News

With the end of the year fast approaching, humanitarians are urging donors to step up support for their operations which remain underfunded due to brutal cuts to aid budgets. 

Israel announced late on Tuesday that it will limit the flow of aid to Gaza, accusing Hamas of breaching the ceasefire agreement by returning only four of the bodies of deceased hostages so far.

Russian drones hit a “clearly marked” UN convoy on Tuesday which was bringing desperately needed aid to a war-torn frontline town in southern Ukraine. 

The UN’s top envoy for Libya warned on Tuesday that the country’s long-delayed political transition will stay on hold unless rival institutions swiftly resolve differences over election laws and key appointments.

A new report released on Tuesday warns the world is falling behind on its clean energy goals, prompting UN chief António Guterres to call once more for a ramped-up transition to a net zero global economy.

Countries must scale up investment and care to treat neurological disorders, responsible for over 11 million deaths each year, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday. 

Around $70 billion will be needed to reconstruct Gaza and make it safe after two years of war, UN development experts said on Tuesday, while aid agencies reported that far too little aid is getting in to meet the needs of desperate Palestinians.

UN Deputy-Secretary General Amina Mohammed has acknowledged the Chinese capital’s enduring association with the fight for women’s rights and gender equality, 30 years on from the adoption of the landmark Beijing Declaration, a foundational international treaty.

As the humanitarian crisis continues to escalate in Haiti, the World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Monday that women, children and displaced families are disproportionately affected as malnutrition and hunger rise.

The UN is stepping up its emergency response in Gaza, releasing $11 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to meet urgent needs before winter – a move that underscores both the expanding humanitarian effort and the funding shortfall threatening to stall it.

From 1970 until 2000, the costs of disaster averaged $70-$80 billion. Those mainly preventable costs doubled this century to average $180-$200 billion annually, according to a recent report published by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).  

The world’s poorest are being squeezed by trade uncertainty, heavy debt burdens and falling investment, the UN trade and development agency UNCTAD warned a week before ministers gather in Geneva for its largest meeting in four years.