By Amber Mayfield, UN Foundation Public Affairs Intern “Now is the time for a robust and united effort to stop the outbreak. The world can and must stop Ebola – now.” – United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon To spearhead its response to the Ebola outbreak raging in West Africa, the United Nations recently launched the first-ever emergency health mission, theUnited Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, known as UNMEER. UNMEER is headquartered in Accra, Ghana, […]

Around 1 in 10 girls under the age of 20 has experienced sexual violence according to data from the United Nations. Every year, approximately 15 million girls are married as children. Millions more are denied their right to go to school, plan their families, and pursue their potential. These girls deserve better. They have the right to live free from violence and to shape their own futures – it’s time they had the chance. On

The 26th of September was World Contraception Day. To draw attention to it, the United Nations released country-level data on trends in contraceptive use rates as well as in the unmet need for family planning. These data are very useful as initiatives like Family Planning 2020 gather momentum and countries get down to actually formulating policies to satisfy half or more of the current unmet need for family planning. But they are also very useful

As the week winds down, in case you missed them, we are sharing three important stories from the United Nations this week: 1. UN Calls for Greater Global Response to Ebola As the UN continues to ramp up its response to the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa through its “UN Mission for Emergency Ebola Response,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the global community to do more. At a special meeting on Ebola at the

Independence: it’s what we all want for children everywhere. We hope they’ll have the chance to grow up healthy, go to school, and have every opportunity to reach their full potential. Above all, we want our children to count. Many of us take it for granted, but receiving a birth certificate is crucial for all of this. When you’re counted on the day that you’re born, it’s the first step toward accessing all the opportunities

Editor’s Note: In March, we featured the blog post below on one of the world’s silent killers: dangerous smoke from traditional cookstoves. On Tuesday, October 21, from 10:30am-11:30am ET, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves and partners will hold a Twitter chat to raise awareness of the power of clean cooking solutions to improve health and save lives. We hope you will join the chat using hashtag #cookstoves and learn more about the upcoming Cookstoves

What is needed to prepare today’s young people for the future? Opinions vary, but one answer is a good grounding in international affairs. In an increasingly globalized world in which challenges transcend borders, the ability to understand and empathize with other cultures and points of view has become invaluable. As such, UNA-USA and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. (AKA), one of the nation’s oldest historically black sororities, have embarked on a new partnership with the

By Joanne Peter, Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action This blog is part of our Innovation Working Group Program series, highlighting the impact mobile technology is having on global health and development around the world. Learn more about the twenty-six mHealth projects funded under the IWG grant program here. In August 2013, Mark Zuckerberg announced the launch of Internet.org, a global partnership that aims to make affordable Internet access available to the two-thirds of the world

Amid the Ebola outbreak and continuing threats to peace and security around the world, a new poll released yesterday by our sister organization, the Better World Campaign, finds that a majority of Americans agree that working through the United Nations is essential to addressing the toughest challenges facing our world today. The survey, which was released just two days shy of UN Day, made two things clear: 1. Significant majorities of Republicans, Independents and Democrats