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KABUL - Sima, a widow for more than a year, is learning to sew at a centre in Kabul in hopes of making enough money to pay her rent and buy pencils and books for her four children. “Widows are very poor,” she told UNAMA. “We…

NEWYORK - This first International Widows’ Day is an occasion to call attention to the many “firsts” that women must face when their husbands die. In addition to coping with grief, they may find themselves for the first time…

KABUL - The United States Committee for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) today presented its annual Julia V. Taft Award to UNDP’s Afghanistan-based office for its exceptional work in helping the country to…

With 2.6 billion people still without access to a toilet or latrine, sanitation is one of the Millennium Development Goal targets that is lagging farthest behind. To accelerate action on expanding improved sanitation, build…

NEWYORK - This year marks the 60th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention. It is also 60 years since UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, was established. In that time the work of helping the world’s refugees and other forcibly…

The United Nations is set to unveil a report highlighting the vital work of midwives in ensuring that millions of women and newborn children do not die needlessly at a time when many countries still lack enough skilled staff…

NEWYORK - The Security Council today voted unanimously to split sanctions it has imposed on Al-Qaida and those against the Taliban, creating two lists of individuals and organizations so that they can be treated separately…

More civilians were killed in Afghanistan in May than in any other month since 2007, raising fears of a further escalation during the summer with serious humanitarian implications, according to Georgette Gagnon, the human…

The people who live in the arid lands, which occupy more than 40 per cent of our planet, are among the world’s poorest and most vulnerable to hunger. Frequently, they depend on land that is degraded and where productivity has…

KABUL - The number of countries collecting all their blood supplies from voluntary unpaid donors increased by more than 50 per cent between 2002 and 2008, according to new global data from the World Health Organization (WHO)…

13 June 2011 - September 21, 2011, marks the 30th anniversary of the International Day of Peace. As we begin today a 100-day countdown to the observance, we pay tribute to the many civil society activists who lent the…

12 June 2011 – On today’s World Day Against Child Labour, a newly released report by the UN International Labour Organization (ILO) has found that more than half of the world’s estimated 215 million child labourers are…