To say that today is a significant day in our national and world history would not fully capture the magnitude of what happened in the United States’ capital 70 years ago. On this day in 1945, World War II was drawing to a close, but the wounds were certainly still fresh. The U.S. Senate acted decisively to ratify a treaty that set out to: “Save succeeding generations from the scourge of war… to reaffirm faith […]

This September, world leaders will gather at the United Nations to adopt a new set of global development goals for 2016-2030. Known as the Sustainable Development Goals, these goals aim to end extreme poverty, promote equity and opportunity for all, and protect the planet. UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon has spoken numerous times about the importance of these goals and the direction they can take the world in the next 15 years. Here are seven favorite

“With almost 60 million people forcibly displaced around the world, we face a crisis on a scale not seen in generations,” said Stephen O’Brien, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator as he released US$70 million from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) for chronically underfunded aid operations. CERF provides essential resources to support humanitarian responses to conflict and disaster. Governments and other donors (such as companies, foundations, and individuals)

The outcome document of the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals agenda, which was formally accepted by the member countries of the United Nations recently and will be adopted at a summit in September, includes the target of ensuring “universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights” under Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. While we do not know yet what the precise indicators of this target will be, it

On this International Youth Day, we recognize the power of youth worldwide to shift political landscapes and the ongoing need to empower youth voices globally. Swedish youth delegate to the United Nations, Joanna Blossner, in remarks to the UN, stated: “There can be no peace, no prosperity, and no progress, without the full and equal participation of young people all over the world.” Her statement distills the essence of the Youth Delegate program to the

“Malala [Yousafzai] is a daughter of the United Nations,” declared UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, noting the 18-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner’s engagement with the UN to make sure children worldwide can go to school, including the millions of girls who are denied this right. The UN works to promote education for all children and to empower girls around the world – and each of us can play a role in supporting its important work. Here

The United Nations Foundation’s Universal Access Project recently visited Haiti to learn about the challenges and opportunities to improve the sexual and reproductive health of girls and women, as well as the work of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the U.S. Agency for International Development, and other partners in the country. Our team spent time traveling with some of the dedicated community health agents who fan out across the hardest-to-reach areas of Haiti to

Editor’s Note: This post is the second in a series of blog posts on the founding of the United Nations 70 years ago. You can read the first post here. When the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the UN Charter, the one opponent was reclining in a chair in the Senate barbershop with a hot towel draped around his face. California’s Hiram Johnson had been an isolationist since the end of World War I

In September, world leaders will gather at the United Nations to adopt the next set of global development goals, known as the Sustainable Development Goals. We’ve gotten a lot of questions about the global goals, and we want to take a moment to answer some of the most common ones. What are the global goals? The global goals serve as the world’s to-do list from 2016-2030. These goals form a shared agenda to end poverty,