It will take more than 100 years to end child marriage in West and Central Africa at current rates of reduction, UNICEF reported today.  The new projections, released during a high-level meeting on ending child marriage in Dakar, Senegal, this week, aim to bring the spotlight on the region where girls face the highest risk of marrying in childhood.

Following is the joint statement of the African Union and the United Nations on the forthcoming presidential election in Kenya, issued today in Addis Ababa and New York:

The following Security Council press statement was issued today by Council President François Delattre (France):

Millions of people across the world were without access to food, education and housing, with poverty the main obstacle to realizing their basic human rights, special mandate‑holders told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today.

The interaction between the Sixth Committee (Legal) and the International Law Commission was central to the codification and progressive development of international law, the Committee heard today as it began its comprehensive consideration of the Commission’s report on its sixty‑ninth session.

With the capital master plan in its final phase after nearly 15 years and an investment of $2.31 billion, the United Nations must take stock of lessons learned and best practices from the ambitious Headquarters renovation effort to guide the implementation plans of other capital projects and avoid losses, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) heard today.

States must join forces to combat the rising threat of non-State actors maliciously using information and communications technology to destabilize socioeconomic development, delegates told the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) today as they discussed ways to prevent cyberattacks.

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres:

Many delegates expressed concern about the digital divide between developed and developing countries, calling for balanced use of both new and traditional media to ensure democratic engagement with the United Nations, as the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) continued its general debate on questions relating to information.

The number of internally displaced persons had doubled to 40.3 million since 2000, and in many cases they had been forced to flee their homes by conflict and violence, the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today.