19 May 2020 (TV BRICS) - The UN Information Center in Moscow and the World Health Organization Representation Office in the Russian Federation will support the work of the TV BRICS information hub to fight COVID-19 as key partners of the BRICS AGAINST COVID-19 initiative.

World Press Freedom Day – Sunday 3 May 2020

GENEVA (1 May 2020) – The UN's Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, David Kaye, has urged States to free all media workers detained because of their work and stop the intimidation and repression of the independent press. He released the following statement today to mark World Press Freedom Day on Sunday, 3 May.

Contribution will boost efforts aimed at controlling and eliminating the pest

28 April 2020 (FAO) - FAO Director-General QU Dongyu has thanked the Russian Federation for boosting the fight against the Desert Locust outbreak in East Africa by making a $10 million contribution to support FAO operations in Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health emergency — but it is far more. 

It is an economic crisis.  A social crisis.  And a human crisis that is fast becoming a human rights crisis.

In February, I launched a Call to Action to put human dignity and the promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the core of our work.

As I said then, human rights cannot be an afterthought in times of crisis — and we now face the biggest international crisis in generations.

GENEVA (20 April 2020) - As governments attempt to tackle the unprecedented public health and economic crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we are deeply concerned that women and girls are suffering even more egregious violations of their human rights. In the absence of gender sensitive intersectional responses, different forms of systemic discrimination already faced by women and girls will be exacerbated.

1. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is an international human rights treaty, the framework of which, developed by the Committee, provides States with a legally binding structure for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and their related targets. This is not only the case for those targets that explicitly refer to persons with disabilities, but for all goals and targets. It also includes measures to ensure that the lives and rights of persons with disabilities are appropriately protected in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

GENEVA (27 March 2020) – Restrictive measures adopted worldwide to fight COVID-19 intensify the risk of domestic violence; Governments must uphold the human rights of women and children and come up with urgent measures to the victims of such violence, a UN human rights expert said today.

GENEVA (17 March 2020) – Little has been done to provide people with disabilities with the guidance and support needed to protect them during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, even though many of them are part of the high-risk group, today warned the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, Catalina Devandas.