UN Interviews

Migration is part of the modern world, and it is not going away despite a COVID slowdown, a UN official has told UN News, just ahead of a new UN migration report launched on Friday.

Jorge Bravo, the head of the Population Policies and Development Branch at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), explained to Conor Lennon from UN News that it has never been easier or faster to move around the world, which is more integrated and connected than ever before.

Although movement restrictions brought in during the COVID-19 pandemic limited migration in 2020, Mr. Bravo said that the longer-term trend is still showing an increase in the numbers of people leaving their countries of origin to live elsewhere.

This week’s show features the week’s news headlines, an interview with the World Food Programme (WFP) on the poorest of the poor in Madagascar, some of whom are eating mud and leaves to survive, and insight from regular guests from the UN Geneva team, Solange Behoteguy-Cortes and Alpha Diallo.

Compared to last year, everything is in place to successfully fight the devastating desert locust swarms that have been threatening food supplies and livelihoods across the Horn of Africa region, according to the senior UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) official, in charge of forecasting the pest’s movements.

Charlotta Lomas spoke to Keith Cressman, who said that $80 million was still needed to control the scourge, through the coming months.

What progress is the world making in adapting to the changing climate? And can nature itself provide the answers? This is the focus of the first episode of the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) State of the Planet podcast.

Host Tim Albone speaks to Valerie Kapos, head of the Climate Change & Biodiversity Programme of the UNEP’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre. She and her team look at the role of “nature-based solutions”, which involve maintaining and restoring ecosystems such as mangrove forests, which provide protection against rising sea levels and extreme weather.

Tim and Ms. Kapos discuss the findings of the latest UNEP Adaptation Gap report, which details the scale of the gulf between countries’ ambitions in adapting to the crisis, and what they are doing in practice.

After years of drought, and with what little the people of Madagascar have managed to grow, destroyed by flashflooding, more than 1.3 million are in crisis - and some are even eating ground-up clay just to survive. 

Movement restrictions relating to COVID-19 have also made it impossible for the poorest of the poor to find work to tide them over the lean season, the World Food Programme, WFP, has warned. 

In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, WFP’s regional director for southern Africa, Lola Castro, explains how the UN agency is helping by empowering communities to withstand future climate shocks

Homeworking has necessarily exploded since the COVID-19 pandemic took a grip on the world in 2020, with the UN labour agency (ILO) estimating that it may have more than doubled, from around 260 million people in 2019, to some 580 million.

A new ILO report, released on Wednesday, lays out the penalties paid by those now having to work from home, which include higher health risks, lower wages, and social isolation.

However, Sergei Soares, a labour economist at the ILO who worked on the report, told UN News’s Conor Lennon, that some employers are happy with the productivity gains they have seen, which means the “great teleworking experiment” is likely to continue.

Mr. Soares began by explaining that the impetus behind the publication of the report was the fact that very few countries have ratified the ILO’s Home Work Convention, which entered into force some twenty years ago.

This week’s show features the week’s news headlines, an interview on the first post-COVID global survey on people’s priorities with UN75 chief Fabrizio Hochschild, and a rendition of one of the longest words in the indigenous Aymara language from Latin America – tune in to find out more… 

The world’s first global poll conducted during the COVID-19 crisis to ask people what their biggest needs, hopes and fears are, 75 years after the UN was founded, has turned up some surprising findings.

One of them, perhaps, is the fact that more people in low and middle income countries, than in rich nations, called for greater global solidarity for communities badly hit by the pandemic. 

In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, Under-Secretary-General Fabrizio Hochschild highlights the impact of the pandemic on people’s responses and explains what concrete action will be essential in the years ahead.

Well over 2,500 migrants and refugees have been forced to sleep rough in Bosnia-Herzegovina for several weeks – on the European Union’s doorstep – despite the fact that suitable sheltered accommodation is available. 

In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, Peter Auweraert, chief of mission in Bosnia for the UN Migration Agency IOM, describes the difficulties of trying to find a quick solution to the urgent problem.  

He also explains why it is so important that all countries abide by their international commitments to helping vulnerable people, in line with the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, adopted by a majority of UN Member States in December 2018. 

In this final special 75th anniversary podcast from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Andre Vornic looks at the continuing struggle to not just keep people alive, but help them thrive through access to healthy, nutritious food, on an equitable basis. 

The agency in 2021 is working on finally achieving food security for all – with nutrition, diplomacy, technological advances and environmental sustainability all in play. 

Producer and reporter: Andre Vornic