In progress at UNHQ

Environmental issues and sustainable development


The United Nations is mobilizing to help fight COVID-19 in the Dominican Republic, where about 37,000 cases and 800 deaths are confirmed.  The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is supplying ventilators while Rome-based food agencies led a virtual farm training to help people generate additional income.

In Nepal, the United Nations team is helping the Government cope with the COVID-19 pandemic by supporting the repatriation of Nepali migrants returning from the Gulf and Southeast Asia at entry and transit points, with quarantine sites and isolation centres.  Some 25,000 returnees are expected in this first phase.

A new United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report finds that universal child benefits such as cash payments or tax transfers — crucial to fighting child poverty — are only available in 1 out of 10 countries.  Officials say that they are needed now more than ever amid the economic fallout of COVID-19.

For the first time since 2018, the World Food Programme has been able to send a humanitarian convoy from Kenya directly into South Sudan through the Nadapal Border crossing.  The nine-truck convoy carried 280 metric tons of food, enough to feed 20,000 people for a month.  The route’s reopening cuts travel times in half.