Teachers Shoulder the Burden: Improving Support in Crisis Contexts

Teachers are at the heart of children and young peoples’ educational experiences. Teachers play multiple roles in their students’ lives by supporting their learning, providing them with inclusive and safe environments to grow and develop, and helping them become more confident as they make their way in the world. As we commemorate World Teachers’ Day on Monday, 5 October and its theme--Teachers: Leading in Crisis, Reimagining the Future--we must recognize the inspiring and transformative role that teachers working in armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate change induced disasters and protracted crises play in their students’ lives.

Nepal Moves Against Acid Attacks on Women

After a prolonged lobbying campaign, the Government of Nepal recently took some important actions against perpetrators of acid attacks while offering better provisions to support the process of rehabilitation of their victims.

Restoring Ecosystems After Fire and Flooding: Forget Not the Beneficial Soil Microbes

Recent months have brought all sorts of climate-linked disasters, from raging wildfires in California and Oregon to flooding in Alabama. As we think of the incalculable losses that are associated with these extremities linked to the changing climate, I cannot help but think of the belowground web of life that is burning, being flooded and washed away, affected, or lost.

Covid-19 Deaths: 1 Million and Surging

Covid-19 deaths worldwide have surpassed 1 million. With new cases of coronavirus infections rapidly mounting again, the numbers of Covid-19 deaths are feared to surge in the coming months. 

We Need Nature and Biodiversity if We Want a Sustainable Future

“Investing in nature is investing in a sustainable future,” was one of the key messages from yesterday’s first-ever United Nations Summit on Biodiversity where world leaders and experts agreed  on the urgency to act swiftly to preserve biodiversity globally. 

Water Security in Jordan is Crucial to Maintaining Stability in the Country

Jordan is one of the driest countries in the world, raking the fifth most water-stressed nation in an analysis by the World Resources Institute.

To Achieve Gender Equality Within, the UN Must Do More to Tackle Sexual Harassment

In September 2017, Secretary-General António Guterres launched the “System-wide strategy on gender parity”, which set the goal of reaching gender parity within the United Nations by 2028 and outlined a strategy on how to achieve this, including the introduction of special measures, senior appointments, targets and accountability, amongst other things.

A 10-Year-Old Commitment to Biodiversity Misses Virtually All of its Targets

The coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed the lives of over one million people worldwide and destabilized the global economy, also upended the UN’s ambitious socio-economic goals, including the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger by 2030.

From Pledges to Policy and Practice: Moving Nature to the Heart of Decision-Making

This week, Heads of State and Government from 64 countries announced one of the strongest pledges yet to reverse the loss of biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people by 2030. Advancing from powerful pledges to concrete policy and action, however, means that nature must be moved to the heart of global, national and local decision-making. It’s time for nature to be reintegrated into everything we do.

Less Food Loss and Waste, More Right to Food

Most cultures have created taboos and norms that prevent food waste. At the same time, social mores have reserved for occasions of celebrations or hospitality a code associating the abundance of food, in quantities much higher than normal, with concepts such as generosity and honour. 

Staff to UN Management: Please Drop Your Plans for Uber-Style Contracts

As the United Nations prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary we have been made aware of an extremely worrying development concerning the future of UN staff contracts.

Shareholder Capitalism’s Ugly Legacy

Milton Friedman’s libertarian economics advocating shareholder capitalism has influenced generations trying to understand the economy, not only in the US, but all over the world.

Q&A: How Fast Fashion Sits at the Crucial Intersection of Environmental & Gender Justice

Racism “keeps the global north oblivious to the effect of fast fashion addiction on the global south” say environmental and gender justice experts.

Judgment Free Online Platform Key to Helping Suicidal People, Says Survivor

Romana Hoque had it all, a comfortable life, a happy family. Despite this, the 43-year-old second-generation immigrant from Indonesia living in the United States was depressed enough to contemplate suicide.

No More Excuses – Time for Global Economic Solutions

On 29 September, the world’s heads of state will come together (virtually) at an extraordinary meeting to discuss financing for development during the 75th UN general assembly. This will be crucial in the battle to address the Coronavirus crisis.

‘Leave No one Behind’: How Inclusive is World Leaders’ Call to Climate Action?

Wrapping up Climate Week at the United Nations General Assembly, global leaders called for climate action that may be “ambitious but achievable” and called for climate measures that would “leave no one behind”. But some climate activists remain concerned about how this can be achieved.

#TurnItAround: One Week to Mobilize for the Future

The year 2020 will most certainly mark a critical moment for the planet and future mobilizations. In a society shaken by Covid-19, people are gathering, regrouping and acting collectively for a sustainable world, an egalitarian future, and for global awareness on the climate emergency.

Pushing the Reset Button will not Change the Game

Governments have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with unprecedented intensity. They have taken far-reaching regulatory measures to contain the pandemic and mobilized financial resources on an enormous scale.

What UN Needs is a Cease-Fire Inside its own Security Council

With more than 20,000 civilians killed last year in conflicts in 10 countries — including Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen-- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated his call for a “global cease-fire”: a proposal which failed to generate a positive response since he first announced it last March.

Why Is Women’s Leadership Not in the Headlines?

The question has never been whether women can lead as capably as men. Women have always led, and women will always lead, especially when the times are hard, and their communities are in need. The question that we need to ask is, why is women’s leadership invisible? Why is their potential and their power stifled?

Making State-Owned Enterprises Work for Climate in China and Beyond

President Xi Jinping announced on Tuesday China’s aim to become carbon neutral before 2060. Achieving this goal will require the support and engagement of China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs), as they currently generate more than half of the country’s energy sector emissions. SOEs are major drivers of greenhouse gas emissions globally, particularly in emerging economies.