The Forum on Forests focused on ways to better implement the United Nations Strategic Plan for Forests and its six global forest goals, particularly in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and the upcoming fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, on the second day of its sixteenth session today.

The General Assembly, adopting four resolutions and one decision this morning, pledged its support for all those affected by a series of devastating recent volcano eruptions on the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, designated two annual observance days — one to advocate for more women judges and another to spur global action to prevent drowning — while also holding a debate on the impact of rapid technological change on sustainable development.

The Elsie Initiative, a United Nations Trust Fund that supports deployment of uniformed women to peace operations, announced this morning its first five recipients — Liberia, Mexico, Niger, Senegal and Sierra Leone — during a high-level virtual event.  The Fund also launched its second programming round.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced today the appointment of Alain Noudéhou of Benin as his new Deputy Special Representative for the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and Resident Coordinator in Mali.

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message on “COVID-19 — How Do We Prevent the Pandemic from Becoming a Media Extinction Event?”, in New York today:

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message for World Press Freedom Day 2021 — “Journalism as a Public Good:  30 Years of the Windhoek Declaration” — observed on 3 May:

Speakers in the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today called for greater efforts to protect and revitalize native languages, as they explored actions to be taken during the International Decade of Indigenous Languages starting from 2022.

The Committee on Information continued its annual session today, as delegates decried the epidemic of disinformation spreading around the world faster than the COVID-19 virus and tasked the United Nations with strengthening multilingual strategic communications to inoculate populations against this harmful trend.

International cooperation is vital in reducing disaster risks and building resilience as the world is not insured against future tragedies, speakers told the General Assembly during its commemoration of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in 1986.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, with support from the World Health Organization and other partners, has launched a yellow fever vaccination campaign targeting more than 16.3 million people in the country, the first such drive against the disease in Africa this year.