Lars Løkke Rasmussen (right), Minister for Foreign Affairs of Denmark and President of the Security Council for the month of August, addresses the Security Council meeting entitled ‘Food Under Fire: The Security Council's Role in Mitigating Global and Local Food Crises’, under the agenda item of maintenance of international peace and security. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Shuli Wong
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 28 2026 (IPS)

Across the board, UN officials and humanitarian organizations urged the Security Council to act before the consequences of food insecurity and famines hit, during a high-level open debate on Tuesday, August 25. More than 80 representatives took part in Tuesday’s conversation on conflict-related food insecurity under the theme “Food under fire: the Security Council’s role in mitigating global and local food crises”.

In 2018, the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 2417, which strongly condemned the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, as well as the unlawful denial of humanitarian access. Resolution 2417 solidified the link between armed conflict and food insecurity. Most importantly, the resolution stated the Security Council’s willingness to consider adopting sanctions against individuals or entities deliberately obstructing the delivery and distribution of humanitarian assistance. The resolution was a landmark achievement that, for the first time, treated hunger not as a result of war but as a humanitarian security threat that the Security Council is obligated to protect.

Eight years after resolution 2417 was passed, 2025 marked the highest year on record of global acute hunger, with more than 266 million people facing acute food insecurity and, for the first time this century, two famines simultaneously confirmed in Sudan and Gaza. On Tuesday, August 25, representative after representative discussed how resolution 2417 has gone largely unused.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres opened Tuesday’s session reminding the members of the sanction provisions in the resolution, stating: “This council expressed its willingness to consider information on the unlawful denial of humanitarian access and take appropriate steps, including sanction measures.” Guterres explicitly called on the Security Council “to make every effort to ensure accountability”.

Denmark’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, presided over the session and candidly stated how “resolution 2417 [is] a powerful tool, but its potential remains untapped, particularly when it comes to early warning.” Testament to that fact is how the resolution’s original text cited 74 million people worldwide facing conflict-induced hunger, a figure that has now doubled to 147 million people.

During Tuesday’s session, the representatives present, notably the elected members of the Security Council, narrowed in on the same point, that being that the famines occurring worldwide are completely preventable.

While discussing the famines in Sudan and Gaza, Dace Melbārde, Latvia’s Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, called the dual crises proof that “these famines are not natural disasters. They are man-made, and they are entirely preventable”. Ms. Melbārde urged the Security Council to “consider targeted sanctions and other appropriate measures against those who deliberately weaponize food and obstruct humanitarian access,” warning that “impunity cannot become another driver of hunger.”

“This is not fate. It is a choice. And when there is a choice, there is culpability,” said Lewis Garsheedah Brown, II, Liberia’s Permanent Representative to the UN. Brown also focused on how the dual famines devastating Sudan and Gaza are not fate or acts of nature, but instead predictable results of the Security Council’s inaction.

Carl Skau, the Acting Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), admitted institutional failure when it came to acting on the warning signs of Sudan’s famine. Examining Sudan’s Darfur region, Mr. Skau said: “We all saw the atrocities in al-Fashir coming, but the international community, including this Council, failed to act on those warnings.” Mr. Skau went on to say that “waiting for famine to be declared is a total failure of duty”. The famine in Sudan was compared to the crisis in 2017 and 2022 in Somalia, where early implemented Security Council-backed action helped to avert catastrophic famine.

Perrine Benoist, Co-CEO, Action Against Hunger and Member of the Global Coalition Against Conflict and Hunger (Rule 39), addresses the Security Council meeting. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

Also during Tuesday’s session, Dr. Perrine Benoist, Co-CEO of Action Against Hunger, presented figures that highlighted the level of inaction the Security Council has taken despite the universal adoption of resolution 2417. Dr. Benoist detailed how there have been more than 9,300 incidents where conflict-related violence impacted food systems in over 45 countries. These incidents include more than 3,200 bombings of markets, agricultural land and water systems.

“Time and again, its provisions have been violated by parties to conflict, while implementation by the members of this Council has fallen far short of what the resolution demands,” Dr. Benoist said of resolution 2417.

However, despite the emphasis placed on strengthening and acting on resolution 2417, not every representative agreed to the scale of the action on Tuesday. Ambassador Vassily A. Nebenzia of the Russian Federation rejected the calls from other representatives to broaden the resolution’s application. Mr. Nebenzia argued that “resolution 2417 does not need an expanded interpretation or new mechanisms. It requires country-interest application where conflict does indeed create hunger.”

For the millions living through the famines in Sudan and Gaza and the tens of millions the WFP warned could be pushed into food insecurity, the consequences of the Security Council’s inaction are not abstract.

“We cannot wait for famine or catastrophic conditions to be formally confirmed,” said Guterres. “I call on this Council to act when the warning lights are flashing.”

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Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS, addresses the General Assembly 2026 high-level meeting on HIV/AIDS. The meeting discussed the implementation of the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS and the political declarations on HIV/AIDS. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías

By Shuli Wong
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 21 2026 (IPS)

As the global HIV response shifts toward sustainable, nationally led, and rights-based care, a new UNAIDS framework published this week argues that integration must start with a country’s readiness.

The report — Operationalizing HIV Integration —published on August 17th, introduces the concept of “protective verticality”, which recognizes that countries begin integrating HIV care at different starting points; therefore, integration should begin according to a country’s readiness, epidemiological patterns, financing realities, and health system capacity.

The report paid particular attention to how in active conflict, fragile settings and outbreak zones, countries need to focus on the deliberate preservation of dedicated and stand-alone HIV infrastructure. “Protective verticality” comes into play because integrating this type of care into national health systems can be dangerous when these systems are themselves on the brink of collapse. The core principle is not a “rapid merger of HIV functions into weak or unstable platforms, but protection of essential services while progressively strengthening the systems, partnerships, financing arrangements and safeguards needed for integration,” the report stated. The focus is on protecting before integrating.

To accomplish this, the report put forth a three-phase approach to show that countries should only move forward in integrating HIV care once they have met the minimum safeguards and proven the health systems’ readiness:

1. ‘Stabilization’; to protect HIV service continuity,
2. ‘Connection”; to strengthen health care and community relationships,
3. ‘Embed’; to align HIV functions with national planning integration when ready.

The focus on HIV integration comes at a time of one of the largest reductions to international funding in decades. In July, UNAIDS reported that international HIV financing fell 18 percent in 2025, from USD 8.8 billion in 2024 to USD 7.3 billion in 2025, marking the lowest level of funding in over two decades.

“The era of relying on international aid is over,” said Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS.

In 2025, 1.2 million people became infected with HIV, and 570,000 people died of AIDS-related illnesses. The reduction in international funding combined with the already fragile HIV response is exactly what the Operationalizing HIV Integration framework is designed to navigate.

The HIV and Ebola crisis across the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) showcases the importance of this framework. In May, as the Ebola outbreak surged across the Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, UNAIDS reported that fear of Ebola exposure in health facilities drove some people living with HIV to avoid community antiretroviral therapy distribution points and miss clinic appointments.

In response, UNAIDS helped integrate HIV protections directly into the DRC’s National Ebola Preparedness and Response Plan. UNAIDS also supported the development of an HIV Mitigation Plan to support the continuity of treatment across the affected regions and protect people living with HIV. These actions highlight a real-world example of the “stabilize” and “connect” phases the Operationalizing HIV Integration framework covers.

Sudan illustrates a longer-running version of the same crisis. When war broke out in April 2023, medical supply chains were cut off, and 75 percent of hospitals in conflict areas closed down, disrupting HIV treatment for thousands of people. In January, more than 1,000 days into the conflict, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) reported on its work with the Global Fund and the National Medical Supply Fund to maintain HIV treatment for patients in hard-to-reach settings. The response included setting up mobile primary health facilities to provide HIV testing and establishing cross-border access routes to deliver HIV medicines into Darfur. Due to the years of conflict, displacement, and medical supplies and personnel shortages, Sudan’s health system remains severely damaged. The conditions across Sudan highlight the importance of “protective verticality,” as any rapid and uniform integration of HIV care into the national health system remains difficult without Sudan’s readiness.

These cases highlight why the Operationalizing HIV Integration framework does not treat integration as a global uniform model. Dismantling HIV infrastructure in settings where health systems are actively under siege for integration purposes risks reversing fragile HIV progress. Sustainability and protection need to be examined, as the report argued integration should not be seen as the automatic absorption of all HIV services or systems into broader platforms. Strategic system transformation is needed.

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Amna Idres Musa Mahamod leads the Al-Wifag Women’s Association in Toker, Sudan. Photographed for the Through Her Lens: Women Rising for Peace Exhibition. Credit: UN Women/Mona Elfateh

By Shuli Wong
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 17 2026 (IPS)

Women-led and women’s rights organizations (WLOs) in humanitarian settings are collapsing amidst a complicated predicament in which needs are surging and international support is dwindling.

These organizations are often the first responders in humanitarian and conflict settings, providing psychosocial and gender-based violence (GBV) support; however, 84 percent of WLOs surveyed report that women and girls in the communities they serve have reduced access to essential services, according to UN Women’s July 2026 Beyond the Breaking Point report.

The report surveyed 855 WLOs operating across 52 crisis- and conflict-affected countries and found that as women and girls face heightened risks and increased need for assistance, services and support have dwindled significantly. Nine in ten organizations say they cannot meet the current levels of need, and two in five expect to shut down either temporarily or permanently within the next year.

Galit Wolfensohn, UN Women’s Humanitarian Research and Knowledge Management Specialist

Beyond the Breaking Point builds off UN Women’s alarm first raised in their 2025 report, At a Breaking Point. In it, they warned that half of WLOs surveyed in crisis zones risked closure within six months if current funding levels persisted. Fifteen months later, the situation remains the same. When asked what the warning in ‘At a Breaking Point’ generated from donors, Galit Wolfensohn, UN Women’s Humanitarian Research and Knowledge Management Specialist, told Inter Press Service it brought “greater recognition among donor governments and humanitarian partners of the severe consequences that funding reductions were having.” She added that the response has “not matched the scale or urgency of the crisis…the latest findings show that recognition alone is not enough.”

When examining the collapse of WLOs, Sudan offers an illuminating case to understand the on-the-ground impacts of the reduction of services. Over three years of conflict in Sudan have driven GBV needs to unprecedented levels, with the number of girls and women requiring GBV services quadrupling since the conflict began. However, two-thirds of WLOs in Sudan reported having to close or significantly reduce services, and half expect to close entirely within the next year without urgent financial support.

Salvator Nkurunziza, UN Women’s Representative in Sudan

As WLOs across Sudan have had to either close or scale back operations, Nkurunziza explained that “women and girls lose access not only to critical support but also to safe spaces that provide protection, psychosocial assistance, information, and a sense of security.” WLOs act as trusted entry points for survivors of GBV seeking help, and when these services disappear and become harder to access, survivors “may be less able or willing to seek assistance.” When services disappear, it creates a vicious cycle that “can result in prolonged exposure to violence, increased psychosocial distress, and heightened protection risks,” including greater reliance on “negative coping mechanisms, like child marriage and other harmful practices.”

“What we are observing is likely only the surface, as the absence of quality services is deterring those in need from seeking help,” Fabrizia Falcione, UNFPA’s Representative in Sudan, said on help-seeking behaviors in GBV survivors. In El Obeid, UNFPA estimates that 55,712 women and girls are at an increased risk of GBV as of August.

Fabrizia Falcione, UNFPA’s Representative in Sudan

Despite the operational and financial challenges, he remarked that many Sudanese WLOs “have demonstrated remarkable resilience and adaptability”. Organizations have “continued to provide services by reprioritizing activities, mobilizing community-based volunteers, utilizing remote modalities where feasible, and strengthening partnerships with other local actors to share resources and referral networks.” However, Nkurunziza was clear that these adaptive approaches “are not a substitute for sustained financial support.”

On a global scale, Wolfensohn outlined the changes that need to happen within the next six months to reverse the course of what was documented in the reports. “Donors must protect and increase funding for WLOs by providing direct, flexible, predictable and multi-year financing,” she said.

At the same time, Wolfensohn emphasized that funding alone is not sufficient: “women’s organizations must be recognized as essential humanitarian partners through meaningful participation and leadership in humanitarian coordination and decision-making.”

Reversing the current trajectory requires a type of accountability that does not yet exist: “measurable commitments, clear funding targets and greater transparency on how much humanitarian financing reaches local women-led organizations directly,” Wolfensohn said. Without decisive action, WLOs will be forced to scale back or close services globally.

“Reversing this trend is not only about sustaining organizations; it is about safeguarding access to protection services, GBV prevention and response, livelihoods support, and other critical assistance relied upon by women and girls in crisis settings,” Wolfensohn remarked.

In the weeks since Beyond the Breaking Point was published, Wolfensohn discussed the impact the report has had in increasing conversations between donors, governments, and humanitarian organizations. “The discussions generated by the report are helping to reinforce broader humanitarian reform agendas focused on localization, equitable partnerships and the meaningful participation of affected communities,” Wolfensohn said. However, she stopped short of claiming progress at the scale required to reverse the trends documented in the course, but “it should serve as a catalyst for action.”

UN organizations are already working in collaboration to close the funding gaps WLOs face in Sudan. According to Falcione, the approach is not only about advocacy, but also about working with WLOs “as genuine partners in the response.” Agencies like UNFPA and UN Women “support local and grassroots organizations in capacity development, institutional strengthening, leadership, and empowerment.” Falcione underscored the importance of strengthening the partnership, as WLOs “are not simply beneficiaries or implementing partners, they are essential actors in the humanitarian response.”

Over the course of fifteen months, UN Women’s reports have painted a picture from warning to confirming what happens when WLOs disappear. In Wolfensohn’s own framing, what comes next depends on measurement and follow-through. This requires donors publicly tracking what funds reach WLOs, and commitment to multi-year flexible financing. Recognition alone will not solve the problem, and supporting WLOs is the difference between a third report that documents reversals of these trends or repeats the same warnings.

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Repeated climate shocks, mounting debt and low employment prospects put greater pressures on families in Afghanistan that were “struggling to get by”. Credit: UN Photo/Luke Powell

By Shuli Wong
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 11 2026 (IPS)

“Mainly, people tell me they’re exhausted. They’re exhausted from being poor, from being hungry, from repeated climate shocks, mounting debt, and the daily struggle to provide for their families,” Olga Cherevko, Spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Afghanistan, told UN reporters on August 4.

Traveling across Afghanistan, from Bamyan and Herat, Paktia, Khost, and most recently Nuristan after the devastating flash floods, Ms. Cherevko describes a country hit by multiple overlapping crises. These crises have created a humanitarian crisis in which food insecurity, disasters, displacement, and dwindling aid have converged.

Last week, Nuristan was hit by devastating flash floods where families lost loved ones, livelihoods, everything they owned, along with homes and infrastructure. Humanitarians moved quickly to deliver food, water, shelter, healthcare, protection, and psychosocial support; however, “when these floods hit, many people were already struggling to get by,” Ms. Cherevko said. Afghanistan is extremely vulnerable to climate shocks. “Communities barely have time to recover from one disaster when another one strikes…each shock pushes already vulnerable families deeper into poverty.

To help combat the compounding humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the 2026 humanitarian needs and response plan requested USD 1.71 billion to provide assistance to 17.5 million people in districts and communities facing the most acute and life-threatening conditions. However, the appeal has received only 26 percent of the required funding, creating a “very alarming” situation, “given the fact that we are seeing a lot of these indicators worsening, particularly malnutrition,” Ms. Cherevko warned. Afghanistan is encountering alarming rates of malnutrition, with OCHA’s nutrition partners noting that childhood wasting has worsened this year across three-quarters of the country.

These figures echo an alert from the World Food Programme (WFP) released last Tuesday. Nearly 14 million Afghans are facing acute hunger. However, funding cuts have resulted in only one in nine receiving WFP food assistance. Furthermore, 3.7 million children and 1.2 million pregnant and breastfeeding women are projected to be malnourished this year. In order to address the acute food needs across Afghanistan, WFP requires USD 900 million for emergency food assistance and nutrition programmes in 2026.

“We have not met needs in the first six months because we didn’t have money,” said John Aylieff, WFP Country Director for Afghanistan. “WFP still needs $500 million to address the acute food needs in the country.”

On top of the hunger crisis, restrictions on girls and women have compounded the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan. These restrictions shape “almost every aspect of daily life” and “with every new restriction, women are pushed even further out of public life…when people become invisible, they risk becoming dispensable,” said Ms. Cherevko. When humanitarian workers cannot reach girls and women and when women cannot work, or girls cannot go to school, “the consequences extend far beyond individuals,” Cherevko added, and that these consequences ultimately affect “the country’s ability to recover.”

The restrictions placed on women and girls also add a layer of complications for humanitarian workers to even reach those in need. Credit: UNHCR/Oxygen Empire Media

Violence and displacement further add to the crises. Since 2023, approximately 6 million Afghans have been forcibly expelled from neighboring countries like Pakistan and Iran. The returnees have increased the strain on Afghanistan’s fragile economy, and for the returnees, there are “simply not enough jobs to sustain them”, Mr. Aylieff said.

Ms. Cherevko emphasized how many of the returnees are “coming into a country that is completely new for them”, where there are also limited prospects for work. UNHCR estimates that almost 3.1 million Afghan refugees require international protection across the sub-region. For 2026, UNHCR has requested just over USD 450 million for its Afghanistan situation funding; however, similar to OCHA’s and the WFP’s appeals, funding is far from being met.

Despite the emphasis on the need for continued and increased funding, Ms. Cherevko stressed that “humanitarian assistance alone cannot resolve these challenges”. She called for investment in medium- and long-term solutions centering on jobs, education and poverty reduction, in addition to emergency humanitarian assistance. Having worked in Afghanistan for years, Ms. Cherevko has seen the Afghan people show “extraordinary resilience through endless hardship”. Yet, she noted that“resilience should never become a substitute for opportunity or an excuse for the world just to watch and expect people to endure indefinitely without the support they need”.

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By Shuli Wong
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 30 2026 (IPS)

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is battling the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record, with United Nations officials warning that hunger is actively undermining efforts to contain the spread.

“Ebola feeds on delay, fear and hunger,” said Carl Skau, acting director of the World Food Programme (WFP) on Wednesday, July 29.

The current outbreak, declared on May 15th and caused by the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, is the third largest outbreak ever recorded, said Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, Executive Director of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Health Emergencies Programme. The outbreak in the DRC is reaching unprecedented levels, Dr. Ihekweazu noted. “Over the last few days, we’ve seen some of the highest numbers of new infections in a single day.”

As of July 29th, the DRC outbreak has reached over 3,200 cases, with the virus spreading to 48 health zones across five provinces in eastern DRC. Unfortunately, WHO’s modeling has indicated that the true scale of the outbreak could be two to four times higher than the reported cases. Furthermore, 80 percent of new cases are coming from unknown chains of transmission, and many newly reported deaths are from people who never reached a health care facility or received care.

Julien Harneis, the UN’s Senior Ebola Coordinator, discussed how a critical driver for Ebola transmission is the fact that people are dying in their communities rather than in the care of a hospital or treatment center.

“Roughly 60 percent of deaths are occurring in the community, at the point when viral load — and risk to caregivers — is highest,” said Mr. Harneis.

WHO officials have mirrored this concern, calling deaths that occur outside of health facilities “the most alarming finding.” While there is no approved treatment for the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, the chances of survival are significantly higher with early supportive care.

On top of the outbreak is a severe hunger crisis that is exacerbating the impact and spread of Ebola. Across eastern DRC, nearly 10 million people are facing crisis- or emergency-level hunger. Ituri, the epicenter of the outbreak, is also the DRC’s most severe hunger hotspot, with 1.9 million people at crisis levels of food insecurity or worse. Mr. Skau emphasized how “food assistance is frontline Ebola containment. It helps families stay home, supports safe isolation, builds trust with communities and keeps health teams moving.”

The WFP has already delivered more than 160,000 hot meals to patients and frontline workers across 17 treatment and isolation centers. Dry food rations have been provided to 23,000 people, including 14,000 under quarantine, and an additional 36,000 people in Ebola-affected zones have been provided general food assistance. While discussing WFP’s work, Mr. Skau stressed how food logistics support is central to containing the outbreak. “You cannot force people to choose between hunger and health,” he said.

However, funding to tackle the interconnected hunger and Ebola crisis remains critically underfunded. WFP needs USD 293.6 million over the next six months to sustain all operations in DRC, including $76 million for the regional Ebola responses and $50 million for food and nutrition assistance.

“$76 million is the ask and that’s frankly just peanuts, if you look at the bigger scheme of things,” said Mr. Skau. Furthermore, while WFP’s logistics have been somewhat funded, the food element has received no funding. Mr. Skau emphasized, “if you want to be effective, you need to have an all rounded response. It’s not only the health response that is needed to be able to contain that.” Mr. Harneis added that in addition to the food assistance needed, the broader $1 billion Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan is only 45 percent funded.

WHO and WFP officials are urging the international community not to lose focus, as Dr. Ihekweazu warned: “now is not the time to drop the ball.” Mr. Harneis and Mr. Skau called for further action and to “scale up the Ebola response, three, four, five times of what we are doing now.”

Mr. Skau linked the urgent funding need to a broader appeal for political attention, describing the DRC as “exhausted from years of conflict, from repeated displacement, from crisis after crisis after crisis.” He argued that ending the outbreak will require more than just medical and food assistance: “We need peace, we need security…for all of this, we need funding…the funding that is coming here is far from enough and we need political attention.” In the weeks ahead, a rapid increase in funding and political will is needed to change the outbreak’s trajectory.

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In Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip, children received polio vaccines as part of the vaccination campaign conducted by UNICEF and its partners in 2025. Credit: UNICEF/Mohammed Nateel

By Shuli Wong
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 27 2026 (IPS)

On Monday July 20, a team from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) visited two displacement sites in Gaza where they found two family tents decimated by domestic fires. This incident is indicative of the increasing frequency of domestic fires in Gaza.

Families are resorting to burning waste, cardboard, and trash to help prepare meals following the ban on gas cylinders and cooking stoves from entering Gaza since October 2023. While cooking gas is available, it is only offered in limited quantities and at extremely high prices.

The domestic fire risk in Gaza is situated within a larger, much more dire humanitarian access crisis, as documented in UNICEF’s Humanitarian Situation Update Mid-Year Review. Access restrictions and operational constraints continue to disrupt humanitarian delivery, with only 44 percent of aid trucks from Egypt able to offload between May and June. Severe restrictions remain in place for the entry of fuel, spare parts, and essential materials, which have driven system failures across health and water services. Across the Gaza Strip, an estimated 82 percent of families are water insecure, and nearly 90 percent of water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.

Violence against civilians has also intensified across Gaza. The UN Human Rights Office reported that Israeli forces killed at least 57 people, including women and children, between July 13th and July 20th.

UN Spokesperson to the Secretary-General Stéphane Dujarric also detailed the aftermath of an Israeli drone strike on July 17th west of the Nuseirat refugee camp, in which seven people were reportedly killed and others injured as the strike coincided with mourners leaving a nearby funeral prayer.

On July 15th, a teacher was injured after being shot by Israeli forces while she was working at a temporary learning space west of Khan Younis. Since the start of 2026, OCHA has reported 26 education-related incidents. These findings echo their Humanitarian Situation Report from July 16th, in which 84 schools are under pending demolition or stop-work orders.

Despite operational constraints and security risks, humanitarian organizations have been working to restore and expand access to education after more than two years of disruption. At the beginning of 2026, UN partners helped 435,000 pre-primary and school-aged children, including 9,300 children with disabilities, access structured learning at 610 temporary learning spaces. Furthermore, 344,000 children received learning materials and 11,000 teachers were supported. UNICEF’s Mid-Year Review reported helping 266,000 children access formal and non-formal education opportunities, which has helped provide children with a sense of normalcy amid the ongoing upheaval and crisis.

Since the ceasefire was reached last October, there have been some improvements and gains in food security and nutrition levels, thanks to expanded humanitarian food, nutrition and agricultural assistance. But those gains are still fragile. UNICEF, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme warned that families are struggling to meet basic needs, and these gains will be reversed without continuous humanitarian aid, funding and investment in recovery in the Gaza Strip. As of now, only one crossing, the Kerem Shalom/Abu Salem crossing in the south of Gaza, remains open for humanitarian assistance. The latest analysis on food security shows that an estimated 1.4 million people, or 67 percent of Gaza’s population, are experiencing crisis or worse levels of food insecurity.

Health and infrastructure remain heavily strained across the Gaza Strip. On July 20th, the Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator Susanne Tkalec met with leadership members of the Emirati Hospital in Rafah to determine solutions to strengthen the medical waste management systems in Gaza amid ongoing health and sanitation system stress.

Despite hospitals being explicitly protected under international humanitarian law, “healthcare workers, patients, ambulances, and hospitals have all been targeted,” said Dr. Javid Abdelmoneim, International President of Médecins Sans Frontières. Dr. Abdelmoneim went on to explain that “whether through direct violence, dismantling the healthcare system or obstructuring humanitarian assistance, inducing famine, weaponising water, causing higher levels of prematurity and mortality among infants and high levels of miscarriage, or denying care… it’s clear: the number one health issue in Palestine is Israel’s occupation.”

Shelter needs across Gaza remain outmatched by supply. In the first ten days of July, UN humanitarian partners provided 2,300 households with bedding items, tarpaulins and tents, and 13,000 families received kitchen sets. However, access to cooking fuel is still severely limited, as noted by the domestic fires. In addition, the supply stockpiles themselves are severely limited, with less than 1,000 tents currently available and only enough essential household supplies to support 7,000 families.

Across the occupied Palestinian territory, UN agencies continue to warn that violence, funding gaps, and access restrictions have created an unprecedented need that continues to outpace what can be delivered in terms of water, healthcare, education, and shelter.

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In 2025, 13.5 million ‘zero-dose’ children did not receive vaccinations in their first year. More than half of these children live in fragile, conflict-affected or vulnerable countries, where immunization may be disrupted due to a number of factors. Credit: UNICEF

By Shuli Wong
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 22 2026 (IPS)

Despite growing up and working in vastly different geographic regions and environments — one shaped by decades of armed conflict and political instability, and the other by remote, hard-to-reach areas — both Sagal and Johao encounter children daily who have never been vaccinated. Sagal and Johao are members of UNICEF’s Global Youth Health Advisory Group, where they advance children’s health by shaping UNICEF’s strategies, policies, and campaigns, while working directly in their own countries to connect community realities to global conversations about children’s health.

Sagal, 23, lives in the Darul-Salam district in Mogadishu, Somalia, where she works as a junior doctor in maternal and child health. Sagal’s passion lies in promoting vaccine confidence, addressing health misinformation, and empowering the youth to become advocates for healthier communities, she told Inter Press Service. While global vaccine coverage is improving, Sagal describes Somalia’s situation as “still very difficult.” Somalia has one of the lowest vaccination rates due to years of conflict, and while coverage is improving, “not all children are reached equally and a child’s chance to get vaccines depends on where they live, especially in unsafe or hard-to-reach places.”

Johao, 14, lives in Ecuador’s Amazon region, where he has seen firsthand the realities of why children in rural, remote, and isolated areas struggle to get vaccinated. Johao has hands-on volunteer experience in infectious disease research and community health projects and is also a part of U-Report, GeneraciónMÁS, and FixMyFood networks in Ecuador. The biggest challenges Johao encounters when it comes to childhood vaccination campaigns, he told Inter Press Service, are “reaching communities with limited infrastructure, overcoming transportation difficulties, and ensuring that accurate information reaches families before misinformation does.” Both conflict-affected and hard-to-reach areas face their own challenges, but what is particularly difficult in remote communities is “isolation and limited access to essential services.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines “zero-dose” children as those who lack access to or are never reached by routine immunization services, which is measured as children who have never received their first dose of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP). According to the annual WHO-UNICEF Estimates of National Immunization Coverage (WUENIC), 90 percent of infants globally received at least one dose of a DTP vaccine and 85 percent completed the three-dose series in 2025. However, in 2025, an estimated 13.5 million zero-dose children did not receive a single vaccine in their first year of life, and an estimated 7.3 million infants received their first DTP vaccine but dropped out before receiving their first measles dose. Globally, more than half of all zero-dose children live in fragile, conflict-affected or vulnerable countries (FCV) where immunization programs are affected by political instability, insecurity, and underfunding.

The Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) Mid-Term Review, identified FCVs as “one of the greatest challenges to achieving global immunization goals.” In Somalia, Sagal explained how “most zero dose and dropout children live in places that are unsafe, far away, or completely unreachable. These children face many problems at the same time, including, no vaccines, poor nutrition, very few health services, and almost no social support.”

Sagal, 23, a Somalian junior doctor and member of the UNICEF Global Youth Health Advisory Group. Credit: UNICEF

The situation is similar in Ecuador, where Johao explained, “children who have never received vaccines often live in remote rural or Indigenous communities, where transportation is limited and access to health services can be difficult.”

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell emphasized that while vaccination rates have bounced back since dropping during the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of children are still left vulnerable due to displacement, poverty and war.

“We must reach every child, and we must rebuild trust where it is fraying. No child should suffer from a disease that a simple vaccine can prevent,” said Russell.

WHO and UNICEF have identified the urgent need to counter the spread of misleading information and erosion of trust, which has led to a surge in vaccine hesitancy and anti-science sentiment. In particular, IA2030 called for tailored support in FCV settings to “promote nuanced and context-specific advocacy messaging and approaches, and foster trust through sustained community engagement.”

Aside from logistical access, there are other factors that determine people’s decisions to get vaccinations. Sagal shared that in Somalia people forgo vaccinations for a variety of reasons, including fear of vaccine side effects or rumors that vaccines cause infertility. In Ecuador, Johao detailed how some families lack clear information regarding vaccination schedules and have vaccine concerns influenced by misinformation, with these “barriers affecting their trust in and ability to access health services.”

As a member of the UNICEF Global Youth Health Advisory Group, Johao, 14, speaks to the experiences of children in Amazon communities in Ecuador. Credit: UNICEF

In FCV and hard-to-reach settings, mistrust surrounding vaccines is driven by multiple complex and multifaceted aspects, including misinformation campaigns, conspiracy theories, religious opposition, low health literacy, sociodemographic factors, and the politicization of vaccines that undermines science.

Both Sagal and Johao’s work sits at the intersection of access and trust. As members of the UNICEF Global Youth Health Advisory Group, Sagal and Johao are not only bringing vaccines to children who would otherwise be missed, but doing so in contexts where the social and political conditions that make vaccination difficult are the same conditions their communities live with every day.

When it comes to rebuilding trust and reaching children in FCV settings, youth advocates’ “presence and credibility help [them] enter spaces where formal systems cannot,” Sagal said. “Youth advocates speak the same language and come from the same communities, [so] families trust us more than big institutions.” In Somalia, she explained, youth advocates help to rebuild trust in fragile areas by “reaching other young people quickly, communicating in a natural and friendly way, fighting misinformation fast, and mobilizing communities faster than traditional actors.”

Across settings, culture, language, and traditions strongly influence health decisions. Johao noted how “vaccination messages are more effective when they are communicated respectfully and acknowledge local knowledge and beliefs.”

In order to reach the IA2030 goal and ensure vaccines reach everyone, everywhere, at every age, WHO and UNICEF have put forth four concrete actions. These actions include strengthening immunization programs in FCV settings, countering false and misleading health information to support vaccine uptake, increasing and sustaining global funding for immunization programs, and investing in stronger data and disease surveillance systems.

Sagal and Johao’s lived experiences highlight the dire need for these actions. From Sagal’s experiences, zero-dose children “need health and nutrition support delivered in ways that work in fragile and dangerous environments.” As members of the UNICEF Global Youth Health Advisory Group, Johao explained that to effectively help their communities, “we need access to reliable information, training, resources, and opportunities to work closely with health professionals and community leaders.”

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The WHO-led Women’s Integrated Cancer Services Program; the pilot programs were first implemented in Kenya in the Bungoma and Nyandarua counties. Credit: WHO/Yasin Abdullahi

By Shuli Wong
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 15 2026 (IPS)

One in five people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, and when the emotional and physical toll on close family members is factored in, an estimated 92 percent of people globally will be affected by cancer at least once in their lifetime. This staggering statistic is the centerpiece of the World Health Organization (WHO)’s latest global report on cancer.

The Global Status Report on Cancer 2026, published in July 8 in conjunction with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), is the most comprehensive cancer assessment to date and provides an in-depth analysis of the current global status of cancer care and prevention. The report also paints an alarming picture of persistent and widening inequities in prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care.

WHO estimates that cancer claimed nearly 10 million lives in 2024 (over 26,000 lives every day), along with 20.6 million new diagnoses globally. Without urgent and accelerated action, annual cancer cases are projected to rise to 35 million by 2050, said Stephane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General on July 8. Furthermore, the steepest increases in cancer cases are projected to disproportionately burden low-and-middle-income countries (LMICS), with a 133 percent increase in cancer incidence rates in low-income countries and an 86.5 percent increase in lower-middle-income countries by 2050.

The report highlighted the deep global inequities in cancer survival rates. In high-income countries, the five-year net survival rate for breast cancer exceeds 85 percent, while, in low-income countries it drops below 45 percent. For childhood leukemia, only 54 percent of countries have reached the 60 percent five-year survival rate that WHO’s Global Institute for Childhood Cancer set as the minimum target. Furthermore, there are stark regional differences, with some African and Eastern Mediterranean countries falling at only 19 percent, and some South-East Asian countries at 26 percent.

The regional disparities are highlighted by the report’s statement that “our experience of [cancer] and chances of surviving now depend less on the stage or biology of our disease than on where we live and our economic circumstances.” A primary driver of these inequities is limited treatment capabilities and infrastructure in LMICs. For example, 23 LMICs lack any active radiation facilities, resulting in over 197 million people without local access to any critical radiation treatment. Furthermore, even when facilities exist in LMICs, they are chronically unreliable and subject to downtime, high operating costs, limited local maintenance expertise, and delays in importing parts.

While the physical and emotional health effects of cancer are astronomical, the financial consequences for families are just as devastating. Approximately 45–60 percent of people diagnosed with cancer experience catastrophic health expenditure, leading to impoverishment, food insecurity, and disrupted education for the children and siblings of cancer patients. Even in countries that have universal health coverage, the indirect costs of cancer are detrimental, and female caregivers experience greater consequences for their employment and productivity than men.

Throughout the report, prevention is highlighted as the most important yet underused tool for reducing cancer incidence rates. In 2022, 38 percent of cancer cases were attributed to 30 modifiable risk factors, with tobacco use, infections, alcohol consumption, and excess body weight as the primary factors. However, only 30 percent of national cancer control plans incorporate evidence-based cancer prevention interventions.

The WHO outlined three strategic shifts to help shape the future of cancer control: better capabilities, better protections, and better value. These shifts are anchored in a person-centered cancer agenda that is shaped by lived experience. Cancer care needs stronger governance and financing that is centered around investing in human resources. Globally, there needs to be a primary focus on prevention through early detection and equitable access to diagnosis and treatment. Outcomes must be focused not just on survival but also on function and quality of life.

The report concluded, “the primary gap is no longer a gap in knowledge, but a gap between what we know and what we do, between what we plan and what we implement.” WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, emphasized that the path forward for cancer care “must be shaped by more than data and scientific research; they must also reflect the voices and lived experiences of people impacted by the disease.”

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UN Secretary-General António Guterres (left) and Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (right). They have called for the universal abolition of the death penalty. Credit: UN Photo/Violaine Martin

By Shuli Wong
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 3 2026 (IPS)

While the movement for the universal abolition of the death penalty advances, this progress “cannot be taken for granted,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres as he greeted the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty.

In his video message, Mr. Guterres said, “the death penalty does not deliver justice. It is an inhumane form of punishment. It puts innocent lives at risk. And it has no place in the 21st century.” Worldwide, the push for abolition has gained momentum, with the Secretary-General reaffirming the UN’s full commitment to universal abolition “firmly and without exception.”

The 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty, taking place in Paris between June 30th and July 2, 2026, convenes governments, UN officials, legal professionals, journalists, and activists to discuss concrete steps to reform and ultimately abolish the death penalty. The Congress is organised by ECPM (Together Against the Death Penalty), a leading French NGO that began campaigning for universal abolition in 2000 and has organised all 9 World Congresses Against the Death Penalty. The Congress is sponsored by France, and the European Union and Switzerland are co-sponsors.

At the opening of the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Volker Türk, further underscored the UN’s staunch position on universal abolition. In his opening remarks, Volker Türk urged “all States, everywhere, to join the overwhelming, and principled, global consensus that use of the death penalty must end, everywhere, for all offenses.”

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, mirrored Mr. Türk’s remarks, speaking at the Congress to the fact that “the death penalty has never made a society safer.”

“Never, because it does not act as a deterrent. It’s crazy. It has been demonstrated, observed and measured. The death penalty has never had the deterrent effect that certain, often authoritarian, authorities who defend it would like to attribute to it,” said Macron.

Prior to the start of the Congress, the European Union (EU) put forth a statement to the UN Human Rights Council on June 18, highlighting how capital punishment is a discriminatory practice that violates the inalienable right to life. The statement stressed how the death penalty is incompatible with human dignity and called for a moratorium by states as the first step towards abolition.

The EU Statement reiterates the key points from a May 21st statement from 41 Members of the Inter-Regional Task Force on the Moratorium on the use of the Death Penalty. While more than two-thirds of UN member states have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice, there has been a recent and significant increase in executions among the few retentionist states. The signatories of the statement emphasized how the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty represents an immense opportunity to reaffirm the global commitment to universal abolition.

Within the retentionist states, recent data from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) highlights an alarming spike in capital punishment. These increases were due to executions for drug-related violations for crimes that people committed as children and offences that did not meet the ‘most serious crimes’ criteria. Examples of actions by retentionist states include Iran, with over 1,500 individuals executed in 2025, 47 percent of which related to drug offences. Israel, which has set forth a series of legislative proposals introducing mandatory capital punishment provisions that would apply only to Palestinians. Other countries, including the United States, Somalia and Singapore, have also seen increases in executions.

While these numbers are startling, there has been immense progress towards abolition. 170 countries have either abolished or introduced a moratorium on the death penalty in law and/or in practice. Some states that have not yet fully abolished the death penalty but have taken encouraging steps to limit capital punishment include Vietnam, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Malaysia, and Kyrgyzstan.

These trends confirm that abolition is a core testament of the international community’s commitment to human rights and upholding international law. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which has been ratified by 175 states, guarantees the “inherent right to life” and that the death penalty may “be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law” for the countries that have not yet abolished it. The 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty presents an opportunity to take concrete steps towards the path of abolition, with the full support of the UN and Secretary-General António Guterres behind the Congress.

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