Covid-19

• September 27, 2021

On the last day of global leaders’ speeches at the opening of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly, the array of countries on the roster ranged from Israel to Iceland, from Algeria to North Korea, from Canada to Guinea. Two long-scheduled countries to deliver messages — Afghanistan and Myanmar — were …

Africa, Asia, Climate Change, Covid-19, General Assembly, UNGA76, US Foreign Relations

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TOPIC: WOMEN

How Infant-Formula Makers Feed Off Fears of Covid

Lori Silberman Brauner

• August 31, 2021

As just about every expert agrees, breast milk beats formula on every score, from the health of the baby to out-of-pocket costs. But that hasn’t stopped formula makers from pushing their products, cutting deeply into breastfeeding rates around the world. Their current practices include using Covid-19 as a scare tactic: “Hey Mama, Now’s the …

Covid-19, Health and Population, Human Rights

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COVID-19

Member States Want UN Personnel Back in Headquarters. Staff Are Resisting.

Laura E. Kirkpatrick

• August 10, 2021

As outbreaks of Covid-19 cases spike again in many places worldwide, the United Nations Secretariat in New York City faces reopening decisions that pit some staff members’ interests against those of UN member states. Pressure is coming from UN member states that want the headquarters to reopen fully with a significant number of staff …

Covid-19, General Assembly, Secretary-General, UN Agencies

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COVID-19

Ebola Fighters in Africa Call for Covid Vaccine Equity, but It May Be Too Late

Clair MacDougall

• May 10, 2021

Liberian Dr. James Soka Moses remembers the West African region’s devastating Ebola outbreak as if it were yesterday: the roaring ambulances, the patients lying on the floor and spilling outside of treatment facilities, the smell of vomit and the sight of death and suffering that still comes to him in flashbacks seven years later. …

Africa, Covid-19, Health and Population

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COVID-19

The Pandemic Reveals the Disturbing Depths of Ageism, Especially for Women

Barbara Crossette

• April 6, 2021

During more than a year of tracking the parameters of Covid-19, medical science has made one thing clear: the virus hits the elderly hardest. Yet their vulnerability is often taken as fate. A new international study disagrees. Prejudice, institutional bias and societal discrimination against older people in both rich and poor countries, it says, …

Covid-19, Gender Violence, Health and Population, Human Rights, SDGs

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COVID-19

Pandemic Relief: Beirut Test-Drives Mobile Medicine for Migrants

Maria Luisa Gambale

• March 10, 2021

Through the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Beirut was spared the catastrophic caseloads that brought many cities around the world to their knees throughout the spring and early summer of 2020, but the port blast on Aug. 4 changed all that. The explosion itself killed at least 200 people, left 300,000 people homeless …

Cities, Covid-19, Health and Population

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COVID-19

Globetrotters Alert: You May Soon Need a Vaccine Passport

Ivana Ramirez

• February 15, 2021

Even with vaccines steadily rolling out in many countries, the end of the Covid-19 pandemic is hardly on the horizon. As countries continue to weave in and out of shutdowns, curfews, virus variants and new deadly waves, the travel and tourism industries are being devastated. In the first 10 months of global shutdowns, tourism worldwide fell more …

Covid-19, Health and Population, UN Agencies

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COVID-19

Covid Forces the UN to Pause Physical Meetings Just as It Slowly Returns to Normal

Dulcie Leimbach

• October 28, 2020

After finally reopening the United Nations Security Council chamber to physical meetings in October, the UN just announced that five members of one national delegation have tested positive for Covid-19. That means ending all in-person meetings in the Council chamber and General Assembly sessions in New York City headquarters for the rest of the …

Covid-19, General Assembly, Health and Population

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COVID-19

Can the “Third UN” Reimagine Post-Covid Global Cooperation?

Tatiana Carayannis and Thomas G. Weiss

• October 19, 2020

This week we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, as the Covid-19 pandemic highlights our interdependence and the need for global cooperation. Enthusiasm for it, however, is in short supply amid deteriorating Washington-Beijing relations, Brexit and rising populisms. Throughout its history, the UN has confronted bureaucratic challenges and radical changes in world …

Climate Change, Covid-19, Governance, Health and Population, WORLDVIEWS

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COVID-19

Wanted: Small Investors to Boost Development Money Beyond Banks

Barbara Crossette

• August 31, 2020

For nearly two years, an international group of 17 specialists on the finance frontier have been connecting digital technologies to new sources of money for the faltering Sustainable Development Goals. On Aug. 26, they unveiled an ambitious report on what can be done when traditional pools of capital are broadened and deepened by including …

Covid-19, Development, SDGs

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COVID-19

Sweden Is Not a Model in Managing Covid-19 but a Special Case

Kjell Engelbrekt

• August 28, 2020

STOCKHOLM — For those of us who have tried to keep up with the international commentary on Sweden’s response to Covid-19 during the last months, it has been bewildering. As Sweden failed to contain the coronavirus at its borders and shifted to a mitigation strategy in March, most Western democracies moved in the opposite …

Covid-19, Health and Population

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COVID-19

In Mexico, the UN Refugee Agency Alleviates a Crisis Created by the Trump Administration

Maurizio Guerrero

• August 26, 2020

“Yes, there’s always the fear of being kidnapped,” said Óscar, a 30-year old asylum seeker who fled political persecution in Cuba in May 2019 and landed in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez, where violent crime and gang activity are common. Óscar, who used a pseudonym to protect his privacy, knew of asylum …

Covid-19, Human Rights, Refugees, US Foreign Relations

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COVID-19

Nikki Haley Didn’t Get on Trump’s Re-Election Ticket, but 2024 Is Around the Bend

Laura E. Kirkpatrick

• August 25, 2020

If pundits were to be believed earlier in August, there was a chance for a historic vice-presidential debate in 2020: two women of color facing off for the second-highest position in the United States. The speculation was that Nikki Haley, a former US envoy to the United Nations and a South Carolina governor, would …

Covid-19, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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COVID-19

Lebanon’s Crisis on Top of a Crisis: Our Latest Podcast Episode

Stéphanie Fillion and Kacie Candela

• August 17, 2020

The devastating series of explosions that rocked Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, on Aug. 4, killed nearly 200 people, injured thousands of others, destroyed most of the city’s port, flattened surrounding neighborhoods, damaged six hospitals and more than 20 health clinics and wiped out 120 schools. Five days later, on Aug. 9, the international …

Covid-19, Middle East, Security Council, UN Peacekeeping

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COVID-19

Sudan May Have Banned FGM, but the Harsh Practice Continues

Rhona Scullion

• August 11, 2020

Just four months ago, Sudan took the monumental step to ban female genital mutilation, a painful, unnecessary and dangerous procedure that leaves lasting scars. Generally carried out on girls before they reach puberty, genital mutilation is now punishable in Sudan by up to three years in prison and subject to a fine. In a …