UN Interviews

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. 

The flooding stemming from the Ukraine dam disaster near Kherson poses a grave risk to families, and threatens safe water and power supplies, said the UN Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF) communications chief in the country. 

Damian Rance said around 1,700 people have had to evacuate from flooded homes in the major southern city, and one of most direct threats is a doubling or even tripling of the threat posed by landmines, being swept away to new locations.  

Oleksandra Burynska began by asking him what the latest was on the ground in the disaster area: 

With new and emerging technologies, we hear a lot about killer drones, driverless tanks and autonomous airplanes on the modern battlefield.

One issue of particular concern is the use of what are officially known as lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), which can select and engage targets with force, without human involvement - raising a raft of security, ethical and legal concerns.

What are countries doing to regulate LAWS? And how can international law and the UN respond to this challenge?

To explore these and other questions, the Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS began meeting at the UN in 2017, as Mélanie Régimbal, Chief of the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs in Geneva, explains to UN News’s Nancy Sarkis.

The ocean is key to food security as the main source of protein for more than a billion people. Some 600 million worldwide depend on fisheries and aquaculture for their livelihoods.

As hunger continues to spread around the world, urgent efforts are needed to safeguard the ocean and ensure that it continues to provide food for a growing global population, in a sustainable way.

Ahead of Thursday’s World Oceans Day, Manuel Barange, Director of the Food and Aquaculture Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), has been talking to FAO’s Michele Zaccheo about the promise of aquaculture, or farming in water, and how the ocean is an essential part of the solution to the interlinked issues of poverty, malnutrition, food security and climate change.

UN humanitarians are ramping up assistance in the aftermath of the Kakhovka dam disaster in Ukraine, as some 17,000 people find themselves in the critical zone at risk of flooding, and clean water has become scarce.  

Health and security concerns are mounting fast, with flooding and the lack of clean water multiplying the risk of disease, while unexploded ordnance is being displaced by floodwater into new areas.

IOM’s spokesperson in Kyiv, Olivia Headon, has been talking to UN News’s Dominika Tomaszewska-Mortimer about the emergency response and the impact of the disaster on Ukraine’s future recovery.

The COVID-19 pandemic has rolled back progress in development but collaboration between countries of the Global South could help get the world back on track. 

This exchange of technology and skills is known as South-South cooperation, and triangular cooperation, when supported by developed countries or partner agencies. 

The UN’s High-Level Committee on South-South Cooperation met this week to examine how the process can help accelerate recovery from the pandemic and achieve a more sustainable future for all. 

Dima Al-Khatib is the recently appointed Director of the UN Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), which is hosted by the UN Development Programme (UNDP). 

She spoke to UN News’s Dianne Penn about some of the key issues discussed at the meeting, including the need for increased funding. 

The cooperation of governments in Southeast Asia is helping the region to address the “enormous” challenge of tackling transnational organized crime, according to a senior representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, (UNODC).

The trafficking of people and illicit goods, especially synthetic drugs like methamphetamine, from the Golden Triangle, an area which includes Thailand, Myanmar and Laos, has enriched criminal networks and flooded the region and beyond with addictive narcotics.

UNODC has brought governments together to collaborate through border liaison officers who share information about trafficking. Daniel Dickinson spoke to UNODC’s Chief of Border Management, Alan Cole on a trip to the Golden Triangle and began by asking him about the role of these officers.

This week the UN hosts the 2nd Session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent – the human rights platform which brings together institutions at the UN, civil society and others, to advance equality and fight racism.  

The Forum’s Chair, Epsy Campbell Barr, said it was vital to boost investment to help the poorest of the poor, and meet “elemental demands” for basic services like clean water.

She spoke to UN News’s Pauline Batista in our studio at UN Headquarters in New York.

Torture, conflict and low COVID-19 vaccination rates have all been the results of increasing levels of disinformation and misinformation in Papua New Guinea, according to the UN Resident Coordinator in the country, Richard Howard.  

Speaking on the line to UN News’s Julia Dean in Australia, he stressed that these consequences were very worrying, and in some cases “horrifically wrong”, calling for strong and rapid measures to counter the scourge.  

Mr. Howard began by describing the prevalence and intensity of misinformation and disinformation being spread across the Pacific Island nation.

While more than 300 million people around the world face acute food insecurity, tobacco continues to be grown in 124 countries, diverting land and resources away from food crops – even in places where people are starving.

Ahead of World No Tobacco Day on Wednesday 31 May, the World Health Organization (WHO) has released new findings about tobacco’s disastrous health impact on development in low and middle-income countries.

WHO’s Director for Health Promotion, Dr. Rüdiger Krech, also busts the myth of tobacco as a lucrative crop, before explaining how the UN system helps farmers embrace alternatives that are better for their health and food security. Here he is, talking to UN News’s Dominika Tomaszewska-Mortimer in Geneva.