Environmental issues and sustainable development

Cabo Verde is among the first African countries to receive the first allocation of COVID-19 vaccines under the COVAX facility, the United Nations team there reports. In the next few weeks, thanks to additional World Bank funding of $5 million, Cabo Verde will be able to buy vaccines for almost 35 per cent of the population.

Ten years into Syria’s crisis, humanitarian needs are deepening, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says, with an estimated 13.4 million people requiring protection and assistance, up more than 2 million people from 2020.  Nearly 60 per cent of the population is food insecure.

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the event marking the United States rejoining the Paris Agreement, in New York and online today:

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the Munich Security Conference segment on “Priorities for Global Action”, held today:

Following is the transcript of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ press conference with Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), at the launch of the UNEP report titled “Making Peace with Nature:  A scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies”, in New York today:

In north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, United Nations vaccination teams are supporting the Ebola response by rehabilitating treatment centres and boosting contact-tracing capacity, and today began a four-day mission to Guinea to assess the situation in Nzérékoré, where the first Ebola case was reported.

Humanitarian officials are seriously concerned about the rapidly deteriorating food security situation in southern and eastern Madagascar, where more than 1.3 million people face severe hunger.  The third drought in a row is compounding the effects of COVID-19 and the extremely limited access to essential services.

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s remarks to the inaugural session of the World Sustainable Development Summit 2021, held today:

The International Organization for Migration is calling today for urgent action by the European Union and its member States to end pushbacks, collective expulsions and the use of violence against migrants and refugees at the regional bloc’s external land and maritime borders.

Following is the text of UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s video message to the virtual conference “Roadmap for Recovery:  Business and the Sustainable Development Goals”, held today: