• UN Agencies

    BOOKS

    The UN Is Complicated, So Here is a Dictionary to Help Figure It Out

    by  • June 2, 2018 • BOOKS, UN Agencies • 2 Comments

    To provide readers who want information about the United Nations that is intelligent and concise yet comprehensive is a challenging task for every author: he or she must outline a puzzling system of principal organs, specialized agencies, programs, funds, commissions and committees that produces large piles of resolutions, declarations and conventions on topics such...

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    UN Agencies Moving Into Blockchain to Help People in Crisis Settings

    by  • February 27, 2018 • Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, Poverty, Refugees, UN Agencies • 

      Blockchain technology emerged alongside Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency powering digital payments through a peer-to-peer system, currency trading and even, in some cases, black-market transactions. Now, some United Nations agencies are using blockchain to provide basic identification to refugees and others in developing countries as well as for specific actions like helping refugees obtain food...

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    NIKKI HALEY WATCH

    The UN World Food Program Boss, Mixing Work With Religion?

    by  • January 31, 2018 • Humanitarian Aid, Nikki Haley Watch, UN Agencies, US-UN Relations • 

    David Beasley, the head of the World Food Program, visiting Sanaa, Yemen

    David Beasley, the executive director of the World Food Program, based in Rome, posted a prayer at the top of his Twitter page in early January, reading: “My prayer for 2018: Peace. Our path to Zero Hunger begins with peace.” The page, @dbeasley1, is a hybrid of personal tweets and professional news about his...

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    Financing the UN: Payers, Pipers and Tunes

    by  • December 7, 2017 • UN Agencies, World Bank • 1 Comment

    GENEVA — Change is in the air again on First Avenue. Among numerous reform options being bandied about, none will be more consequential than those on financing the United Nations system. There are the sledgehammer arguments: drastic slashes in funding by Washington and other donors could precipitate dramatic change. As we have argued in...

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    Slow but Steady Gains Achieved in Tobacco Control, Says New WHO Report

    by  • August 8, 2017 • Health and Population, UN Agencies • 

    More than half the world’s population — 63 percent — is covered by one or more comprehensive tobacco control measures. In the past 10 years alone, that number has more than doubled, says a new report from the World Health Organization on the “global tobacco epidemic.” An international push for policies, like strong graphic...

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    NIKKI HALEY WATCH

    ‘I Don’t Go Rogue on the President’: Nikki Haley’s Contradictory Testimony to Congress About the UN

    by  • June 28, 2017 • Nikki Haley Watch, Security Council, Syria, UN Agencies, UN Peacekeeping, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations • 

    Photo: Nikki Haley and the Egyptian ambassador to the UN, Amr Aboulatta

    Five months into her stint as United States ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley faced two days of often-sharp questioning on June 27 and 28 by influential panels of the United States Congress. They demanded justification for the Trump administration’s decision to slash funding to the United Nations, particularly cuts to the UN...

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    GOINGS-ON

    Babatunde Osotimehin, UNFPA Head Since 2011, Dies Suddenly at 68

    by  • June 5, 2017 • Africa, GOINGS-ON, Health and Population, UN Agencies • 

    The death on June 4 of Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA, and a Nigerian, was not only a personal tragedy and a shock to the staff of the fund but also another blow for an agency that had recently lost all its United States financial support. Osotimehin, a...

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    Why Would Anyone Want This Job? The WHO Prepares to Elect a New Chief

    by  • April 24, 2017 • Africa, Asia, Health and Population, Sustainable Development Goals, UN Agencies, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations • 

    GENEVA — In late May by secret paper ballot, all 194 member states of the World Health Assembly that have paid their dues will cast their votes for one of three final candidates in the first-ever election of the planet’s top doctor: the director-general of the World Health Organization. The candidates are Tedros Adhanom...

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    TAKE A LOOK

    Trump Proposes Slashing Funds to the UN and Gutting Climate Aid

    by  • March 16, 2017 • Take a Look, UN Agencies, UN Peacekeeping, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations • 

    In his first national budget plan, released by the White House today, President Donald Trump proposed an aggressively pro-military and security-obsessed agenda that could severely cut funds to the State Department and the United Nations. Numerous other international programs run by various government agencies, which benefit many people around the world, are also being...

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    TOPIC: WOMEN

    US Immigration Ban Stirs Controversy at the Annual UN Women’s Forum

    by  • March 13, 2017 • Gender-Based Violence, Terrorism, UN Agencies, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations, Women • 

    Despite fears that efforts by President Trump to bar visitors to the United States from a number of Muslim majority would limit attendance at this year’s annual United Nations conference on women in New York, UN officials have kept saying there will be record participation. On the first day, however, people were more worried...

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    TOPIC: WOMEN

    Citing Trump Immigration Ban, a Major Group Drops Out of UN’s Annual Women’s Conference

    by  • February 11, 2017 • UN Agencies, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations, Women • 

    The annual meeting of the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women, held in New York every March, may be in trouble because of uncertainty and fear about the Trump administration’s attempt to ban immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. One major group has announced it is pulling out, and calls are being heard...

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    WORLDVIEWS

    It’s Time to Rally Grass Roots to Fund the UN Population Fund Again

    by  • January 29, 2017 • UN Agencies, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations, Women, WORLDVIEWS • 1 Comment

    Imagine yourself a pregnant woman in Syria making her way on foot to a refugee camp when suddenly you go into labor. The United Nations Population Fund is there to save you and your baby’s life. That is what UNFPA does. I have seen their work on site in Mali and in Senegal. President...

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    In a Single Day, US Congress Castigates Both the UN and Obama Over Israeli Vote

    by  • January 6, 2017 • Health and Population, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Middle East, Security Council, UN Agencies • 

    While Washington is caught up in the unfolding drama about the extent and motives of Russian hacking and possible attempted manipulation of the 2016 American presidential election, another story is playing out around threats to “punish” the United Nations. On Jan.5, the United States House of Representatives voted to repudiate the Security Council resolution...

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    WORLDVIEWS

    Message to Trump: The US Needs the UN and Vice Versa

    by  • December 17, 2016 • Development, Peace and Security, Security Council, Sustainable Development Goals, UN Agencies, UN Peacekeeping, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations, WORLDVIEWS • 1 Comment

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Strong American leadership at the United Nations would greatly enhance President-elect Trump’s foreign policy agenda. United States investment in the UN is an effective use of taxpayer dollars to serve the US military, diplomatic, economic and national security interests. UN peacekeepers, for example, cost one-eighth the expenses of US boots on...

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    The $64,000 Question: Can the UN Survive the Trump Era?

    by  • December 4, 2016 • Special Report, UN Agencies, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations • 1 Comment

    Celebrators at the opening of the New UN House in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, on Nov. 26, 2016.

    The United Nations will swear in António Guterres as its ninth secretary-general on Dec. 12, when the organization will be only weeks away from the inauguration of Donald Trump and the potentially most threatening, hostile political opposition to the UN ever assembled in Washington, D.C. The UN will have to be prepared to respond...

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    Universal Breast-Feeding Goals Blocked by Industry, UN Report Suggests

    by  • June 14, 2016 • Health and Population, Syria, UN Agencies, Women • 

    Although more countries have been passing laws to promote and to protect breast-feeding, the breast-milk substitutes industry continues to present a formidable challenge to achieving universal breast-feeding goals, a new report by United Nations agencies and a large advocacy group reveals. The laggards? Some of the richest regions in the world. Europe, for example,...

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    A New Campaign, #EveryHourMatters, Urges Instant Post-Rape Care

    by  • March 28, 2016 • Gender-Based Violence, Health and Population, UN Agencies, UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Women • 3 Comments

    Maureen Phiri, a young girl from a poor family in Malawi, was only 11 years old when she was raped by the man who had hired her to do housework for him and his wife. Not only did Maureen continue to experience sexual abuse from the man she worked for, he left her with another...

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    The UN’s Support of Midwifery and the Serious Gaps That Remain

    by  • December 21, 2015 • Africa, Health and Population, Sustainable Development Goals, UN Agencies, Women • 

    Midwifery is one of the world’s most ancient vocations, its practitioners playing a prominent role dating back to the Bible. In much of the world, midwives continue to play an important role in maintaining the health of women and newborns. It should come as no surprise, then, that investments in this occupation, according to...

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