New UN websites & publications
TOPIC OF THE MONTH: Disaster Risk
https://www.preventionweb.net/m/hubs/disaster-risk-communication-hub/
Explore UNDRR’s updated Risk Communication Hub on PreventionWeb. The platform brings together guidance, research, tools and practical examples to support more effective risk communication. The hub includes resources on audience research, developing risk communication strategies, understanding risk perception and behaviour, strengthening trust and information integrity, and designing inclusive communication.
https://www.undrr.org/publication/documents-and-publications/harmful-information-disasters-risk-communication-safer
Harmful information can undermine protective action, disrupt response operations and erode trust during disasters. This guidance note examines the drivers and impacts of harmful information in disaster contexts and explains how weaknesses in the information environment can affect how people access, understand, assess and act on information.
It provides practical approaches for government authorities, public communication professionals and disaster risk management practitioners. It covers how to prepare before a crisis, communicate under pressure and uncertainty, monitor and assess emerging harmful narratives, decide when and how to respond, coordinate escalation where necessary, and review and learn after a crisis.
https://www.undp.org/publications/frontiers-information-integrity-climate-change-and-climate-related-disasters-information-integrity-interventions-landscape-report
This landscape report examines how misinformation, disinformation and other forms of information pollution are affecting climate action and responses to climate-related disasters, and how different actors are responding. It draws on a mapping of several hundred information integrity interventions across thematic areas, including almost fifty focused specifically on climate change and climate-related disasters, to identify patterns in the types of challenges addressed, approaches and strategies deployed, and actors involved.
The report provides a clearer understanding of how information pollution affects climate change and climate-related disasters, how actors are responding to these challenges, and what lessons can inform future action towards strengthening information integrity in climate and disaster-related contexts.
Further information:
- UNDRR – UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction: https://www.undrr.org/
- PreventionWeb – The risk knowledge hub for the global DRR community: https://www.preventionweb.net/
- International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, 13 October: https://iddrr.undrr.org/, https://www.un.org/en/observances/disaster-reduction-day
- World Bank Group LibGuide – Disaster Risk Management: https://libguides.worldbank.org/disasterriskmanagement
UN in General
English: https://www.un.org/en/annualreport
French: https://www.un.org/fr/annualreport
Spanish: https://www.un.org/es/annualreport
In a world marked by turbulence, division and uncertainty, the latest Secretary-General’s Report on the Work of the Organization delivers a clear message: the United Nations is more necessary than ever. Available in all six official UN languages, the report provides a clear and grounded account of the Organization’s work and the tangible, often life-saving difference made by those who serve under the UN flag. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres presented the report live on 22 September 2026 in his address to Member States, ahead of the opening of the general debate of the 81st session of the General Assembly.
United Nations Handbook 2026-27
https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/peace-rights-and-security/our-work-with-the-un/un-handbook
The UN Handbook is a valuable reference guide that helps everyone working with or within the United Nations navigate the UN system effectively. New Zealand has demonstrated its long-standing commitment and practical support for the United Nations by producing the UN Handbook since 1961.
https://www.un.org/independent-international-scientific-panel-ai/en/thematic-briefs/ai-agents-misalignment-risks
This September 2026 thematic brief examines the incident as one of the clearest real-world warnings yet of one possible route to loss of human control over AI: capable agents pursuing goals that conflict with human intentions.
Between May and July 2026, AI agents in OpenAI’s cybersecurity training and evaluations bypassed network restrictions, communicated across runs meant to stay separate, cheated an evaluator and tried to hide it, and compromised parts of OpenAI’s and Hugging Face’s systems. No human directed the individual steps.
Drawing on disclosures by both companies, an independent investigation by METR and wider research, the brief finds that greater capability can help misaligned systems find loopholes and conceal their actions. It does not estimate the probability or timing of severe loss of control, but notes that stopping this activity does not demonstrate that humans will retain control over more capable agents.
Building on the Panel’s Preliminary Report, the brief explains how training can give rise to misaligned goals and behaviours, including reward hacking and reward tampering. It notes that AI failures can cross company and national borders, and that no single organisation or country sees enough incidents to identify every emerging pattern. Rather than issuing recommendations, the brief reviews approaches used in fields such as aviation, nuclear power, and cybersecurity as possible options for decision-makers.
https://data.un.org/undatacommons/
How do you make sense of a world facing interconnected crises, from poverty and hunger to climate change, if the facts are scattered across dozens of different places?
The United Nations system is hoping to make that task much easier with the launch of the UN System Data Commons, a new online platform that brings together data and statistics from across the Organization into a single gateway.
Speaking at UN Headquarters in New York on 17 September 2026, Secretary-General António Guterres unveiled the new platform, which allows users to search, explore and access trusted publicly available data from 26 UN entities in one website.
“Behind every statistic is a human story,” the UN chief said, pointing to children whose futures depend on education, families struggling with rising food prices and communities facing growing climate risks.
“To serve them, we must understand their challenges – and know whether we are making a difference,” he said.
Recent weeks, including at the opening of the UN General Assembly, have seen intensifying debates about the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). How do we make sure that it is powered for good and in the service of humanity? One such AI tool – the SDG Chat – has just been launched to make reliable sustainable development information more accessible to people around the world. This innovative platform offers a wealth of trusted data and resources produced by UN DESA on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Its goal: help accelerate action towards their delivery.
What do you want to know about the Sustainable Development Goals? Start using the SDG Chat by going to https://desapublications.un.org/, clicking the SDG Chat logo and typing your questions.
Further information: https://www.un.org/en/desa/new-sdg-chat-launched
https://www.un.org/en/global-risk-report
Two years ago, the idea of a large-scale war breaking out felt like a distant hypothetical to the experts who help chart the world’s dangers. Today it tops their list of fears, according to this new UN Global Risk Report, released on 15 September 2026.
The study draws on the views of 1,300 people from government, international organizations, civil society, the private sector and academia, spanning every region of the world.
They rated 28 political, economic, environmental, societal and technological threats on how likely they were, how damaging, and how ready the world was to cope.
https://www.undp.org/publications/undps-action-agenda-moving-beyond-crisis
More than 160 million people risk being trapped in crisis without the longer-term support needed to rebuild their lives, restore livelihoods and access essential services, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said on 23 September 2026.
These people remain in humanitarian need but fall outside the 87 million prioritized for lifesaving assistance in 2026. As humanitarian partners focus resources on the most immediate and severe needs, development investment has a critical initial role to play alongside humanitarian action, helping people rebuild their lives and creating pathways to recovery.
In response, UNDP launched the Moving Beyond Crisis Action Agenda, which calls for greater support and investment in development from the outset of a crisis. This means investing earlier and sustaining support for recovery so countries and communities can move beyond repeated cycles of crisis.
Its central proposition is simple: development should not wait for a crisis to end. By investing from day one, alongside humanitarian action, countries and communities can begin rebuilding sooner, reduce future humanitarian needs and strengthen resilience to the next shock.
UNDP’s new agenda was launched at a high-level event convened by the Government of Lebanon, the European Union and UNDP during the UN General Assembly High-Level Week.
Economic Growth and Sustainable Development
https://doi.org/10.4060/ce1741en
This activity booklet is designed for children aged 8–12, but it can be a valuable learning resource for both younger and older students. It introduces the connection between fashion, food and agriculture in a simple and engaging way, encouraging readers to explore how everyday choices – such as the food we eat and the clothes we wear – can affect the health and well-being of people and the planet.
For additional activity books on other topics – click here.
https://www.who.int/europe/publications/i/item/WHO-EURO-2026-13288-53062-82856
This new WHO/Europe study finds that greater exposure to adverse childhood experiences is strongly associated with poorer mental health, quality of life and socioeconomic outcomes in young adulthood.
More than 2 in 3 young adults surveyed across the European Union, Iceland and Norway report experiencing at least 1 adverse childhood experience (ACE), according to a new report from the WHO Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe).
The findings come from a survey of more than 26 000 young adults aged 18–30, recruited through national panels, with data collected between November 2025 and January 2026. The study measured exposure to 9 forms of adversity, including abuse, neglect and household dysfunction (e.g. domestic violence, living with a household member experiencing mental illness or substance use issues), and looked at patterns across countries rather than ranking them.
https://unece.org/info/publications/pub/416640
The document examines the rapidly growing impact of data centres, artificial intelligence facilities, hydrogen electrolyzers, cryptocurrency mining operations, and other large electricity consumers on power systems. The report highlights how these grid-shaping loads are transforming electricity demand patterns through their scale, concentration, and operational characteristics, creating significant challenges for resource adequacy, system reliability, resilience, network planning, and energy affordability. At the same time, it emphasizes that, if properly integrated, large electric loads can provide flexibility, demand response, energy storage support, waste heat utilization, and other services that enhance overall energy system efficiency and support the transition to cleaner electricity systems.
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240124073
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping health research, creating new opportunities to accelerate scientific discovery, strengthen health systems and improve health outcomes. However, without robust ethical safeguards and oversight, AI-related research could also introduce new risks that undermine human rights, equity and public trust.
This new WHO report provides recommendations for researchers, ethics committees, regulators, funders and policy-makers to help ensure that AI-enabled health research is conducted responsibly and for the benefit of all. The report was jointly developed by WHO experts working in research ethics, science and digital health and AI.
https://doi.org/10.1596/45519
This report examines how behavioral factors shape the effectiveness of plastic waste management systems, emphasizing that infrastructure alone is insufficient to improve outcomes. Drawing on case studies from nine countries across five regions, it identifies behavioral barriers across the plastic value chain, including low trust in waste services, limited participation, affordability constraints, and convenience-related frictions. The report highlights evidence from surveys, experiments, qualitative research, and observational exercises involving over 14,000 participants. It recommends behaviorally informed strategies such as localized messaging, improved choice architecture, incentives, and trust-building measures to strengthen source separation, collection reliability, recycling, recovery rates, and pollution reduction.
https://greenforwardindustry.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/UNIDO_Circular-Economy-Perspectives-in-Solar-Value-Chains_2026.pdf
Behind every solar installation is a household, a business or a public service that depends on it working, and on someone being able to fix it when it does not. How to keep those systems delivering is the subject of this publication, launched on 15 September 2026 by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) at the World Circular Economy Forum 2026.
https://www.unicef.org/reports/education-strategy
With fewer than five years remaining to achieve SDG 4, the global learning crisis has become one of the defining challenges of our time. Across the world, education systems are facing a profound challenge in ensuring that every child achieves meaningful learning outcomes, with millions still not gaining the knowledge, skills and opportunities they need to thrive. At the same time, rapid technological, social and environmental change is raising a more fundamental question: can education systems designed for an earlier era prepare children for the future they will inherit? UNICEF’s experience shows that improving education outcomes will require not only stronger systems, but also a reimagining of how, where and when children learn.
Shaping the Future of Learning, UNICEF’s Education Strategy 2026, responds to this urgent challenge. The strategy sets out UNICEF’s vision for accelerating learning, equity and skills development for every child and adolescent, while supporting countries to transform education systems at scale. Building on the foundation of the Education Strategy 2019-2030, it clarifies the priorities, operating model and partnerships required to drive impact and serves as a roadmap for implementing UNICEF’s Strategic Plan 2026-2029.
El Niño is strengthening. Is your business ready? (UNDRR)
https://www.preventionweb.net/publication/documents-and-publications/el-nino-strengthening-your-business-ready
This document is a concise executive advisory from the UNDRR Corporate Chief Resilience Officers (CCRO) Network that urges business leaders and boards to prepare for the impacts of a strengthening El Niño event expected to persist into 2027. It explains how El Niño can disrupt operations through drought, flooding, extreme heat, supply chain interruptions, asset damage and commodity price shocks, drawing on recent examples including the Panama Canal transit restrictions, West African cocoa shortages and Southern African drought. The advisory highlights that predictable climate shocks reward advance preparation and argues that resilience investments are often more cost-effective than responding once disruptions occur.
https://doi.org/10.4060/cd3592en
Forests and trees play a crucial role in providing nutritious food, and more than 5 billion people worldwide rely on them to some extent for their livelihoods. Yet their contribution to food security and nutrition remains largely overlooked in national statistics and policy frameworks.
This new global report published on 15 September 2026 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and developed jointly with the Landscape Alliance, highlights the importance of forests in reducing hunger and poverty and calls on countries to include them into agrifood system policies.
The report, titled comes at a critical moment. According to the latest UN report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, around 645 million people experienced chronic hunger in 2025.
At the same time, forests worldwide continue to face challenges. Over the last decade, the world lost an average of 10.9 million hectares of forest each year. Deforestation and forest degradation reduce biodiversity, weaken ecosystem services and can ultimately undermine agricultural productivity and access to nutritious food.
https://doi.org/10.4060/ce1223en
Across farms, rangelands and waters around the world, women sustain food systems through their labour, knowledge and resilience. From growing crops and herding livestock to fishing, processing and trading food, their contributions are essential yet too often overlooked. Published during the International Year of Woman Farmer and the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, this cookbook celebrates the women behind the recipes, highlighting the skills, traditions and innovations that nourish communities and support more sustainable agrifood systems.
https://unsdg.un.org/resources/shock-resilience-protecting-development-gains-amid-compounding-crises-september-2026
Over the past six years, developing countries have been impacted by multiple external shocks: the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, massive energy, food and fertiliser price hikes in 2022 due to the Russia-Ukraine war and, since February of this year, the global socio-economic spillovers from the conflict in the Middle East.
Many countries are navigating this latest shock with restricted policy space, constrained by weak public finances, inadequate access to international support and an intensifying debt-development trade-off.
This policy brief, authored by the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Development Coordination Office, outlines the main global trends and transmission channels of this external shock. It also uses reporting and survey data from across UN Country Teams to examine how the shock compounds existing crises, including El Niño and other climate-related impacts, food insecurity and hunger hotspots, conflict and displacement. The policy brief highlights how these overlapping pressures affect countries’ exposure and response capacity, and sets out their policy priorities and how the UN system is supporting countries in navigating a context of compounding crises.
https://www.unido.org/future-industrialization
For centuries, industrialization has been humanity’s most powerful engines of progress, creating jobs, lifting millions out of poverty and building the modern world. But the pathways to prosperity that worked in the past can no longer secure our future. The world is shaken by climate stress, fractured supply chains, AI divide, geopolitical tension, and deep inequality. Yet The Future of Industrialization: Rethinking Economic Development is not a story of disruption. It is a story of opportunity.
The book brings together an unusual range of global voices to tackle one of the defining questions of our time: How can countries create jobs, prosperity and resilience without repeating the mistakes of the past – and while staying within planetary boundaries?
https://www.who.int/europe/publications/i/item/WHO-EURO-2026-13697-53471-83924
Women make up almost 77% of the health and care workforce across the WHO European Region but earn 19% less per hour than men and 28% less a month, according to this new WHO/Europe report published on 18 September 2026 covering 43 countries.
The pay gap widens sharply as earnings increase. At the bottom of the pay scale, women earn about 2% less than men per hour, but at the top, the pay gap reaches almost 23%. On paper, women’s qualifications and experience would see them earning slightly more than men in the best-paid roles, yet in practice they are earning less.
That pattern points to something other than differences in age, education or working hours. Managerial jobs in health and care employ more women than management roles in other sectors do and pay less for it: €22.00 per hour on average, against €24.70 in comparable roles elsewhere. The more a role in the sector is dominated by women, the report finds, the lower it tends to be paid, regardless of the skills or responsibilities it requires.
English, French & Spanish: https://www.itu.int/pub/R-HDB-45-2026
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) call on governments, regulators, and meteorologists to safeguard access to radio frequency spectrum essential for weather forecasts, early warnings, climate monitoring and water management.
The appeal comes with the release of this new joint handbook that offers updated guidance on the use and protection of radio frequencies supporting critical meteorological systems. These systems enable observations of the atmosphere, oceans, and land, and the transmission of data that supports life-saving early warnings, reliable weather forecasting, and long-term climate monitoring.
The ITU-WMO handbook, formally released at the opening of the Global ITU-WMO Seminar on Spectrum Use for Meteorology, also highlights the potential impact of radio-frequency interference on the accuracy and availability of essential environmental data.
https://www.undp.org/publications/parliaments-and-artificial-intelligence-governing-ai-public-interest
The speed and scale of AI development are testing the capacity of all governance institutions. Yet parliaments occupy a unique position in this landscape. As the elected representatives of the people, they hold the mandate to legislate, hold governments accountable, and to ensure that the voices and values of citizens are reflected in the rules that govern society. How parliaments respond to AI, in part, can help shape whether this technology serves the public interest or deepens existing inequalities.
This paper provides parliaments and parliamentary support actors with an accessible overview of the rapidly evolving landscape of parliamentary engagement with AI. Drawing on evidence gathered by UNDP and partners, it outlines what parliaments themselves are identifying as priority concerns, how they are beginning to take action and what support they need.
https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2026/09/progress-on-the-sustainable-development-goals-the-gender-snapshot-2026
The Gender Snapshot 2026 report, released on 17 September 2026 by UN Women and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), shows that where women hold real power, outcomes improve across every dimension of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – from peace to education, and from poverty to climate action. Yet the very institutions built over decades to advance gender equality are being systematically weakened, stalling or reversing progress at precisely the moment when the world cannot afford to go backwards.
The findings of the Gender Snapshot 2026 report reveal a political retreat from gender equality that is crosscutting, measurable, and compounding. One in three institutional mechanisms for gender equality has had its institutional power eroded over the past two years. Around one in four have seen their operating budgets cut over the same period, and nearly one in ten have lost control of their budget altogether. Funding for gender equality has fallen to its lowest level since 2021, with funding for women’s rights organizations most impacted. Meanwhile, amid funding cuts, 42 per cent of UN entities report a weakening of their gender equality efforts.
https://www.unicef.org/reports/learning-interrupted
More than 171 million students globally – or 1 in 10 – from pre-primary to upper secondary age had their schooling disrupted by climate hazards in 2025, according to this new analysis released by UNICEF on 10 September 2026.
It analyses data from 106 countries or territories and finds that climate hazards including storms, floods, heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires led to suspended classes, damaged schools, a shift to remote learning, shortened instructional time, reduced school attendance, and increased risk of dropout for millions of students worldwide.
PDF version: https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2026-09/Guidance-Emigration.pdf
Online version: https://w3.unece.org/emig2026/webpage1.html
Prepared by the Conference of European Statisticians Task Force on Measuring Emigration, this publication provides guidance on data sources, methods for evaluating and communicating emigration statistics, and the use of mirror statistics – that is, the use of immigration records from destination countries to estimate emigration from countries of origin. It also offers recommendations to national statistical offices on improving the production of emigration statistics, validating emigration estimates, and strengthening data sharing and international cooperation.
The publication is intended to support national statistical offices and other producers of migration statistics, while helping users better understand how emigration data are compiled and evaluated.
https://www.undp.org/publications/political-economy-analysis-just-green-transitions-guide-practitioners
The transition to a low-carbon, climate-resilient future is not only a technical challenge, it is fundamentally a governance and political economy challenge. Understanding the political, institutional and socioeconomic dynamics shaping reform is critical to advancing green transitions that are just, inclusive and people-centred. If neglected, these dynamics can hinder and or entirely derail transition processes.
This UNDP Guidance Note provides a practical framework for integrating Political Economy Analysis (PEA) into programming for just green transitions and supports systems thinking. It helps advance UNDP’s Climate Promise and just transition programmes more broadly and can be applied flexibly across contexts and at different levels of intensity.
https://unece.org/sustainable-energy/publications/unece-protocol-full-system-value-and-cost-approach-resilient-and
As countries pursue their energy transition and seek to reduce dependance on volatile imported fossil energy resources, energy use is shifting steadily from molecules to electrons, a structural transformation expected to double electricity demand worldwide by 2050. Meeting this demand sustainably remains a challenge. Fossil fuels still account for about half of power generation in the pan-European region and North America, with the sector emitting over 4 gigatonnes of CO₂ annually, some 30% of the region’s total. At the same time, recent large-scale blackouts in Central Asia in August and in the Iberian Peninsula in April 2025 have shown that reliability of electricity systems can no longer be taken for granted. As growing shares of renewables enter the system and thermal plants retire, the services that keep the grid stable, such as inertia, frequency response, voltage support, must be deliberately planned and secured. To support countries in navigating these challenges, UNECE publishes this Protocol on 29 September 2026.
https://www.ifad.org/en/w/publications/sending-money-home-2026
Remittance inflows to low- and middle-income countries reached US$728.6 billion in 2025—more than four times global official development assistance that year and greater than foreign direct investment to those countries, according to this new report launched on 14 September 2026 by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
The report, finds that remittances have remained one of the world’s largest and most consistent sources of household finance over the past decade, helping families meet basic needs, build resilience and invest in their futures, even in times of crisis.
https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/publications_e/stablecoins-and-world-trade_e.htm
The World Trade Organization (WTO) launched this new publication on the role of stablecoins in supporting cross-border trade on 14 September 2026 on the sidelines of the the WTO’s first World Trade and Tech Day. The report, prepared by the Economic Research and Statistics Division and the Trade in Services and Investment Division, examines the opportunities and challenges associated with the use of stablecoins in facilitating international trade, highlighting how they can accelerate cross-border payments and their potential to increase participation in the international trading system, especially for developing economies.
A stablecoin is a privately issued digital asset that can be used to make payments. It is designed to maintain a stable value relative to a reference asset, such as the US dollar or the euro. Albeit representing a small share of stablecoins turnover, real payments volumes are steadily growing, led by business-to-business transactions.
https://wmo.int/resources/publication-series/state-of-global-water-resources/2025
Rivers across the globe in 2025 had one of the driest years in more than three decades, according to this new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). It shows a continuation of the long-term decline in Earth’s freshwater storage and in glacier retreat – trends with serious implications for people and economies in the future.
The report shows that the water cycle has become more erratic and unpredictable, swinging between too little or too much. The past seven years have seen the fewest rivers with “normal” flows since 1991.
Asia and Africa together accounted for at least half of all recorded water-related extreme events and more than 80% of reported associated deaths over the past five years, it says.
The report provides a comprehensive, science-based assessment of the entire water cycle loop, including river discharge, groundwater, evapotranspiration, land water storage, and snow and ice, as well as high-impact events. It covers the year 2025 and summarizes findings of the past five years since it was first published.
Report: https://doi.org/10.4060/ce0633en
In Brief: https://doi.org/10.4060/ce0624en
Interactive Story: https://www.fao.org/interactive/2026/state-of-the-worlds-forests/en/
Forest and landscape restoration is a cost-effective response to food security, biodiversity, climate, and other development challenges, according to this new report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which warns that scaling up action will require greater investment, inclusive governance and sustained political commitment.
The flagship State of the World’s Forests (SOFO) 2026 report was published on 28 September 2026 as part of FAO’s 28th Session of the Committee on Forestry (COFO 28) and its 10th World Forest Week.
The 2026 edition examines how forest and landscape restoration can be expanded to deliver lasting benefits for people and the environment. Drawing on evidence and experiences from around the world, it identifies four pathways for accelerating progress: empowering people and strengthening rights; implementing restoration at the landscape scale; mobilizing finance and business models that support restoration; and creating coherent policies, institutions and laws.
https://www.unhcr.org/media/unhcr-education-report-2026-pathways-future-education-opportunity-and-self-reliance
Nearly 6 million refugee children were out of school worldwide in 2025, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, warned on 1 October 2026, as deepening funding cuts threaten to shut millions more out of classrooms and reverse years of progress in refugee education.
UNHCR’s latest annual education report estimates that 5.8 million, or 44 per cent of the world’s 13.1 million school-aged refugee children, were out of school last year.
https://unu.edu/publication/youth-mental-health-well-being-uncertain-world
This report, produced by UNU Global Health in collaboration with the United Nations Youth Office, calls for a shift from treating mental health as only an individual health issue to strengthening the ecosystems around young people — from education, decent work and housing to peace, digital spaces, climate, community, sports, arts, culture and spirituality.
At the heart of the report is the Youth Mental Health & Well-Being Ecosystem Model, a flexible framework to help governments and institutions identify gaps, connect action across sectors and develop approaches that respond to local realities.
International Peace and Security
Report: https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/default/files/2026-08/58633_peacebuilding_overview_report_web_v2.pdf
Executive Summary: https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/default/files/2026-08/58633_peacebuilding_overview_report_es_web.pdf
Building peace is now more essential than ever. Conflicts are on the rise; peace agreements are under strain; and the governance and financing systems the world relies on to address these challenges are also under pressure. Given these constraints, peacebuilding, in the multilateral context, represents a largely politically consensual and cost-effective solution to many peace and security challenges, and a promising alternative to costly, short-term mitigation. And yet, peacebuilding efforts remain under-financed and their impact little documented or communicated. Realizing the potential of peacebuilding requires political commitment and engagement at the national level, accompanied by sustained international support. Strengthening the support system for peacebuilding will require a leap forward in capturing, measuring and communicating what peacebuilding has actually achieved. From policy guidance to real-life examples and tools, this Overview sparks an urgent conversation and proposes concrete pathways for the global peacebuilding community to rise to the challenges of our time.
https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/continuum-civilian-harm-and-path-protection-how-explosive-ordnance-shapes-protection-risks-and-imperative-humanitarian-mine-action-occupied-palestinian-territory
“Executive Summary: Explosive ordnance contamination has become one of the defining humanitarian and protection challenges in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), creating a continuum of civilian harm that extends long after an attack occurs. In Gaza, extensive use of explosive weapons in a densely populated environment has caused exceptionally high levels of death, traumatic injury, displacement and destruction, leaving at least 68 million metric tonnes of debris and contaminated rubble, and creating one of the most complex explosive ordnance contamination environments in recent history.”
https://www.sdg16progress.org/
With less than four years left to achieve the ambitions of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), progress towards SDG 16 on peace, justice and inclusion remains mixed, notes this new UN report released on 23 September 2026.
The Global Progress Report on Sustainable Development Goal 16, produced by UNODC, UNDP, OHCHR and UNICEF, points to the importance of expanding access to justice, improving public services and institutions, and strengthening accountability and the reinforcement of human rights and freedoms as the 2030 deadline to achieve the SDGs looms.
Nevertheless, several indicators, notably those on homicides, firearms tracing and bribery remain off-track.
Such findings are not just abstract data points. “Behind every indicator presented in this report are real lives and lived experiences,” note the principles of each of the UN agencies involved in the report.
https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/troop-and-police-contributors
New interactive dashboards on troop and police contributions are now available on the UN Peacekeeping website, providing a more accessible way to explore data on uniformed personnel serving in UN peace operations.
The dashboards allow users to view and compare contributions across countries and missions and provide an overview of the personnel deployed by Member States. They complement the monthly reports and historical data already available on the page. The interactive format makes it easier to identify trends and access relevant information at a glance. Users can explore the data intuitively and access information relevant to their country or mission.
The new dashboards can also support communications by making it easier to access and showcase Member States’ contributions to UN Peacekeeping. Additional data resources include the Peacekeeping Factsheet, as well as tools on gender representation and parity targets and peacekeeping fatalities.
https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/2026-07/MINUSMA_a_peace_that_was_not_enough_lessons_learned_report.pdf
The United Nations Department of Peace Operations (DPO) has released this new report examining the UN’s decade-long peacekeeping operation in Mali.
Drawing on the experience of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), the study reflects on the mission’s achievements and challenges in supporting peace processes and offers recommendations to help inform future UN peacekeeping operations.
The report challenges the frequently cited notion of ‘no peace to keep,’ the argument that UN peacekeeping efforts in Mali were destined to struggle because of the country’s persistent insecurity and active conflict. It finds that, although the peace process in Mali was ultimately insufficient to secure lasting stability, the Mission helped sustain real opportunities for political progress. Through mediation, support to implementation mechanisms, and engagement with key stakeholders, MINUSMA contributed to keeping political dialogue alive during critical periods.
https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2026/09/policy-guidance-on-prosecution-rehabilitation-and-reintegration-programming
While women and girls may occupy diverse roles in conflict – including, in some cases, perceived or actual affiliation with UN-listed terrorist groups – current legal, policy, and operational frameworks frequently fail to account for the complex and constrained conditions under which women and girls live their lives in contexts affected by terrorism, counter-terrorism, or conflict, and how such affiliations occur.
The guidance presents UN Women’s five key entry points and highlights country specific successes, challenges, and lessons learned across diverse contexts (Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Nigeria, Indonesia, Colombia, Tunisia, and Pakistan). It aims to support UN Women management and technical practitioners at regional and country levels in the planning, design, and implementation of integrated programmatic assistance to national stakeholders.
https://unicri.org/safeguarding-symbolic-spaces-europe
Across Europe, the protection of public spaces remains a priority for policymakers. The EU Action Plan on the Protection of Public Spaces, the EU Counter-Terrorism Agenda and wider EU work on preventing violent extremism, hate crime and discrimination all point to the need for prevention, preparedness and cooperation.
Schools, places of worship and community institutions require particular attention within this agenda. These are symbolic spaces: places where identity, belief, education, culture and belonging are expressed. When such spaces are targeted, the harm extends beyond the immediate incident. Attacks, threats, or repeated hostility can weaken trust, increase fear and undermine social cohesion.
Symbolic places include not only formal institutions, but also community-based and informal settings such as rented halls, shared buildings, community centres and migrant-led congregations where social, cultural and religious life takes place. These spaces may be highly significant for the communities that use them, even where they lack visibility, resources or formal security arrangements.
The threat landscape affecting symbolic spaces is increasingly multi-layered. Communities may face physical attacks, vandalism or disruption, but also less visible forms of harm such as online harassment, doxxing, disinformation, intimidation linked to community events and discriminatory treatment. These risks can reinforce one another. Online hostility can contribute to offline insecurity, while recurring low-level incidents may discourage reporting and contribute to the normalisation of fear.
Development of Africa
Human Rights
https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/country-spotlight-afghanistan-beyond-breaking-point-impact-aid-cuts-women-led-and-womens-rights-organizations
This report presents findings from 74 women-led and women’s rights organizations based in Afghanistan that participated in the Beyond the Breaking Point global survey on the impacts of sustained reductions in international humanitarian funding. Conducted in April 2026, the survey captures the cumulative effects of funding reductions that began in January 2025. Since August 2021, women and girls in Afghanistan have been progressively excluded from education beyond the sixth grade, most formal employment, public spaces, and leadership and decision-making at every level. Women’s organizations, including aid groups, and the women who work for them already operate in an increasingly restrictive environment. Against this backdrop, drastic cuts to humanitarian funding have had a particularly severe impact.
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/unfpa-gender-based-violence-safety-audit-report-gaza-strip-september-2026/
This report examines how conditions in displacement sites and settings where humanitarian services and assistance are delivered affect the safety of women and girls in Gaza. Drawing on their experiences, field observations and service provider insights, it shows that access depends on more than the availability of a service: women and girls must be able to reach and use it safely, confidentially and with dignity.
The audit translates these findings into priorities for humanitarian leadership and partners. It calls for coordinated GBV risk mitigation across sectors, greater accountability for safety in the design and delivery of assistance, and meaningful participation by women and girls in decisions that affect their lives.
https://palestine.unfpa.org/en/publications/women-voices-gaza
This report presents the perspectives of 230 women living in displacement camps in Gaza City and Khan Younis, based on 16 focus group discussions conducted between December 2025 and January 2026. Through their accounts, it examines how conflict and displacement compound existing gender inequalities, heighten GBV risks and undermine women’s and girls’ safety in daily life.
The report explores the conditions shaping these risks for displaced women and girls, while highlighting groups facing additional vulnerabilities and barriers to seeking safety, assistance and justice. By centring women’s experiences, it provides insights to inform humanitarian planning and strengthen GBV prevention and response.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/tools-and-resources/information-note-investors-arms-sector-and-un-guiding-principles
This Information Note provides guidance for private institutional investors seeking to align their investment activities with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) in relation to investments in the arms sector. It explains the relevance of the UNGPs to such investments, outlines key human rights and international humanitarian law (IHL) risks associated with the sector, and identifies practical considerations for conducting human rights due diligence.
Reparatory justice for Africans and people of African descent: A series of explainers (OHCHR)
English, French, Spanish & Portuguese: https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/tools-and-resources/reparatory-justice-africans-and-people-african-descent-series
Around the world, calls for reparatory justice have been growing. Some States, universities, religious groups and businesses that profited —or continue to profit— from legacies of enslavement and colonialism have started to act.
Delivering reparatory justice is more urgent than ever. And human rights offer a powerful framework to move forward.
To help unpack this issue, UN Human Rights has created a series of explainers based on United Nations reports. These explainers highlight the key elements needed to deliver reparatory justice — along with concrete examples of action already taken.
https://data.unicef.org/resources/quick-guide-implementation-of-the-icvac-at-the-country-level/
This quick guide offers a practical entry point for countries beginning to implement the International Classification of Violence against Children (ICVAC). It outlines the early actions required to launch the implementation process and integrate the classification into national data systems. The guide complements the ICVAC Factsheet, which presents the structure and content of the classification, and the ICVAC Implementation Manual, which provides detailed technical guidance on its application. It is not intended to replace existing guidance but to support countries and partners in coordinating the initial stages of implementation.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/sexual-violence-context-russian-federation-full-scale-armed-attack
This UN Human Rights Office report published on 18 September 2026 says sexual violence has been used against civilians and prisoners of war (POWs) in Ukraine in a shocking pattern of torture, intimidation and coercion since the start of the Russian Federation’s full-scale armed attack on its neighbour more than four years ago.
Some 1,004 cases of sexual violence were documented from 24 February 2022, when Russia’s attack on Ukraine began, through to the end of July this year.
Of these cases, 89 percent were attributed to Russian authorities – including members of the armed forces, the prison service and the national security service. The remaining 11 percent were attributed to Ukrainian authorities.
The 20-page report is based on confidential interviews with hundreds of victims and survivors of sexual violence committed by both parties, and other relevant materials, including court documents and official records.
Humanitarian Affairs
Report & Brief: https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2026/10/gender-alert-food-security-risks-of-the-middle-east-escalation-for-women-and-girls
This publication explores the impact of the escalation in the Middle East and disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz on food security risks for women and girls.
The gender alert emphasizes the need for an integrated response to rising food insecurity that meets the needs of women and girls through food and cash assistance, nutrition, protection, livelihoods, and agricultural support. It calls for strengthening women’s access to land, credit, essential services, and other productive assets that can help households withstand food-price shocks and protect livelihoods.
https://www.unhcr.org/media/global-recommendations-nationality-and-statelessness-context-climate-change
The impacts of climate change worldwide are increasing risks of people becoming stateless and making those already without a nationality even more vulnerable. Yet solutions exist, according to the first-ever Global Recommendations on Nationality and Statelessness in the Context of Climate Change, launched on 22 September 2026 by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness at the University of Melbourne.
The recommendations are grounded in international law and policy frameworks on the right to a nationality, the prevention and reduction of statelessness, climate change and human mobility. They are specifically guided by universally applicable principles in international law, including equality and non-discrimination, the right to life with dignity, the duty of international cooperation, and the right to participate. With the existential threats posed by sea-level rise currently on the global agenda, the recommendations are also timely in reflecting growing international recognition that the continuity of statehood should not be affected by sea-level rise and related loss of territory.
https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2026/09/brief-left-to-carry-households-alone-war-and-the-rise-of-women-headed-households-in-gaza
This brief highlights how the war in Gaza has fundamentally reshaped household structures and survival responsibilities. Women reportedly head nearly 1 in 4 households in Gaza – representing an estimated 86,290 households and roughly double the pre-October 2023 rate of around 1 in 9. This includes widows and women whose husbands are missing, detained, severely injured, forcibly disappeared, or whose fate remains unknown.
For women-headed households, the impact extends far beyond the grief of losing a husband, father, or other loved one. Many are now carrying sole responsibility for providing for, protecting, and holding their families together in increasingly devastating conditions. With severely limited access to food, shelter, safe water, and hygiene supplies, alongside ongoing hostilities and insecurity, the situation in Gaza remains catastrophic. Restrictions on humanitarian access and continued bombardment are deepening the crisis for women heading households.
https://www.unhcr.org/media/underfunding-report-2026-protection-eroded-human-cost-underfunding
Continued severe funding cuts are pushing refugee support and protection structures towards breaking point in the world’s main displacement situations, forcing UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, to scale back core programmes, leaving millions without the support they need to stay safe.
Nearly 8.3 million refugees and other forcibly displaced and stateless people are on the brink of losing access to vital assistance, according to this UNHCR report published on 29 September 2026.
Available funding fell from $5.2 billion to $3.9 billion between 2024 and 2025, and by the end of July 2026, UNHCR had received only 32 per cent of the $8.5 billion funding needed this year, even as the number of people UNHCR is mandated to protect remained at historically high levels.
Justice and International Law
Nuclear, Chemical and Conventional Weapons Disarmament
https://doi.org./10.37559/SECTEC/26/CR/07
This publication examines what lessons the international community can draw from the development of voluntary norms of responsible State behaviour in information and communications technology (ICT) security for future discussions on AI in the military domain. It argues that norms in ICT security should not be transferred directly to military AI but can serve as useful signposts when adapted to AI’s distinctive characteristics, including its dependence on data and autonomous functions.
Drug Control, Crime Prevention and Counter-terrorism
https://unicri.org/Publication-Global-analysis-crime-and-justice-in-a-changing-world-sept-2026
As an integral part of UNICRI’s Crime and Justice Trends Study, this Global Analysis Report aims to identify regional and transregional trends in crime and justice, as well as cross-cutting themes, emerging from nine regional studies. At the global level, this report identifies momentous shifts in the commission of crime and corresponding responses by criminal justice systems.
Newsletter Archive: https://unric.org/en/unric-info-point-library-newsletter-archive