UN Interviews

Donating goods overseas after disasters can be unhelpful and even harmful, and with the Pacific Cyclone season now in full swing, the World Food Programme (WFP) has begun a campaign urging people to donate more responsibly.  

Via the website www.donateresponsibly.org, the user is taken on a journey to discover why donations of things like clothing and food, which are thought to be helpful, may in fact have the opposite effect.  

Julia Dean from the UN Country Team in Australia spoke to Jo Pilgrim, Director of WFP’s Pacific Multi-Country office in Fiji, and started by asking her what the most donated items were.  

Following a decade of political instability and conflict, Libyans are on the path to peace and the international community “needs to do its part”, which includes respecting an arms embargo, the top UN official there has said, in an exclusive interview with our UN News Arabic team.

Stephanie Williams, Acting Special Representative of the Secretary-General, commended the first round of political talks between the Government of National Accord and the Libyan National Army, held last week in Tunisia.

Ms. Williams spoke to May Yaacoub about ongoing developments in Libya since the signing of a historic ceasefire agreed last month under the auspices of the UN mission in the country, UNSMIL, which she heads.

All around the world, people, plants and animals are dying from infections that cannot be treated – even with the best medicines available. 

That is because of the rise in antimicrobial resistance - the increasing failure of antibiotics and other life-saving drugs to treat diseases. 

It is a global problem that threatens to be the cause of the next pandemic, as the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Chief Veterinary Officer Keith Sumption explains to FAO’s Charlotta Lomas.  

The Asia-Pacific region is home to some of the most advanced space-faring nations on the planet; but at the same time, many countries there are lagging behind when it comes to developing space technology. 

In 2018, supported by the UN’s development arm in the region, ESCAP, countries endorsed an ambitious plan of action on the use of space technologies to power sustainable development.  

Two years on, there have been more than one hundred “good practices” adopted, that demonstrate the diverse uses of satellite technology and space data by countries, to address challenges on the ground. 

UN News’ Vibhu Mishra spoke with Keran Wang, head of the Space Applications Section at ESCAP, for the latest on how space technology is helping boost development.

The Black Lives Matter movement that is sweeping the world, has its origins in the transatlantic slave trade of the 16th century, and new impetus today, to honour and preserve the resting places of those who were enslaved, and their descendants.  

Back in the 1990s, Peggy King Jorde was working as a designer in the New York City mayor’s office when she heard that a building slated for construction was due to be built on top of an African-American burial ground in lower Manhattan. 

Coming from a family steeped in the civil rights movement, she swung into action to preserve the site, becoming heavily involved in saving others across the world, including one on the remote island of St. Helena, midway between Africa and the Americas. 

Ms. Jorde spoke to Liz Scaffidi about her work, and the importance of the island to her own family history. 

Empowering girls in Africa can put them on the fast track to achieve their aspirations and basic rights to which they’re entitled, but too often denied.  

That’s according to the UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, who is on a two-week solidarity visit to West Africa and the Sahel to underscore the United Nations’ support for the region, during the on-going COVID-19 pandemic.  

In a wide-ranging interview with the UN mission MINUSMA’s radio network, Mikado FM, the deputy UN chief discussed the importance of education as a foundation to advancing gender equality.  

Mikado’s Joyce de Pina began by asking her what the best way forward was for empowering women and girls. 

As the UN’s first-ever Victims’ Rights Advocate, Jane Connors has to confront an uncomfortable reality: sexual abuse and exploitation – or SEA for short - carried out by UN personnel.

Her most recent report detailed eighty SEA cases at peacekeeping and political missions in 2019, and 95 allegations recorded at other UN entities.

Three years on from the start of her mandate, which began in September 2017, UN News’s Conor Lennon, spoke to Ms. Connors who said that, since then, it has become more apparent that the on-going issue of sexual abuse and exploitation goes well beyond the peacekeeping sector.

The southeast Asian nation of the Philippines has been pummeled by the third major storm in three weeks, adding to the pain and suffering of thousands of families. 

Typhoon Vamco (locally known as Ulysses) made landfall on Wednesday night and although it is much weaker than Super Typhoon Goni, it brought catastrophic flooding across the capital Manila, a sprawling and densely populated city.  

UN News’s Vibhu Mishra spoke to the UN migration agency’s Kristin Dadey, Chief of Mission of IOM Philippines, who had just driven to Marikina, central Manila. She began by describing the scene, just hours after the latest storm’s arrival.