As the world passes the half-way point towards the 2030 deadline for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), many countries are lagging behind in their SDG commitments. Uganda, where I serve as the UN Resident Coordinator, is no exception.
Abdlallah, Jamil, Abdul Rasoul and Habib bin Khamis, four brothers, are nakhlawis, a Bahraini local dialect term for date palm farmers. They hail from a farming family and have cultivated palm trees their whole lives. Indeed, the Kingdom of Bahrain has long been known as the “country of million palm trees”.
Our UN teams are on the ground in 162 countries and territories, coordinating joint programmes and tackling a range of priorities and initiatives — from climate action and food security to gender equality and safety of civilians.
Malaysia's journey from an agrarian economy with widespread poverty and deprivation at independence in 1957 to one of the world's best-performing upper-middle-income countries has been rapid.
In the grand tapestry of climate change discussions, where policy frameworks and carbon footprints often dominate, there exists a formidable force less talked about that both bears the brunt of climate-induced calamities and holds the key to transformative solutions.
After nine years of conflict, an estimated 4.5 million Yemeni nationals are internally displaced. The UN estimates that three-quarters of the 4.5 million displaced people in Yemen are women and children, where around 26 per cent of displaced households are headed by women.
Nations at COP28 in Dubai approved a roadmap for “transitioning away from fossil fuels” – a first for a UN climate conference – but the deal still stopped short of a long-demanded call for a “phaseout” of oil, coal and gas.
The UN Productive Sectors Development Program, (PSDP) a joint initiative between the UN in Lebanon and the Government of Canada, is designed to strengthen the agriculture sector in the areas it matters most. The three-year programme, which is funded by the Government of Canada and implemented by UN agencies under the coordination of the Resident Coordinator, has already helped over 2,000 people improve their farming practices as well as develop, run, and maintain their businesses in the agri-food sector.
In his letter to the Council president, Mr. Guterres said the more than eight weeks of fighting overall had “created appalling human suffering, physical destruction and collective trauma across Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
