January 24, 2022 No comments
‘Global learning crisis’ continues says Guterres; millions still hit
INTERNATIONAL, 24 January 2022, Culture and Education - Almost two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, school closures continue to disrupt the lives of over 31 million students, exacerbating what the United Nations’ Secretary General called “a global learning crisis.” “Unless we take action, the share of children leaving school in developing countries who are unable to read could increase from 53 to 70 per cent”, António Guterres warned in a video message marking the International Day of Education, on Monday. The UN chief remembered the “chaos” that COVID-19 caused in education worldwide, noting that, at the pandemic’s peak, some 1.6 billion school and college students had their studies interrupted. Despite the improvement, he believes the crisis is “not over yet”, and the turmoil goes beyond questions of access and inequality. World changing The theme for...
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January 24, 2022 No comments
‘No free ride’ for COVID, it's here ‘for the foreseeable future’: Tedros
INTERNATIONAL, 24 January 2022, Health - The world must accept that COVID-19 is with us “for the foreseeable future”, even if it is possible to end the acute phase of the pandemic this year, UN health agency chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Monday. Speaking in Geneva, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros noted that on average last week, 100 cases were reported every three seconds, and somebody lost their life to the coronavirus every 12 seconds. It is still “dangerous to assume that Omicron will be the last variant, or that we are in the endgame” of the pandemic, he said. “On the contrary, globally, the conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge,” Tedros insisted, exactly two years and a day since he declared the deadly virus...
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January 24, 2022 No comments
Unified Libya will come only via ballot box, ‘not the gun’, Security Council hears
INTERNATIONAL, 24 January 2022, Peace and Security - Libya is at a “delicate and fragile juncture in its path to unity and stability”, the UN Political Affairs chief told the Security Council on Monday, urging the international community to remain united in supporting national elections postponed last month. In welcoming positive developments across three different tracks of intra-Libyan dialogue, Rosemary A. DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, also recognized the challenges that must be overcome. “So many Libyans have told us, the way towards a stable and united Libya is through the ballot box, not the gun”, she said. “We must stand with them”. Postponed elections Growing polarization among political actors, and disputes over key aspects of the electoral process, led to the postponement of long anticipated elections on 24 December. The High National Commission for Elections (HNEC) cited shortcomings in the legal framework along with political and security concerns. To address this, the House of Representatives has established a Roadmap Committee to chart a...
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January 23, 2022 No comments
Interview: As millions fall behind, how can we bridge the growing education gap?
INTERNATIONAL, 23 January 2022, Culture and Education - The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating effect on education, laying bare a crisis that was already causing widespread concern well before the spread of the virus. Robert Jenkins, the Director of Education at the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, is calling for a transformation in learning, amid warnings that the current system is failing millions of people. Mr. Jenkins spoke to Conor Lennon from UN News ahead of this year’s International Day of Education, marked on 24 January. He began by outlining some of the effects the pandemic had on students worldwide. Robert Jenkins: It's important to remind ourselves that we still have a crisis in terms of the scale of the school closures and partial school closures....
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January 23, 2022 No comments
Bringing dry land in the Sahel back to life
INTERNATIONAL, 23 January 2022, Humanitarian Aid - Millions of hectares of farmland are lost to the desert each year in Africa’s Sahel region, but the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is showing that traditional knowledge, combined with the latest technology, can turn arid ground back into fertile soil. Those trying to grow crops in the Sahel region are often faced with poor soil, erratic rainfail and long periods of drought. However, the introduction of a state-of-the art heavy digger, the Delfino plough, is proving to be, literally, a breakthrough. As part of its Action Against Desertification (AAD) programme, the FAO has brought the Delfino to four countries in the Sahel region – Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal – to cut through impacted, bone-dry soil...
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