News headlines
UN, US sign $2 billion humanitarian funding agreement for 17 crisis-hit countries
- UN News

The United Nations and the United States on Monday formalized an agreement under which the US committed $2 billion in humanitarian assistance for global relief programmes, a move the UN’s top relief official hailed as a landmark commitment to saving lives amid escalating humanitarian needs worldwide.
UN chief urges world leaders to ‘get priorities straight’ as New Year message calls for peace over war
- UN News

As the world enters 2026 amid mounting crises, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres has issued a stark but hopeful New Year appeal, urging global leaders to shift resources away from destruction and towards development, peace and people.
The Fight Against Femicide: Victories and Setbacks in 2025
- Inter Press Service

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, December 27 (IPS) - Hours before world leaders gathered in Johannesburg for the 2025 G20 summit in November, hundreds of South African women wearing black lay down in a city park for 15 minutes — one for each woman who loses her life every day to gender-based violence in the country. The striking visual protest was organised by a civil society organisation, Women for Change, which also gathered over a million signatures demanding the government declare gender-based violence (GBV) a national disaster. Hours later, the government acquiesced.
‘People Reacted to a System of Governance Shaped by Informal Powers and Personal Interests’
- Inter Press Service

CIVICUS discusses Generation Z-led protests in Bulgaria with Zahari Iankov, senior legal expert at the Bulgarian Centre for Not-for-Profit Law, a civil society organisation that advocates for participation and human rights.
UN peacekeeper injured in gunfire near ‘Blue Line’ in south Lebanon
- UN News

One United Nations peacekeeper was injured on Friday after heavy machine gunfire from Israel Defense Forces (IDF) positions south of the Blue Line, following a nearby grenade explosion, impacted close to a UN patrol in southern Lebanon.
UN renews ceasefire push in Sudan
- UN News

The UN has urged Sudan’s warring parties to pursue compromise and an immediate ceasefire, even as drone attacks, displacement and the killing of peacekeepers underscore the growing risks to civilians and humanitarians.
Syria: Guterres deplores deadly mosque blast in Homs
- UN News

UN Secretary-General António Guterres “unequivocally condemns” the deadly terrorist attack on a mosque in Homs, Syria during Friday prayers, his spokesperson said in a statement
Sudan civil war: Health system ‘on the verge of collapse’
- UN News

The war in Sudan has been tearing the country apart for almost 1,000 days, putting the country’s health system under intolerable pressure. The World Health Organization (WHO) is reporting widespread disease outbreaks, severe shortages, malnutrition and rising deaths.
Sri Lanka cyclone: More than a million still need aid weeks after Ditwah floods
- UN News

Nearly a month after Cyclone Ditwah tore across Sri Lanka, more than a million people – including over half a million children – remain in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, as floods, landslides and renewed rainfall continue to compound one of the country’s worst disasters in decades.
Development cooperation agreement marks new phase in UN-Iraq partnership
- UN News

Better access to education, the protection of the environment and good governance are some of the areas in which the United Nations helps countries improve.

