UNRWA was established by UN Member States in 1949 to carry out direct relief and development programmes for Palestinian people who lost their homes following the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. UN Photo has curated a collection from its archive that follows the agency’s critical work since it began operating throughout the...
The rumour began when Mr. Khrushchev travelled to New York at the height of the cold war. During the Assembly’s general debate for Heads of State and Government on 12 October 1960, he indicated that he wanted to make a point of order about the way his counterpart from the...
“Yet, out of millions of publications each year, fewer than five per cent are made available in accessible formats for visually impaired persons in developing countries,” he added. The global superstar, who lost his sight shortly after birth, was designated as a Messenger of Peace in 2009 with a focus...
Following the International Day of Epidemic Preparedness, marked annually on 27 December, we took a look at how two renowned actors helped the UN health agency in 1959. A singing legend, Mr. Sinatra lent his golden voice to WHO for a UN Radio story, telling the tale of two victims of...
Soon after becoming a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1988, she went on a mission to Ethiopia, where years of drought and civil strife had caused terrible famine. After visiting UNICEF emergency operations, she talked about the projects to media in the United States, Canada and Europe over several weeks, giving...
On the heels of the International Day of Neutrality, marked annually on 12 December, we took a look at Ms. Goodall’s contributions as a Messenger of Peace. Launched in 1997, the UN Messengers of Peace programme has designated more than a dozen influential individuals, including Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, Pakistani...
Eleanor Roosevelt played a key role as a member of the US delegation to the United Nations in the two-year-long process that led to the adoption in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She famously said that the “real change which must give to people throughout the world their...
On the eve of International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime, 9 December, we looked at the origin of the word. Mr. Lemkin developed the term partly in response to the Nazi policies of systematic murder of...
Why 29 November? On that day in 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on the partition of Palestine. At the founding commemoration of the international day, the then-UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim expressed a view echoed by successive secretaries-general that “events of these last years have made the world painfully aware...
Co-founding the groundbreaking magazine Ms. in 1972, Ms. Steinem and her colleagues brought feminist issues to the forefront. “For the first time, there are fewer females on Earth than males because of all the forms of violence,” Ms. Steinem said at UN Headquarters in 2016 to draw attention to violence...
The Oscar-winning actor helped the UN amplify the need for clean water in a South American village in a unique podcast (even before they were called podcasts) almost 70 years ago. Soundcloud The Hollywood legend memorably narrated The Well of Happiness in 1956, following a UN-led project in the South American...
The UN and its 193 Member States can bring a case within the Court’s jurisdiction and some of its decisions are shaping the planet’s common destiny. As the Court elects new judges from around the world on this #ThrowbackThursday, UN News is launching a weekly series, courtesy of our history-loving...