Every year, the United Nations recognizes institutions around the world for excellence in delivering public services. The UN Public Service Awards (UNPSA) is an annual competition, promoting the role, professionalism and visibility of public service. This year, from among the 403 institutions from 67 countries that were nominated, seven institutions from seven countries were selected to receive the prestigious award. The call has now been made to find the 2021 honorees.

We called it the “darkling plain”, or “3B” in the friendly phrase of the  elevator operator  as we plunged to the almost Julius Verne centre of the earth , the “third basement “ below United Nations headquarters, shorn of all light that was not fluorescent, soft table or vivid imagination.

The fashion industry has been considered the second most polluting industry in the world by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).  Some 93 billion cubic metres of water, enough to meet the needs of five million people, is used by the industry annually, and the amount of microfibre equivalent of 3 million barrels of oil is being dumped into the ocean every year.

With just 10 years to go, an ambitious global effort is being kicked off to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals – the world’s blueprint for fair globalization – by 2030.

We can still deliver on the 2030 promise, but it will take a major effort by everyone to tackle the most pressing challenges of our time – from ending poverty and hunger, protecting the planet and its biodiversity to ensuring human rights and dignity for everyone. The Decade of Action will mobilize more governments, more businesses and calling on all people to make the Goals their own.

Sustainable energy has the power to fuel progress across the Sustainable Development Agenda – it is generated from resources that are available to everyone, lights up homes in the remotest parts of the world, helps children learn and keeps girls in schools, runs equipment in hospitals, stores life-saving vaccines in cool conditions and creates more economic opportunities and jobs – without polluting the environment and warming the planet with fossil fuels. 

The UN Dag Hammarskjöld Library and the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) are hosting the United Nations Open Science Conference, entitled Towards Global Open Science: Core Enabler of the UN 2030 Agenda on Tuesday, 19 November 2019 from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at United Nations Headquarters in New York. 

One year ago United Nations Academic Impact announced the inauguration of the UNAI SDG Hubs, UNAI member institutions selected as exemplars for their innovative scholarship and engagement related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), who serve as resources for best practices for the UNAI network, currently composed of over 1,400 universities and colleges in more than 130 countries.

World Food Day, celebrated every year on 16 October, marks the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in 1945 as an organiz

World Food Day, celebrated every year on 16 October, marks the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in 1945 as an organization that deals with global food and agricultural issues. The number of people going hungry has increased since 2014 and the prevalence of undernourishment has remained virtually unchanged in the past 3 years.

Globally, the number of people living in extreme poverty – on US $1.90 a day – has dropped massively, from 36% in 1990 to 10% in 2015. But the pace of poverty reduction is slowing down and current projections suggest that 6% of the world’s population will still be living in extreme poverty in 2030, missing the target of the first Sustainable Development Goal.