XUNICEF News and Views

Briefing correspondents at UN Headquarters in New York just a few days after visiting Haiti along with the head of the World Food Programme ( WFP ), Catherine Russell said “the current situation of insecurity is unacceptable. “Women and children are dying. Schools and public spaces should always be safe. Collectively the world is failing the Haitian people.” ‘Barely functional’ An estimated 5.2 million – close to half the population – need humanitarian support, including three million children. Institutions and services children rely on “are barely functional” the Executive Director warned, while violent armed groups control more than 60 per cent of the capital Port au Prince, and parts of the country’s most fertile agricultural areas. “Haitians and our team there tell me it’s never been worse” she said, with unprecedented malnutrition, grinding poverty, a crippled economy, and a continuing cholera outbreak. All this “while flooding and earthquakes continue to remind us just how vulne

The following is an opinion piece that has appeared in DEVEX by Dr. Khidir Dalouk, advocacy director for the Sudanese American Physicians Association and a cardiac electrophysiologist based in Portland, Oregon.  Dr. Dalouk relates the dilemma facing aid agencies in trying to deliver aid during a period in which two warring armies each claim to represent the government - civil society appears to be the only channel, but may itself be disorganized and unable to reach all who need aid. Sudan is on fire. More than two months since the onset of clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF, and the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, the conflict has devolved into a full-blown catastrophe for millions from Khartoum to Darfur. The unwillingness of both sides to commit to a sustained ceasefire, despite the good-faith efforts of international brokers, has set the stage for an entrenched war, with consequences that are sure to reverberate across the region. Given the utter collapse of Sudanese

The report from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Children’s Fund UNICEF find that the first years of a child’s life provide “irreplicable opportunities to improve lifelong health, nutrition and well-being” according to a press release. Click here to download the report It tracks progress against the global Nurturing care framework, which provides guidance on supporting the healthy physical, intellectual, and emotional development of young children. Protecting development This framework promotes an integrated approach to early childhood development, covering nutrition, health, safety and security, early learning, and responsive caregiving as essential areas for interventions. “Early childhood development provides a critical window to improve health and well-being across life with impacts that resonate even into the next generation,” said Dr. Anshu Banerjee, Director of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing at WHO . “While this report shows encouraging progress

I was talking on WhatsApp with my niece in Vancouver, an extremely smart professional–– product of the high-tech digital age. We reminisced about our strange-sumptuous-scary-shocking flight experiences. She admitted she hated flying in small aircrafts that have two rows of only-window seats. “It’s so scary,” she said. “I prefer planes that have Isle seats.” “Have you ever flown with Nigerian airlines?” I asked. I narrated my experiences . . . (Full disclosure: in 2005, while working with Johns Hopkins, I was flying to Kolkaka from Dhaka on Biman Bangladesh. It was raining––the sky looked ominous. The small rickety-old-aircraft had leaky windows, raindrops fell inside, now and then. A friend, Harsha, was with me on that fateful flight. After a long wait, the plane began taxing at a slow pace and then slightly accelerated. At that point we were startled by a loud thumping sound. Someone opened the front boarding door from outside! The aircraft screeched . . . a ground staff had opened th

Both the army and the RSF declared a 2 day truce to allow Sudan's people the opportunity to celebrate the Eid ul Adha feast.  Sadly, the truce was broken almost as soon as it was announced.  Heavy fighting continues in Khartoum, Darfur, and other parts of the country.  The one bit of good news came as an announcement that ICRC had managed to negotiate release of 125 army soldiers who had been held by the RSF.    Air raids hit Sudan capital despite Eid truce Air raids and anti-aircraft fire struck Sudan’s capital Khartoum according to residents, despite warring parties declaring truces for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. The war between Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that started in April has caused a major humanitarian crisis and displaced nearly 2.8 million people, of which almost 650,000 have fled to neighbouring countries. The three cities that make up the wider capital around the confluence of the River Nile – Khartoum, Khartoum

  Where do we begin?  In 1984 a Danish doctor, Steen Malte Willadsen was the first to clone a sheep using genetic material from an embryo and adding them to sheep eggs whose nuclei had been removed thus producing genetically identical lambs. However, it was the team of four doctors from the Department of Regenerative Medicine, University of Edinburgh who cloned the first mammal using a cell extracted from an adult sheep (not using embryonic material). Since then, at least 21 different animals have been cloned (cow, rat, camel, carp, cat, coyote, deer, dog, frog, goat, horse, mouse, mouflon, mule, two species of monkey, donkey, ibex, rabbit, buffalo & wolf). Such cloning was conducted for commercial purposes while some were for reproduction of endangered animal species. There are ethical issues on both counts.  Bioengineering and nanotechnology have evolved exponentially over the decades which helped the scientists to organ transplant, grow stem cells to treat certain conditions, et

This represents another letter home from Tirana in late 1999, where I was paid by USAID while sitting in the UNICEF office in Tirana, under an agreement between UNICEF and USAID, to coordinate WES activities for the Kosovar refugees and, later, to address WES deficiencies in Albanian communities which had hosted Kosovars. It was a very steep learning curve: ***** Friday evening: There are times when I want to scream. Then I wonder why I bother even to raise my blood pressure. I ask myself whether my 'passion' will make any difference to anyone and then, realising that it probably won't, I go off and take a beer. But while drinking the beer, I brood. How can people who nominally claim to represent the 'best interests of children' appear only to act in their own best interests ? When will the world tumble to it and expose them ? UNICEF seems determined to fulfil its obligations to children by becoming an emergency agency. I think this has been a move in an atte

They were only Children- Gaza's youngest victims ©Irish Times United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has added Russia’s military forces to his annual "list of shame" of parties to armed conflict who commit grave violations against children. Unfortunately, he again omitted Israel, which belongs on the list. This sends a mixed message about the UN’s willingness to hold powerful governments accountable. Since Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, hundreds of Ukrainian children have been killed in attacks on apartment buildings and other civilian structures. The UN reports that Russian forces were responsible for 480 attacks against schools and hospitals in 2022, more than 25 percent of the global total for the year, and for killing or maiming 658 children. The report attributed the killing or maiming of 255 children to Ukrainian forces. Most child casualties resulted from the use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects, such as shelling or r

  Pour la version f rançaise, voir ci-dessous UNJSPF News - June 2023 UNJSPF publishes first Voting and Engagement Reports The UN Pension Fund has just published its first Voting and Engagement Reports. As a shareholder in many companies across the world, the Fund is committed to promoting long-term sustainable business practices through engagement and proxy voting, which are considered key pillars of sustainable investing and investment stewardship.   Click  here  to read the article. 6 June 2023 UNJSPF receives social impact award for Digital Certificate of Entitlement The UNJSPF has been awarded the Government Blockchain Association’s (GBA) Social Impact Award for its Digital Certificate of Entitlement (DCE) app. The award was presented at the GBA’s annual conference, “The Future of Money, Governance, and the Law” in Washington, DC on 24 May 2023.   Click  here  to read the article. 25 May 2023 Migrating the UNJSPF ICT systems to the cloud: what you need to know In March 2023 the UN