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"The world of work cannot and should not look the same after this crisis"
The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the world of work upside down. Every worker, every business and every corner of the globe has been affected. Hundreds of millions of jobs have been lost.
Battling COVID-19 misinformation hands-on
In such places as refugee camps where the availability of digital tools is limited, fighting rumours and myths about COVID-19 does not require sophisticated artificial intelligence. Refugees in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar use bicycles and loudspeakers to deliver accurate information door to door.
UN debit cards provide safety net during COVID-19
Venezuelan manicurists Silany and Francis arrived in Brazil a month ago, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and were unable to get a job because of mandatory social-distancing measures. Thanks to a UNHCR cash transfer program, they will be able to sustain themselves and pay their basic living expenses.
Somalia braces for COVID-19
Since it first emerged at the start of 2020 as a global health crisis, COVID-19 has spread to nearly every country in the world. Defined as the greatest challenge the world has faced in decades, the pandemic has disrupted entire nations’ social, economic and political lives. Somalia joined the long list of countries dealing with COVID-19 on 16 March 2020, when federal Health Minister Fawziya Abikar announced the first confirmed case. A series of urgent measures have been taken to protect the population.
UN supports LGBTI community during COVID-19 pandemic
With New York City’s Pride March this month to be organized virtually for the first time in its 50-year history, the United Nations is continuing to support lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex (LGBTI) people, who are among the most vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic.
UN supporting ‘trapped’ domestic violence victims during COVID-19 pandemic
Around the world, stay-at-home measures put in place to reduce the spread of COVID-19 resulted in women and girls being trapped indoors, unprotected from violence and abuse. The United Nations is working with Governments to make the prevention and redress of violence against them a key part of their national response plans. Unique solutions are emerging. In some European countries, pharmacies and supermarkets have become “go-to” places where the utterance of a code word (“MASK 19”) signals an urgent cry for help.
COVID-19 creates challenges for international students in Iceland
Six months after their arrival in Iceland an international group of 20 students finished their Postgraduate Diploma in International Gender Equality at the University of Iceland under the auspices of UNESCO.
COVID-19: UN helps countries fight complacency as they reopen
In some countries, businesses are slowly opening again and students are returning to school, following COVID-19-induced closures. Elsewhere, the pandemic is yet to peak. The United Nations is working with Governments to fine-tune plans to reopen battered economies while warning that complacency and lifting “stay-at-home” orders and other restrictions too fast could invite a second wave of new cases.
UN agencies provide comprehensive protection for Lebanese during COVID-19
As the pandemic penetrates more areas, what does serious work to contain it look like? That question is uppermost in the minds of public health and political leaders around the globe. For Lebanon, a relatively small country, it must look collaborative if the work is going to succeed.
Brazilian artisans make protective gear to protect against COVID-19
In Ipiranga, a rural city of 10,000 habitants in Piauí, an organization of artisans found themselves with less work because of the coronavirus pandemic. Aware of the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) for health professionals in the region, the Association of Artisans in the City of Ipiranga-Piauí (ASSARIPI) changed their usual work programme to produce face masks and hair caps.
"We need to act now to avoid the worst impacts of our efforts to control the pandemic"
There is more than enough food in the world to feed our population of 7.8 billion people. But, today, more than 820 million people are hungry. And some 144 million children under the age of 5 are stunted – more than one in five children worldwide. Our food systems are failing, and the Covid-19 pandemic is making things worse.
An Inside Look: Next steps towards ‘new normal’ in UN Headquarters
To comply with local health advisories, the United Nations Headquarters complex has remained largely closed since mid-March, with only a few hundred personnel coming to work to perform on-site functions. However, with New York City gradually moving to ease those restrictions, the UN is also gearing up for its return to normalcy in three phases.
Bolivian rapper drops beats to beat COVID-19
"It's like waking up in a movie one day and realising that the virus is everywhere," says Christian Lawrence Velez Zambrana, who’s better known in the Bolivian hip-hop world as "Krisso MC”.
Quarantine halts migrants in Panama
Migrants from Haiti, Congo, Bangladesh, and Yemen, who were traveling to find a better life in the United States and Canada, now find themselves quarantined for more than 50 days in Panama. They are sheltering at an official government migration support station in the small town of La Pe?ita near Panama’s border with Colombia. Their movement has been stopped by border closings and fears that they are carriers of COVID-19. They come from Haiti, the Congo, Bangladesh, and Yemen.
"The COVID-19 crisis is an opportunity to reimagine human mobility"
COVID-19 continues to devastate lives and livelihoods around the globe — hitting the most vulnerable the hardest. This is particularly true for millions of people on the move — such as refugees and internally displaced persons who are forced to flee their homes from violence or disaster, or migrants in precarious situations.