Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message for the inaugural session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, in Geneva today:

On 1 December, the African Union Commission Chairperson, Moussa Faki Mahamat and the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, held the sixth African Union-United Nations Annual Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The ninth United Nations inter-agency cross-line convoy of 16 trucks, carrying 482 metric tons of food and other humanitarian supplies, crossed from Aleppo into Sarmada in north-west Syria. Supplies included medicines, nutrition items, water, sanitation and hygiene items, reproductive health kits, and education materials.

​​​​​​​Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, to the Nigeria Institute of Directors, in Abuja, Nigeria today:

​​​​​​​Although the Gulf of Guinea has witnessed a steady decline in incidents of piracy and armed robbery at sea, more needs to be done to fully operationalize the maritime security architecture, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council today, as speakers called for renewed action to tackle the root causes of piracy.

The United Nations Environment Programme today announced its 2022 Champions of the Earth, honouring a conservationist, an enterprise, an economist, a women’s rights activist and a wildlife biologist for their transformative action to prevent, halt and reverse ecosystem degradation.

In a report published ahead of World Children’s Day, marked on 20 November, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) noted that racism and discrimination against children based on their ethnicity, language and religion are rife in countries across the world.

Today is International Day for Tolerance. The resolution proclaiming the Day was adopted by the General Assembly in 1996, and among other things, the Day aims to foster mutual understanding among cultures and peoples.

Growing terrorism and violent extremism in the Sahel calls for a comprehensive response that integrates human rights and international humanitarian law, a senior United Nations peace operations official told the Security Council today, as speakers expressed concern about the overlapping security, humanitarian and political crises in the region.

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message for Africa Industrialization Day, observed on 20 November: