NEW YORK, July 15 (IPS) - The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) took place in Seville, Spain from 30th June to 3rd July amidst intensifying attacks on multilateralism, unprecedented cuts to global aid and development financing, and regression of decades of progress in the fight against poverty.

UNITED NATIONS, July 14 (IPS) - The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is grappling with one of its worst cholera outbreaks in recent history, exposing deep systemic cracks in public health, water infrastructure, and humanitarian response, leaving its youngest citizens in peril.

UNITED NATIONS, July 14 (IPS) - The United Nations’ HOMO SARGASSUM exhibition served as a public immersion into the marine world and called upon viewers to take action in the face of the climate crisis, specifically regarding invasive species and water pollution.

HYDERABAD, India, July 14 (IPS) - When the Cali Fund was unveiled in February on the sidelines of COP16.2 in Rome, the announcement sent ripples through the global conservation community. For the first time ever, companies that profit from digital sequence information (DSI)—the digitized genetic material of plants, animals, and microorganisms—will be expected to pay into a multilateral fund to protect the very biodiversity they benefit from.

UNITED NATIONS, July 14 (IPS) - Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly developing and leaving its mark across the globe. Yet the implementation of AI risks widening the gap between the Global North and South.

The Security Council on Monday renewed the mandate of the UN mission in Yemen’s key port city of Hudaydah, as regional tensions spike and international concern mounts over recent Houthi rebel attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.

Escalating violence, displacement and heavy rains are deepening the needs of civilians caught in the war in Sudan, the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, said on Monday.

Amid runaway gang violence and crumbling state authority, the Security Council on Monday unanimously extended the mandate of the UN’s political mission in Haiti until the end of the year, amid escalating gang violence, political paralysis and a deepening humanitarian crisis threatening the country’s collapse.

Clashes on Sunday between Sunni Bedouin tribal fighters and Druze militia have reportedly left at least 30 dead in Syria’s predominantly-Druze city of Sweida.

Global life expectancy increased by an astonishing five years between 2000 and 2019. And then since the COVID-19 pandemic, it slid backwards by almost two. More than 110 million children have entered school since 2015 – but by 2023, 272 million children still had no access to the classroom.