Millions of poor women around the world who could never get a loan or other forms of financing to build more secure, prosperous lives would soon have access to credit, thanks to a microfinance initiative launched today at Headquarters to coincide with International Women’s Day.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
It pays to be well prepared, particularly where natural hazards and disaster risk reduction were concerned, the top United Nations official responsible for mitigating disaster risks worldwide said today.
An arrest warrant had been issued against Sudan’s Defence Minister Abdel Raheem Mohamed Hussein for his alleged commission of atrocities in the country’s Darfur region, Louis Moreno Ocampo, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, told reporters today at a Headquarters press briefing.
Challenges and opportunities in North Africa and the Middle East and the situations in Somalia, Haiti and Afghanistan would be highlighted at the Security Council in March, the permanent representative of the United Kingdom, which holds the body’s rotating presidency for the month, told correspondents this afternoon.
With efforts “creeping along too slowly” to boost the number of women politicians and deepen the level of women’s participation in political affairs, senior United Nations and parliamentary officials today made strong calls on Governments and political parties to demonstrate the will and courage to bring more women to the decision-making table, particularly in the Arab World.
Expecting to welcome its 7,000th corporate participant this week, the United Nations Global Compact had sent out a call to companies still doubtful about sustainability issues to “come down from the fence” and join the movement, Executive Georg Kell said at a Headquarters press conference today.
“I feel like they stole something from me,” said a young Guinean survivor of female genital mutilation today, as she calmly recounted the experience of being cut by a village doctor at the age of five, and appealed strongly for African Governments to take the lead in bringing the dangerous centuries-old practice to an end.
Representatives from government, the business sector and civil society were meeting at United Nations headquarters to examine how each sector could collaborate in partnership to address youth unemployment, correspondents were told at a Headquarters press conference today.
Dramatic positive changes in Myanmar had demonstrated “an unprecedented level of initiative”, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on that country, Vijay Nambiar, told reporters at a Headquarters press conference today after returning from a five-day visit.
In an effort to mobilize the potential of the African diaspora to help revitalize their ancestral homeland and spur the growth and empowerment of people of African descent worldwide, the African Union would organize a first-ever global summit on the topic in May, the President of the Pan-African Parliament said today at Headquarters.