Rapelang Rabana knows she’s not your “typical” computer scientist. The Botswana-born South African is just one of a growing number of African women in her field — and she wants to see more women of color like her pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). In 2013, she was featured on the Forbes “30 under 30” list as one of the best entrepreneurs in Africa. This year, she addressed some of the […]

Exactly one year ago, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) declared an outbreak of the Ebola virus in the country’s North Kivu province, a region already plagued by violence and displacement. Since then, the highly contagious and deadly virus has infected more than 2,600 people and caused more than 1,800 deaths, becoming the second-largest Ebola outbreak in history. Of those infected, almost one in three are children. Just last month, the World Health Organization (WHO)

Questions asked and answered at the 2019 Women Deliver conference  Earlier this summer, we hosted a session about women’s health, dignity, and the products they need to protect and strengthen both at the 2019 Women Deliver conference, the world’s largest gathering on gender equality and the health, rights, and well-being of girls and women. Yet long after and far beyond the halls of the Vancouver Convention Center, the clarity and conviction of the discussion has

  Thankfully, the Special Report is not all doom and gloom; it outlines big solutions that exist right now. We can change the way we use land to create wins for climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Reducing emissions from land is essential to meeting our 2030 climate deadline, when global emissions must be reduced by 45%. And doing so in a way that protects, preserves, and restores life on land (SDG 15)

Twenty-three-year old activist Alejandra Acosta visits a local Spanish high school to involve students in the fight against human trafficking. Thousands of miles away, Neeshad Sharif gathers young climate advocates at a meeting of the Qatari Arab Youth Climate Movement chapter. They are changemakers and members of the United Nations Foundation’s new +SocialGood Connector class, which consists of 13 leaders dedicated to local change and global progress.  +SocialGood is a UN Foundation-led community of changemakers

130 years after my great-great-grandfather first got this land, we’re still taking care of it, like my grandfather taught me. And so we still got it. We still holding on to it four generations later. With my daughter, it’ll be the fifth. My granddaughter will be the sixth. The biggest problem they’re gonna have staying in the farming business is subdivisions. It’ll be all the way around it. You know, when a farmer dies and

While many people run from emergencies, these women head into them to help people in need. They are (s)heroes. They are also UN humanitarian workers. World Humanitarian Day on August 19 is an annual moment to recognize the lifesaving work of humanitarian workers around the world. In 2019, the UN is recognizing the courage, challenges, and hard work of women humanitarians. As part of this effort, we are sharing the stories of three UN humanitarian

Bullen (left) laughs with two participants of the WFP Storytellers project during an assignment at the Bidibidi refugee camp in Uganda (©WFP/Hugh Rutherford)   WFP staffer Claire Nevill, who oversees the Storytellers program from the agency’s headquarters in Rome, says the goal is to help lift the voices of those who’ve experienced hunger and poverty firsthand. By teaching photography, videography, and social media skills and providing a platform to tell their own stories, Storytellers hopes

The other major challenge is access. In a country that lacks roads in some of the most remote areas, reaching rural families can be especially difficult. These leaders are not alone. They’re joined by a network of volunteers — all of whom are women — who serve as trusted community ambassadors of sorts, traveling door-to-door to educate households about immunization and administer the oral version of the polio vaccine as drops under the tongue. Fatima