What are the UN’s top priorities, and can countries make more progress towards lasting peace, prosperity, and essential climate action?

UN Secretary-General António Guterres is urging the nations that make up the 74th General Assembly to provide “concrete answers” to the big challenges of our time.

In this exclusive UN News interview, Melissa Fleming, new head of Global Communications here at the UN, talks to António Guterres for our Lid Is On podcast, about the power of effective international cooperation, on the road to 2030.

Music Credit: Stage 1 Level 24 by Montplaisir.

The UN’s first Youth Climate Summit takes place in New York this Saturday where participants will include hundreds of young advocates from around the world.

One of them is 23-year-old Marie-Claire Graf from Switzerland, where  her “Sustainability Week” initiative aims to turn universities into sustainable role-models.

In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson in Geneva, Ms. Graf explained how she hoped to encourage others to do the same to tackle the climate “crisis”.

Back in June, Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, was elected by acclamation to preside over the 74th session of the General Assembly, which begins on Tuesday.

In his first major interview with UN News, Mr. Muhammad-Bande told Cristina Silveiro that poverty eradication, inclusion and quality education would be his top priorities in office.

Calling education “a complex matter”, he spelled out that “whoever is denied an education is denied almost everything”.

We “need more women in power positions”, the outgoing President of the 73rd General Assembly, María Fernanda Espinosa has told UN News, saying that gender parity and women's rights are not only about justice, but “about common sense”.

The President, or PGA – as insiders refer to those in the job – hands the gavel over on Tuesday, and said she wished she had longer to tackle issues that she believes need further development, including “bolder” reform on how the General Assembly operates.

“We need to look at how to implement, and…transform our resolutions” into improving the lives of people on the ground”, she said.

Ms. Espinosa looked back at her year in office, with UN News’s Eleuterio Guevane: