall unless countries move faster from promises to implementation.

Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has fallen by 20 per cent compared to last year, continuing a dramatic decline since the introduction of a nationwide ban under the Taliban in 2022 – but synthetic drugs and shifting trafficking routes are posing ...

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees appealed on Thursday for more solutions to address forced displacement in his final address to the General Assembly. 

Tropical forests, vital allies in the fight against climate breakdown, are vanishing at an alarming rate. On Thursday, in a bid to help reverse this trend, Brazil launched a new initiative at a summit of world leaders in Belém, the gateway to the Amazon.

Decades of progress in protecting the planet’s carbon dioxide-busting forests are at risk as the climate crisis continues to accelerate, UN forestry experts said on Wednesday.

A campaign for routine immunisation, nutrition, and growth monitoring will be launched in the Gaza Strip this week with the goal of reaching 44,000 children cut off from essential life-saving services due to the devastating conflict. 

As wearable devices begin to tap into our mental states, UN experts warn that without ethical safeguards, the right to freedom of thought could be the latest casualty of unchecked innovation.

To South Sudan, where aid teams warn that an already severe food and nutrition crisis could get worse without urgent humanitarian relief.

The push to put social justice at the heart of global policymaking took centre stage at the Second World Summit for Social Development on Wednesday, as leaders gathered for a high-level forum to drive coordinated action in delivering the newly adopted ...

Around 2.2 million Cubans remain in dire need of assistance across the eastern provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Holguin, and Guantanamo as the after effects of Hurricane Mellisa continue, UN aid workers said on Wednesday. 

UN agencies are stepping up relief operations to help civilians fleeing the escalating violence in Sudan’s North Darfur state, where fighting has triggered widespread abuses and mass displacement, Deputy UN Spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters in New...

The UN is ready to support Sudan and South Sudan in resuming talks on the disputed Abyei border region, the Security Council heard on Wednesday. 

Civil society networks and private sector leaders crossed paths in the buzzing corridors of the Qatar National Convention Centre, a reminder that social development is not just debated in meetings rooms – it touches jobs, families and futures.

As the Second World Summit for Social Development continued in Doha on Wednesday, governments warned that global progress risks stalling unless social protection, equality and peace are prioritised – and backed with political and financial commitment.

UN aid teams on Friday highlighted the disturbing situation in Gaza’s makeshift hospitals, where premature babies cry for scant oxygen and medics attempt to save child survivors targeted by airstrikes in their tents and quadcopter victims reportedly sh...

UN human rights chief Volker Türk warned on Friday that the war in Ukraine “has entered an even more dangerous and deadly stage for civilians, under relentless bombardment of their schools, hospitals, and shelters.”

In his first briefing to the UN Security Council on Friday as the newly designated Special Representative for Colombia, Miroslav Jenča reaffirmed the organization’s strong commitment to supporting the country’s nine-year-old peace process. 

When the gates of Syria’s notorious Sednaya prison opened soon after the fall of the Assad regime last December, graffiti scrawled on the walls offered a frightening glimpse into what was widely known as the “human slaughterhouse”. “First day, severe b...

Thursday’s terrorist attack on a synagogue in Manchester, which left at least two worshippers dead on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, has been strongly condemned by the UN Secretary-General.

Hospitals are overwhelmed and families are sheltering in the open after a deadly 6.9 magnitude earthquake tore through northern Cebu in the Philippines, killing at least 70 people and displacing more than 20,000, according to local authorities and huma...

UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Thursday warned that civilians in Sudan’s El Fasher face the imminent risk of large-scale atrocities, as fighting intensifies around the regional capital of North Darfur, besieged for more than 500 days by the Rapid...