“Behind every single number is a person.” – Valerie Amos, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator  More than 9 million people – including more than 5 million children – have been affected by the conflict in Syria, which enters its fourth year this month. Syrians are on track to become the world’s largest refugee population. Throughout the crisis, UN agencies have been working to provide aid – including food, shelter, vaccinations, education, water, and […]

Editor’s Note: To find out how you can get involved, read “How You Can Help” at the end of the post. Three years of conflict in Syria have devastated children throughout the country. More than 1 million Syrian children now live as refugees in surrounding countries, and more than 4 million children in Syria are living in “dire situations” according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). I spoke with Justin van Fleet, Chief of

There are a few things in this world that are truly global: One of them is that people want to be happy. Thursday, March 20 is the International Day of Happiness, and the United Nations Foundation and Grammy Award-winning musician Pharrell Williams have teamed up to encourage people to take action to support the UN and to create a happier world for people everywhere. You can join in by donating to UN humanitarian efforts, which

Learn more and join the MAMA Google+ hangout on Thursday, March 20th at 9:30 a.m. ET! There are approximately 400 million Spanish speakers worldwide, with 360 million in Latin America and the Caribbean. At least 125 million of the region’s residents do not have access to health services and 80 million people in the region still live in poverty. It is estimated that 90% of maternal mortality and half of child deaths under age 5

March 24 marks World Tuberculosis Day, a day to raise awareness of this terrible disease and to push for global progress in treating TB and helping prevent its spread. Thanks to the work of the United Nations and other partners, the world is making important strides: Between 1990 and 2012, the TB mortality rate declined by 45%. But TB is still very much a threat in the U.S. (there were nearly 10,000 reported cases in

For the first time in history, most humans live in cities. How well we do so will determine our future. A century ago, only two out of every 10 people lived in urban areas, but that proportion has shifted rapidly since then. We just passed the halfway point, and by mid-century 70% of all humanity will be city dwellers, according to the UN’s World Health Organization. Dense, compact cities are actually good for the environment,

On March 27th, the World Health Organization (WHO) will certify the South-East Asia Region as polio-free, a major milestone in the global effort to eradicate polio. This certification includes India, which had long been considered one of the hardest places to eliminate the disease. Last year, the UN Foundation took a group of international journalists to Moradabad – once known as the “polio capital” of India – to see first-hand the work being done to

Around the world, 222 million women want to delay or avoid pregnancy, but aren’t using modern contraception. Family Planning 2020 is a global partnership working to reach 120 million more women with voluntary access to family planning information, services, and supplies by the year 2020. As partners and countries around the world work to address women’s right to and need for voluntary family planning, one of the biggest challenges is quickly delivering resources to where