World Food Program

• November 5, 2021

COP26 opens with a foreboding announcement from the UN secretary-general; peacekeepers shot by the presidential guard in the Central African Republic; Mexico’s agenda on the Security Council. You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing the most pressing issues facing the organization. The information is gathered from UN press briefings, PassBlue reporting and other sources. …

Africa, Asia, Climate Change, General Assembly, Humanitarian Aid, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Secretary-General, Security Council, This Week @UN, UN Agencies, US-UN Relations

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THIS WEEK @UN

The UN Sticks to Afghanistan; Ireland Steers the Security Council; Preying on Mothers’ Fears

Anna Bianca Roach

• September 3, 2021

The UN’s priorities in Afghanistan for now; how certain multinational corporations feed on new-mothers’ fears amid Covid; Ireland’s envoy defends the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan. You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing the most pressing issues facing the organization. The information is gathered from UN press briefings, PassBlue reporting and other sources. …

Human Rights, Secretary-General, Security Council, This Week @UN, UN Agencies, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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THIS WEEK @UN

US Delegation to Haiti Cut Short; Risks for the UN Pension Fund?; an Ex-Guantánamo Detainee May Face Torture in Russia

Ivana Ramirez

• July 24, 2021

A US delegation to Haiti returns early; potential risks for the $87 billion UN pension fund; an ex-Guantánamo detainee may face torture in Russia. You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing the most pressing issues facing the organization. The information is gathered from UN press briefings, PassBlue reporting and other sources. We are inching closer …

Africa, Asia, Human Rights, SDGs, Secretary-General, This Week @UN, US-UN Relations

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THIS WEEK @UN

The Rough Road to Gender Equality; a Major Message on Hunger; No Saudis on the Human Rights Council

Dulcie Leimbach

• October 17, 2020

For once, two pieces of good news from the United Nations: The World Food Program receives the Nobel Peace Prize and the Security Council begins meeting physically again in its chamber. But some reality-checking: 25 years after the Beijing conference on women, the road to gender equality is still being dug. Greetings from This Week …

Africa, Health and Population, Human Rights, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, This Week @UN, US Foreign Relations

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The UN’s 12th Nobel Peace Prize: Our Latest Podcast Episode

Stéphanie Fillion and Kacie Candela

• October 16, 2020

Clair MacDougall was reporting on a follow-up story for PassBlue about Lieut. Col. Carlos Moisés Guillén Alfaro, the first official United Nations peacekeeper to die of Covid-19, when on Oct. 9 she heard that the World Food Program was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and that its executive director, David Beasley, was in town, so she …

Africa, Development, Humanitarian Aid, US-UN Relations

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As the Nobel Peace Prize Is Awarded to the World Food Program, Famines Loom

Clair MacDougall

• October 10, 2020

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — David Beasley, the head of the World Food Program, this year’s just-announced Nobel Peace Prize winner, has warned that the number of people facing starvation could double next year, to 270 million, if the agency is unable to raise enough money to cope with the crisis. “2021 is going to be …

Humanitarian Aid, UN Agencies, US-UN Relations

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COVID-19

Never Underestimate the Grit of Malawians to Survive the Coronavirus

Antonio Menendez de Zubillaga

• May 25, 2020

LILONGWE, Malawi — Ever since an expatriate tourism adviser labeled Malawi the “warm heart of Africa” in the 1970s, Malawians have worn the title proudly, sparing no effort to welcome visitors with open arms. My family and I felt immediately at home here in Lilongwe, the capital. We arrived in April 2018, as part …

Africa, Covid-19

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‘Cowboys’ May Be Running the World Food Program, but Donations Keep Coming

Dulcie Leimbach

• October 27, 2019

The World Food Program may be receiving millions of more donations from the Trump administration than under past presidencies, but its management is skidding around amid complaints of sexual harassment, retaliation, abuse of authority and, most startling, rape, according to a new external survey. Under the leadership of David Beasley, a former South Carolina …

UN Agencies, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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NIKKI HALEY WATCH

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

Dulcie Leimbach

• January 31, 2018

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 …

Humanitarian Aid, Nikki Haley Watch, UN Agencies, US-UN Relations

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Financing the UN: Payers, Pipers and Tunes

Stephen Browne and Thomas G. Weiss

• December 7, 2017

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 …

UN Agencies

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TAKE A LOOK

America’s Financial Support to the UN: What’s at Stake?

Barbara Crossette

• April 4, 2017

With White House proposals to slash United States assessments and donations to international organizations now in play in the writing of a federal budget for 2018 — as an April 28 deadline approaches — the extent of potential losses to the United Nations is coming into sharp focus. The US, for example, has immediately …

Take a Look, UN Peacekeeping, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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WORLDVIEWS

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

Donald T. Bliss

• December 17, 2016

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 …

Development, Peace and Security, SDGs, Security Council, UN Agencies, UN Peacekeeping, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations, WORLDVIEWS

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WORLDVIEWS

How Trauma Therapy Can Help to Reduce Cycles of Violence

Rolf C. Carriere

• April 26, 2016

ÉCHENEVEX, France — While psychological trauma affects perhaps as many as 500 million victims worldwide, and adversely impacts human and social development on a massive scale, its most devastating — but least suspected — effect may well be the potential for peace. How? Because people who have been traumatized by violence or abuse could …

WORLDVIEWS

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Vijay Nambiar, UN Envoy, Untangles the Problems Plaguing Myanmar

Barbara Crossette

• May 19, 2014

The surprising move in 2010 by a repressive Burmese military regime to begin ceding power to the nation’s people was just the beginning of a tangled story. The new democracy held its first credible election less than two years later — an election that catapulted Aung San Suu Kyi, barely 18 months free of …

Asia, Development, Myanmar

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Far-Reaching Changes Remake the UN Food and Agriculture Organization

Helmut Volger

• May 13, 2013

BERLIN — The fight against hunger became a primary goal of the United Nations system early on. In 1943, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt convened an international conference that reached agreement on the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization, and two years later, on Oct. 16, 1945, only days before the …