UN – United Nations

Around the world, 225 million girls and women who want to choose when, whether, and how many children to have face barriers accessing contraceptive information and services. When girls and women can’t plan their families, they face numerous challenges – from an increased risk of death, to a greater risk of dropping out of school, to a reduced ability to earn an income, and more. Expanding access to modern contraceptives is a key priority for the United […]

The numbers of the humanitarian crisis in South Sudan are daunting, with more than 5 million people in need of assistance. Some of the most vulnerable are children, many of whom face malnutrition, violence, or recruitment as child soldiers. Recognizing this, officers with the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) are ardently working to safeguard the wellbeing of children in South Sudan. This year, UNICEF plans on treating 166,000 children living with severe acute malnutrition, giving 400,000

Editor’s Note: This post is part of the blog series, “Her Goals: Our Future,” which highlights the connections between girls and women and the Sustainable Development Goals. Guest blogger views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the UN Foundation.   The end of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) era in 2015 has provided the world with valuable and lasting lessons about what needs to be done differently and what can have a major impact

Editor’s Note: This post is part of the blog series, “Her Goals: Our Future,” which highlights the connections between girls and women and the Sustainable Development Goals. Guest blogger views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the UN Foundation. 12-year-old Shrity lives in one of the largest slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh, but she doesn’t want your pity. “I’m not sad,” she told me last summer after brushing her teeth and putting on her

Editor’s Note: This post is part of the blog series, “Her Goals: Our Future,” which highlights the connections between girls and women and the Sustainable Development Goals. This post originally appeared on the Council of Foreign Relations blog. On May 16, over 5,000 people from around the world (leaders, advocates, policymakers, journalists, and researchers) will descend upon Copenhagen for the fourth Women Deliver conference. In the world of international development, any conference that includes thousands of

Editor’s Note: This post is part of the blog series, “Her Goals: Our Future,” which highlights the connections between girls and women and the Sustainable Development Goals. Guest blogger views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the UN Foundation. This is an important year for global development: It marks the first full year of global goals, which are set to be completed by 2030. The first set, the Millennium Development Goals, had immense success

Editor’s Note: Content in this post is graphic. This post is part of the blog series, “Her Goals: Our Future,” which highlights the connections between girls and women and the Sustainable Development Goals. Guest blogger views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the UN Foundation. When I was growing up in Afghanistan and later in the United States, my father treated me as my brother’s equal. I received the same attention, love, respect, and

Editor’s Note: Content in this post is graphic. This post is part of the blog series, “Her Goals: Our Future,” which highlights the connections between girls and women and the Sustainable Development Goals. Guest blogger views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the UN Foundation. In the face of worsening conflict, climate change, and unemployment, the youth of today are arguably unmatched in their relentless drive to affect change in the world through the

Editor’s Note: This post is part of the blog series, “Her Goals: Our Future,” which highlights the connections between girls and women and the Sustainable Development Goals. Guest blogger views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the UN Foundation. In the summer of 1964, as a graduate student at Duke University, I received an invitation to join a scientific team aboard the National Science Foundation’s research vessel, Anton Bruun, for a six-week voyage to