Sep 24 (IPS) - Impact Funds would make the business of innovation more cost-effective and enable a triple win for the potential beneficiaries of innovations.

South Sudan is “ready to turn a new page” towards greater peace, development and prosperity, Vice-President Rebecca Nyandeng de Mabior said in her speech in the UN General Assembly on Friday. 

Looking back over the first four days of the high-level week, the Ireland’s Prime Minister said a series of alarms have sounded in the Hall of the General Assembly: for conflict, for COVID, for climate.  

Announcing the donation of up to 60 million COVID-19 vaccines to the UN-led COVAX facility, Yoshihide Suga, Japan’s Prime Minister, said that his country is determined to lead the global efforts to end the pandemic.

NEW DELHI, India, Sep 24 (IPS) - For the first time in decades, Jordan’s economy contracted in 2020. COVID-19 took a heavy toll on the economy, and it was concerning for the country, particularly because Jordan had managed to grow at an average rate of 2%, despite regional and international shocks to its economy amounting to 44% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the past decade.

Hungary’s Foreign Minister on Thursday evening called for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines and warned that without it, “massive waves of migrants will hit the road” in search of healthcare and relief from the pandemic’s economic fallout.

A decade of war in Syria has left more 350,200 people dead, High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet told the Human Rights Council on Friday, noting that this total was an “under-count of the actual number of killings”.

After a month-long political crisis, Lebanon has embarked on a new phase that will “hopefully mark a promising step on the path of recovery”, the country’s President old the 76th session of the UN General Assembly on Friday.

Ensuring all Afghan girls can be educated must be “a zero condition” for the Taliban, before international recognition of their de facto authority, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said on Friday.

The President of the State of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas on Friday called on the UN Secretary-General to convene an international peace conference and said that to ensure that this initiative is not open-ended, Israel must withdraw from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem within one year.