The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) together with Colombia’s authorities today opened a reception centre — the first of its kind — to support people arriving from Venezuela to the border city of Maicao. The centre can take in up to 350 people and has the possibility for expansion.
In progress at UNHQ
Noon Briefings
A new ILO report finds that women in 2018 were 26 percentage points less likely to be employed than men, despite 70 per cent of women saying they would rather be employed than stay at home. This marks an improvement of only two percentage points in closing the work-gender gap over nearly three decades.
The United Nations today released the 2019 Needs and Priority Plan for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which calls for $120 million to urgently provide life-saving aid to 3.8 million people.
Helsinki, Finland, hosted the inaugural International Symposium on Youth Participation in Peace Processes today, with the Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth in attendance. It aims to boost young people ’s participation in efforts to build and sustain peace, even as their contributions remain undervalued.
Humanitarian officials are concerned by reports of civilian casualties in Syria due to both continued hostilities and unexploded ordinance left behind in the country’s north-west. At least four civilians were reported killed and many more hurt by shelling in Idleb, Hama and Aleppo in the first three days of March.
An estimated 30,000 refugees have returned to the north-eastern Nigerian town of Rann from Cameroon since Wednesday and are in dire need of aid, according to humanitarian colleagues. International and national humanitarian organizations have not returned to Rann since 17 January due to ongoing insecurity.
The United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti, Mamadou Diallo, and Prime Minister Jean-Henry Céant have launched the 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan for Haiti. It seeks $126 million to provide critical humanitarian assistance and protection services for 1.3 million Haitians.
To assist 2.3 million people in Mali, the United Nations and its humanitarian partners today launched the 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan requesting $296 million. The situation there has deteriorated in recent years due to increased conflict and intercommunal clashes, as well as a high level of food insecurity.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that $148 million is urgently needed to continue the response to the unprecedented Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or risk backsliding. Less than $10 million of the required funds have been pledged so far.
More civilians were killed in the conflict in Afghanistan in 2018 than at any other time since records have been kept, according to a new report by the United Nations, which documented 3,804 deaths. The report attributed nearly two thirds of the casualties to anti-Government elements.