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Five countries elected to serve on UN Security Council

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They will serve through the end of 2027 on the UN body responsible for maintaining international peace and security.

They will join the five non-permanent members elected last year – Denmark, Greece, Pakistan, Panama, and Somalia – who will serve through 2026.

The Security Council has 15 members: five permanent members – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States – who hold veto power, and ten non-permanent members elected by the General Assembly for staggered two-year terms.

Elections are held annually by secret ballot, with seats allocated by regional group. Candidates must secure a two-thirds majority in the 193-member General Assembly to be elected.

More to follow…

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Countries set to adopt ‘vital’ pandemic preparedness accord

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The stakes are high for this year’s World Health Assembly, the UN’s premier health forum, where officials will tackle a sweeping agenda – from pandemic readiness and climate-related health risks to mental health, maternal care, and environmental justice. But with geopolitical tensions running high, international collaboration on these and other vital issues will be tested.

Here are some of the key areas set to dominate discussion:

1. ‘Cautious optimism’: Signing off on a pandemic accord

The COVID-19 pandemic showed that there are stark inequities in access to diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines, both within and between countries. Healthcare services were overwhelmed, economies were severely disrupted and nearly seven million lives were lost.

This was the motivation for countries to come together to work on an accord to ensure that the world handles the next pandemic in a fairer and more efficient way. When the delegates arrive in Geneva on Monday 19 May, they will thrash out the text of the agreement, which Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), described as “vital for future generations.”

If the agreement is adopted, it will be a major breakthrough in the way the world handles pandemics and health crises. Negotiations, though, remain politically delicate: several nations, including the United States, have raised concerns about national sovereignty and intellectual property rights. Still, in recent weeks, Dr. Tedros has expressed “cautious optimism” that consensus can be reached.

A woman wearing a mask, Malawi.

2. Climate Change: An existential threat

The climate crisis isn’t just about rising temperatures – it’s putting lives at risk. Extreme weather and disease outbreaks are on the rise, threatening the health of millions. An action plan created by WHO calls for climate and health policies to work together, strengthens resilience, and ensures funding to safeguard vulnerable communities.

A draft version of the plan was released following a resolution adopted at the 2024 conference and, this year, delegates are expected to finalise the draft, which includes strategies to adapt to and mitigate climate-related health risks.

3. Health for all: Getting universal health care back on track

Ensuring that all people have affordable access to the full range of quality health services they need is one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which all UN Member States signed up to in 2015. However, the health target is way off track: in fact, improvements to health services have stagnated over the last ten years.

Nevertheless, universal health care (UHC) will be a top priority at the Assembly, where delegates will discuss strategies to strengthen primary healthcare systems, secure sustainable financing and provide care for vulnerable populations.

© WHO/Panos/Eduardo Martino

4. Healthy Beginnings: Maternal and newborn health

Close to 300,000 women lose their life due to pregnancy or childbirth each year, while over two million babies die in their first month of life In April, WHO launched a year-long campaign to end preventable maternal and newborn deaths.

Titled “Healthy beginnings, hopeful futures,” it will urge governments and the health community to ramp up efforts to end preventable maternal and newborn deaths, and to prioritize women’s longer-term health and well-being.

Expect new targets and renewed commitments to end preventable deaths to be announced at the Assembly.

5. Closing the gaps: Noncommunicable diseases

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, kill tens of millions of people each year. Around three-quarters of those deaths are in low and middle-income countries.

Many lives could be saved if more countries had strong national responses, providing detection, screening and treatment, as well as palliative care.

In preparation for a WHO meeting on NCDs and mental health in September, delegates will review the way the UN health agency collaborates with governments, civil society, and the private sector to prevent and control these diseases, and address ways to improve access to essential medicines and health technologies.

6. Getting the finances in order

This year has been described as one of the most challenging ever at the UN, which is being buffeted by extreme pressures on its finances. The US, a major donor announced that it would be leaving WHO in January, and other countries have also cut development and aid funding.

This year’s Assembly will see Member States negotiating a 50 per cent increase in the base budget, something that has been in the works since the 2022 meeting. If a funding boost is approved, it will provide a vital boost to at a challenging time.  WHO is also seeking additional voluntary contributions, and additional pledges are anticipated from member states and philanthropic organisations.

Follow the sessions at the World Health Assembly here. 

8 million teens in world’s wealthiest countries functionally illiterate: UNICEF

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Comparing data from 2018 and 2022, UNICEF found that the pandemic worsened existing trends: children are underperforming in school, more likely to be overweight or obese, and generally less satisfied with their lives.

This data sets a “worrying benchmark for children’s wellbeing,” said Bo Viktur Nylund, Director of UNICEF’s research office, Innocenti.

UNICEF ranked the Netherlands and Denmark, followed by France, as the top three places to be a child.

In contrast, Mexico, Türkiye and Chile were ranked the lowest, based on measures of mental well-being, physical health, and skills.

Academic decline

UNICEF warned that many of the world’s wealthiest countries experienced “sharp” declines in children’s academic skills following the pandemic, notably in reading and maths skills.

As school shutdowns forced remote learning, children are now estimated to be from seven to 12 months behind where they should be in academic terms.

These setbacks were more severe for children from disadvantaged families, the report underscores.

Across 43 countries, an estimated eight million 15-year-olds were assessed as not functionally literate and numerate. That means around half of the age group surveyed could not understand a basic text, raising the alarm over long term development.

Mental health

Raising concerns around mental health, UNICEF pointed out that in 14 of 32 countries with available data, children’s life satisfaction deteriorated during the COVID pandemic, while adolescent suicide rates plateaued – reversing a previous downward trend.

The number of children aged five to 19 who were overweight rose with those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds facing worse outcomes in terms of mental and physical health.

Prioritising children

Mr. Nylund, called on countries going forward to adopt a “coherent” and ”holistic” approach that addresses “every stage” of children’s lives.

Notably, UNICEF recommends countries include children in decision-making, promoting youth voices and agency across the board.

The agency warns that hard-won gains in child well-being across wealthy countries are becoming “increasingly vulnerable” and urges governments to focus interventions on disadvantaged groups to ensure more equitable educational outcomes.

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Climate change takes increasingly extreme toll on African countries

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“Extreme weather and climate change impacts are hitting every single aspect of socio-economic development in Africa and exacerbating hunger, insecurity and displacement,” the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Monday.

WMO said that average surface temperature across Africa in 2024 was approximately 0.86°C above the 1991–2020 average.

North Africa recorded the highest temperature – 1.28°C above the 1991-2020 average; it is the fastest-warming sub-region of Africa.

Marine heat spike

Sea surface temperatures were also the highest on record. “Particularly large increases in sea surface temperatures have been observed in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea,” WMO said.
Data shows that almost the entire ocean area around Africa was affected by marine heatwaves of strong, severe or extreme intensity last year and especially the tropical Atlantic.

Head of WMO, Celeste Saulo, warned that climate change is an urgent and escalating problem across the African continent “with some countries grappling with exceptional flooding caused by excessive rainfall and others enduring persistent droughts and water scarcity”.

El Niño influence

Highlighting Africa’s particular vulnerability to our warming planet – caused mainly by rich nations burning fossil fuels – the UN agency said that floods, heatwaves and droughts forced 700,000 people out of their homes across the continent last year.

WMO also noted that the El Niño phenomenon was active from 2023 into early 2024 and “played major roles in rainfall patterns” across Africa.

In northern Nigeria alone, 230 people died in floods last September that swept across the capital of Borno state, Maiduguri, displacing 600,000, severely damaging hospitals and contaminating water in displacement camps.

Regionally, rising waters caused by torrential rains ravaged West Africa and impacted a staggering four million people. 

Conversely, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe suffered the worst drought in at least two decades, with cereal harvests in Zambia and Zimbabwe 43 per cent and 50 per cent below the five-year average, respectively.

Heat shock

Heatwaves are also a growing threat to health and development and Africa, WMO said, noting that the past decade has also been the warmest on record. Depending on the dataset, 2024 was the warmest or second-warmest year.

Blistering temperatures already impact children’s education, with schools closing in March 2024 in South Sudan as temperatures reached 45°C. Worldwide, at least 242 million pupils missed school because of extreme weather in 2024, many of them in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF.

Beyond education, rising temperatures across the continent are making Africa more water-scarce and food-insecure, with North African countries the hardest-hit.

South Sudan focus

Erratic weather patterns across Africa are also hindering farming, driving food insecurity and displacing people who have already had to flee war already, WMO explained.

Last October, for example, flooding affected 300,000 people in South Sudan – a hefty figure for a nation of 13 million, scarred by years of civil strife and where infrastructure is poor.

The disaster wiped out cattle, adding up to between 30 and 34 million farm animals – roughly two per inhabitant – and stagnant water fuelled diseases. Families who had been self-sufficient had to seek help once again.

“When someone slides back into being fed, it affects their dignity,” said Meshack Malo, South Sudan Country Representative for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

At the forefront of climate change, the troubled East African country is already dealing with a crippling economic crisis, mass displacement made worse by the war in neighbouring Sudan, as well as escalating tensions at home and pervasive violence.

Fighting in Sudan has derailed the South Sudanese economy, which relies on oil exports for 90 per cent of its national revenue, reports indicate.

Destructive cycle

When South Sudan is not hit by floods, it is plagued by drought.

“This cyclic change between floods and drought, makes the country affected almost a good part of the year,” said Mr. Malo.  

Flooding has worsened and become more intense and frequent in recent years.

“That means that any short rain then can easily trigger the flooding, because water and the soil remain quite saturated,” Mr. Malo added. “So that intensity and frequency makes this situation worse.”

With road access disrupted for aid trucks, UN agencies such as the World Food Programme (WFP) must airlift food assistance – a costly, impractical solution, as humanitarian funding dwindles.

Pushing back  

In the South Sudanese town of Kapoeta, the FAO has helped to reduce the number of dry months from six to two, by harvesting and storing water to protect crops at risk from climate change.  

“The impact of drought is no longer felt as much,” FAO’s Mr. Malo said, speaking to UN News from the capital, Juba.

Worth its salt

In countries that lack water resources for crop irrigation, climate resilience and adaptation are critical, Dr. Ernest Afiesimama of the WMO Regional Office for Africa in Addis Ababa, told journalists.

And while desalination – the process of removing salt from seawater – may be a solution for some, for many African nations it is not viable.

Rather than turning to desalination as a panacea, investing in adaptation measures including early warning systems for action and preparedness is urgently needed, environmental scientists say.  “Considering the challenges in sub-Saharan Africa, [desalination] presents a complex economic, environmental and social challenge, and there is a question about its long-term sustainability and equity,” said Dr. Dawit Solomon, Contributor at Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA).  

“Africa is facing a high climate change bill. Imagine the continent which is struggling economically and then facing this additional risk multiplier,” Dr. Salomon added.

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