With security and humanitarian crises mounting across much of Africa, the international community is making a mistake by not engaging fully with South Sudan, which is at the centre of an increasingly volatile region.

That’s the view of the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in the world’s youngest nation, Nicholas Haysom, who told UN News that if a fresh crisis erupts there in combination with the military power struggle in neighbouring Sudan, it would be “catastrophic” for the whole Horn of Africa.

Maoqi Li asked the head of UNMISS and UN Special Representative why he thought South Sudan was not getting the attention it deserved.

A new report from UN global fund Education Cannot Wait (ECW) warns there are 224 million children and adolescents now in desperate need of education support: around 72 million are out of school because of conflict, crisis, and other emergencies.

Yasmine Sherif, ECW’s Executive Director, spoke to UN News’s Abdelmonem Makki about the fundraising challenge of helping the huge influx or refugees fleeing into Chad from Sudan, as well as the continuing crisis for girls’ education in Afghanistan.

In the nearly two years since Afghanistan’s de-facto authorities seized power, the “ambitions, dreams and potential” of girls and women have perished, a rights activist has told the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

And in an exclusive interview with UN News’s Nancy Sarkis, Afghan civil rights activist Shaharzad Akbar explains that women and girls there talk of “being buried alive, breathing, but not being able to do much else”.

From Afghanistan to Ukraine, the survivors of some of the world’s worst conflicts live in fear of landmines killing them or their children.

The UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) coordinates the Organization’s work to rid the world of mines, explosive remnants of war and improvised explosive devices.

Ahead of Mine Action Week beginning 19 June, which brings major demining stakeholders to Geneva, UNMAS Director of Policy Abigail Hartley sat down with UN News’s Dominika Tomaszewska-Mortimer to express sadness at the deaths last week of 27 civilians – most of them minors – killed by unexploded ordnance in the Lower Shabelle region of Somalia.

The UN mine action service veteran also shared her optimism that Ukraine will one day be mine-free, too.

Nobody yet knows what the full long-term effects of taking cannabis are and legalizing it for recreational use runs the risk of trivializing the dangers for teen consumers, the President of the UN-administered international narcotics watchdog has warned.

In an interview with UN News, Professor Jallal Toufiq also raised the alarm over the continuing proliferation of synthetic opioids on the black market, describing it as the International Narcotics Board’s number one issue - stating the INCB was doing all it can to tackle the scourge.

Khaled Mohamed of our Arabic news service, began by asking him to sum up the impact of cannabis on public health, and the push to legalize it recreationally.

People living with Down syndrome and other disabilities need a place at the table, according to a Canadian activist participating at a key UN event focused on their rights.

Inclusion is one of the key issues at the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which is taking place at UN Headquarters in New York.

Eileen Travers sat down with Nicholas Herd and his colleague Warren Pot, from L’Arche Canada, part of an international non-profit organization striving towards the inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities.

She began by asking Mr. Herd why he came to the United Nations.

Mine Action Week takes place from 19 to 23 June in Geneva; it’s an opportunity to highlight how the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) works with partners to eliminate the menace posed by these explosive devices in more than 30 countries – including Ukraine. 

To find out more about the challenge of clearing mines, explosive remnants of war and improvised explosive devices, UN News’s Nathalie Minard sat down with Hansjörg Eberle, head of the Swiss demining NGO, FSD.

In its new flagship report published on Wednesday the UN refugee agency UNHCR reveals that the 46 least developed countries are hosting more than 20 per cent of the refugee population – even though they account for only 1.3 per cent of GDP.

That’s one of the important data points contained in Global Trends in Forced Displacement 2022, which shows a record level of displacement, for the second year running, now standing at 108.4 million, UNHCR Director in New York, Ruven Menikdiwela told us.

UN News’s Pauline Batista began by asking her to outline the key findings.

The environmental and economic consequences of the dam disaster that’s inundated parts of southern Ukraine, flooding what is one of the world’s breadbaskets, is going to an awful shock to the people of the country and the entire ‘Global South’, the UN relief chief has told UN News.

In an interview on Friday night, Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths, said the world stands by Ukraine in the wake of this latest disaster stemming from the Russian invasion, but with agricultural land swamped, food security is bound to be hit.

Nargiz Shekinskaya began by asking him in the wake of initial criticism from President Volodomyr Zelenskyy, if the UN could have acted sooner with aid, once disaster struck.

Young people must have a voice in global efforts to combat climate change – not because of their youth, but because they are important stakeholders who offer solutions to the crisis. 

That’s the opinion of Ayisha Siddiqa, a Pakistani-American environmental and human rights defender, who is a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change. 

Ms. Siddiqa spoke to Nadeem Saeed of UN News’s Urdu Unit, about how her background informs her work to accelerate the “SG’s” climate agenda. 

She also shared her honest take on UN climate conferences, known as COPs, and explains why poetry “can be a mechanism of quiet protest” in the face of the climate emergency.