Economic Losses and Displacement Should Drive Disaster Risk Reduction Efforts
Governance is an area of great focus this year for the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR). Agreement on 38 indicators for measuring progress on reducing disaster losses and achieving the Sendai Framework's seven targets has led to a global surge in efforts to record disaster losses and analysis of disaster trends following the launch in March 2018 of the Sendai Framework Monitor. United Nations Member States are signing up quickly to use the Monitor and to report on their disaster losses, such as overall mortality, numbers affected, economic losses and damage to critical infrastructure.
Upholding Our Values: Putting Victims at the Centre
I advocate within the United Nations system and among Member States, civil society and a broad range of other stakeholders to support an integrated response to victim assistance, so that it is rapidly and sensitively delivered; victims are respected, heard and listened to; their cases are taken seriously; and perpetrators are appropriately sanctioned.
Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights: The Cornerstone of Sustainable Development
Shortly after the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted in 2015, we spoke to 10 ten-year-old girls from around the globe, asking them what their one wish was. Their answers affirmed what the American poet Maya Angelou once wrote: We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.
What the SDGs Mean
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) define the world we want. They apply to all nations and mean, quite simply, to ensure that no one is left behind.
Ensuring That Survivors of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence Are Not Left Behind in the Sustainable Development Agenda
Today, the SDGs provide a comprehensive blueprint for addressing violence against women and enhancing peace and shared prosperity. The international community has set its sights on the year 2030 as the expiry date for gender-based inequality and violence in all its forms.
The #TimeIsNow for Solidarity and Sisterhood
In the nineteenth century, people around the world fought and defeated slavery. In the twentieth century, the struggle against racism and colonialism awoke the world's conscience again. The great challenge of the twenty-first century is embodied in the struggle against sexism, gender-based violence and all forms of oppression of women.
Promoting Sustainable Human Settlements: Its Relevance to the 2030 Agenda
UN-Habitat supports the achievement of SDGs in urban areas. The road map for doing so, the New Urban Agenda—UN-Habitat's framework for the realization of the transformative role of cities in sustainable development—was adopted at the Habitat III Conference in Quito, Ecuador, in 2016.
Strengthening the Rule of Law and Protection of Civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
From its original focus on the military criminal justice chain, MONUSCO support is increasingly shifting to the civilian justice system. Our work has demonstrated how political engagement matched with technical and logistical support can contribute to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, enforcing laws that uphold justice and develop strong institutions for sustainable peace.
Advancing Disarmament within the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
The 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a unique opportunity to revisit the historical relationship between disarmament and development. While SDG 16 on peaceful and inclusive societies, justice and strong institutions recognizes that durable peace and lasting conditions for security are necessary for long-term development, we need to better understand the diverse areas in which achieving disarmament objectives can contribute to the implementation of the SDGs.
In Quest of an Energy Justice Framework for Bangladesh
Energy justice is a concept that has been in use in academia around the world over the last decade. Although there is no universal single definition, energy justice evolved with the objective to ensure universal access to safe, affordable and sustainable energy for all individuals, across all areas and to protect from the disproportionate share of costs or negative impacts relating to building, operating and maintaining electric power generation, transmission, distribution system and to ensure equitable access to benefits from each system.
The Sustainable Development Goals and a Substantial Reduction in Illicit Arms Flows
Without a measurable reduction in its global burden, a growing threat of armed violence is a major obstacle for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 as it was for the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
A New Approach to Peace
At the end of the day, what we can't forget is that the UN was founded for peace. That's what its flag should stand for. Its success in preventing conflict should be the norm – not the exception.
The Role of UN-Water as an Inter-Agency Coordination Mechanism for Water and Sanitation
By 2050, the world’s population will have grown by around 2 billion people and demand for water will increase up to 30 per cent. Water is finite, so we must ask: how are we going to balance all of the competing demands on water resources while meeting our obligations to fulfil every person’s human right to water and sanitation?
Building the Scientific Knowledge Base to Support Countries to Better Manage Their Water Resources
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has been working towards this end for more than 40 years through its Division of Water Sciences, and, more precisely, the Member States of the International Hydrological Programme (IHP), the only intergovernmental programme of the United Nations system devoted to water research, and water resources management, education and capacity-building.
Ecosystems in the Global Water Cycle
There are a number of challenges to large-scale implementation of ecosystem-centric approaches in water management. They include, among others, an overwhelming dominance of grey infrastructure solutions in the current instruments of many States, lack of quantitative evidence on how ecosystem-focused approaches perform, and a lack of capacity to implement such approaches.