Droughts have become an urgent global issue. Aggravated by human-induced climate change and desertification, they threaten all types of countries, negatively impacting food security and socioeconomic development. And prospects are not reassuring as droughts may affect over three-quarters of the world’s population by 2050.
During a visit to Tajikistan, Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed congratulated the country on its 30th anniversary of UN Membership and attended a Cooperation Framework signing ceremony that “reflects our strong partnership”. The joint UN-Tajikistan document, which was signed on Tuesday by Prime Minister Kokhir Rasulzoda and UN Resident Coordinator Sezin Sinanoglu, sets out national development priorities and goals for the next four years.
Ripple effects from the war in Ukraine have generated a severe cost-of-living crisis which no country or community can escape, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Wednesday at a press conference to launch the latest report on the conflict’s impacts on food security, energy, and financing.
At the beginning of the year, the Government of Indonesia announced that it had administered more than 280 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines. With over 79.6 per cent of the national population receiving at least one dose and 54.8 per cent fully vaccinated, Indonesia celebrated achieving its national vaccination target by the end of 2021.
In the early 1990s Uzbekistan, the double landlocked country in Central Asia, had just emerged as an independent state from the Soviet Union. With a fragile economy and developing industrial sector, these were challenging times for the newly autonomous country. Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov, the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan, remembers this period well, having spent the early days of his career working for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in the Regional Office for Central Asia. In Uzbekistan he witnessed first-hand the challenges in expanding healthcare and other essential services.
The celebration to mark the thirty-year anniversary of Bosnia and Herzegovina's accession to the United Nations began last week with a formal programme at the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo and continued with the second edition of the UN's #ImagineChange Festival at the Square of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Trg BiH).
“The weather here’s a lot drier for longer these days,” says Althea Spencer, the treasurer of the Mount Airy Farmers group, which is based in Northern Clarendon. “If you don’t have water, it makes no sense to plant seeds because they will just die.”
