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On October 17, the Trump administration announced that it was leaving the Universal Postal Union (UPU), the UN organization that governs the traffic of worldwide international mail, unless certain reforms are enacted. Chief among the administration’s concerns: that the cost of delivering items from some foreign countries is subsidized, putting U.S. mailers at a disadvantage. Put another way, that means that it might be cheaper for a country like China to ship a small gadget […]

When many people think about the United Nations, they think of the Security Council and the General Assembly. Yet the work of the UN extends far beyond the assembly halls in New York City, impacting lives around the world. Every day, in every corner of the globe, people tirelessly work to advance the mission of the UN: peace, progress, equality, and human rights. Here are nine key numbers that provide a snapshot of the UN

Editor’s note: This page was last updated February 20, 2019. “If you lose hope as a humanitarian, in any crisis or disaster, then you cannot serve the people who need your help.” —  Ms. Anjali Sen, UNFPA Representative to Yemen Yemen faces the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. The dangers, according to Mark Lowcock, the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), are “much bigger than anything any professional

By Jordie Hannum, Executive Director of the Better World Campaign In the 1988 Italian film Cinema Paradiso, which won an Academy Award, young Salvatore Di Vita finds refuge from life in his war-torn Sicilian village by watching movies in the Cinema Paradiso movie house. The young Salvatore bonds with an older individual – the projectionist Alfredo – and their uncommon friendship shapes the young man’s life. Fast forward 30 years and nearly 1,400 hundred miles

A new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) released this week reveals that 93% of all children live in places with air pollution levels above levels that are simply too high. And according to a recent study from George Washington University, one in three cases of asthma globally is tied to air pollution – that adds up to some 33 million visits to emergency rooms. These findings are timely as this week, the WHO,

Journalists want to report the story, not become the story. Their desire to find the truth and show what’s really going on can lead them into danger zones and often into conflict with powerful forces. Over the last decade, more than a thousand have been killed doing their jobs, 90% of them local journalists working in their own communities. Worse, 89% of those killings go unresolved (see p. 19 of this UNESCO report). By way

The most recent report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sounded the alarm for urgent climate action. According to the report, the difference between 1.5°C and 2°C of global warming matters much more for our world than we realized – more extreme weather, hunger, poverty, and displacement, among other serious impacts. But what does a warmer planet mean for ecosystems and biodiversity? In an editorial for Scientific Advances, two leading researchers

Nearly 70 years ago, the world adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and proclaimed that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” While progress has been made toward this declaration, it will not be fully realized until every woman and girl is in charge of planning when and whether she has a family. Eleanor Roosevelt, who helped create the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, noted that human rights begin

The severity of Yemen’s humanitarian crisis is inconceivable for many of us — nearly 22 million people in the war-torn country desperately need humanitarian aid and protection. Yet for millions of people in Yemen, it is their reality. Girls and women are particularly vulnerable in emergency situations, which is why UNFPA works to help them – providing health services for pregnant women, women’s hygiene supplies, and counseling for gender-based violence, among other efforts. As this dire