UN Interviews

Here at UN News, we do try to avoid overloading you with too many facts and figures, but here’s one that’s worth remembering: the Human Rights Council has reached an historic milestone of convening this week, for its 50th session. 

The world’s preeminent forum for discussing rights issues of concern was created by the UN General Assembly, back in 2006.  

Fast forward to today, and for the current President of the General Assembly, Abdulla Shahid, the Human Rights Council’s recently adopted resolutions on human rights and climate change have a personal significance, as he explains to Dominika Tomaszewska-Mortimer. 

Hurricanes, COVID-19 and now the Ukraine crisis: these are the three main reasons why hunger levels are spiking across Latin America and the Caribbean.

According to the UN World Food Programme, or WFP, many families are so desperate that they’re prepared to risk their lives on a highly dangerous jungle crossing, linking South and North America, known as the Darien Gap.

With the details, here’s WFP’s Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Lola Castro, who’s been talking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson in Geneva.

Amid ongoing insecurity in some regions of Mali, the UN Mission in the country, MINUSMA, maintains an effective presence protecting civilians and supporting implementation of a 2015 peace deal. 

That’s the message from El-Ghassim Wane, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Mali and Head of MINUSMA, who is in New York this week to address the Security Council. 

Ahead of the meeting, Mr. Wane sat down with UN News’s Dianne Penn, who began by asking him if there has been any progress on the political front since he last briefed the Council in April. 

As the world prepares to mark International Albinism Awareness Day on Monday 13 June, a top UN-appointed independent rights expert has insisted that progress is being made on raising awareness about the discrimination and dangers that people with albinism face. 

Muluka-Anne Miti Drummond, who’s the UN Independent Expert on the rights of persons with albinism, has been speaking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson. 

More than 40 different country situations of concern will be put under the international spotlight at the Human Rights Council’s landmark 50th session beginning on Monday, in Geneva.

Created in 2006, the forum is the most important multilateral body for the advancement of people’s freedoms, which recently have included strong and unequivocal action against racism and the challenges posed by climate change, as President of the Council, Federico Villegas tells UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

First families lose their land, then their livestock and then their children; that’s the stark reality of life right now in the Horn of Africa, where millions of people have been hit by successive failed rainy seasons.

According to UN Children’s Fund UNICEF, hundreds of thousands of Somali children are in desperate need of treatment for life-threatening severe acute malnutrition, more even than during the brutal 2011 famine.

With more details, here’s Rania Dagash, UNICEF Deputy Director for eastern and southern Africa, speaking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

There is room for optimism that the war in Ukraine will end, but meanwhile, the UN is planning how best to protect millions of civilians through the harsh winter that begins in just a few months’ time.

That’s according to Crisis Coordinator for Ukraine, Amin Awad, speaking exclusively to UN News, marking the 100 days since the 24 February Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Abdelmonem Makki, began by asking Mr. Awad if he thought the fighting could end anytime soon.

When your country is at war, chances are you might have other priorities than attending an event at the UN that promotes peace. 

But that’s not the case for Ukrainian teenager Daria Yelisieienko, who travelled all the way from her war-torn country this week, to show her support for United Nations peacekeepers everywhere. 

These soldiers with their trademark blue helmets are honoured every year on 30 May, the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers, at ceremonies such as the one that took place at UN Geneva this Monday - which is where UN News’s Daniel Johnson caught up with Daria. 

Ocean and global climate are intrinsically linked – and if the “right decisions are made at the UN Ocean Conference, the Ocean will be a big part of Portugal’s future”. 

That’s the view of Samuel Collins, a project manager at the Oceano Azul Foundation in Lisbon. 

The organization plays a big role in ocean literacy, aiming to educate a “blue generation”, works on ocean conservation, and also supports the development of startups creating products and services with positive environmental impact. 

UN News’s Ana Carmo talked to Sam Collins, and started by asking him about the expectations for the upcoming UN Ocean Conference that will take place in the Portuguese capital at the end of June. 

From conserving marine biodiversity to awareness raising and seafood consumption, Associação Natureza Portugal, or ANP, runs several projects that are contributing to a healthier ocean.

Based in the coastal city of Lisbon, Portugal, the non-governmental organization works in line with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Ahead of the UN Ocean Conference, which is taking place there at the end of June, UN News’ Ana Carmo spoke on the phone with ANP’s Director of Conservation and Policy, Catarina Grilo, and Nuno Barros, a specialist in Ocean and Fisheries.

She starts by asking them how co-managing small-scale fisheries can contribute to ocean health.