UN Development Program

A United Nations report published Thursday argues that an unprecedented array of crises, chiefly among them Covid-19, has set human progress back five years and fueled a global wave of uncertainty.

The UN Development Program, UNDP and the EU announced on Tuesday that they have halted the renovation of the former house of Kosovo Albanian politician Xhafer Deva, who was interior minister in a Nazi collaborationist regime during World War II.

The German ambassador to Pristina, Joern Rohde, said on Monday that he is "very concerned" about the renovation of the former house of "known Nazi collaborator" Xhafer Devi in the northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica.

"No history whitewashing! Don't distort the truth about the Holocaust or war crimes committed by the Nazis and local collaborators," Rohde wrote on Twitter.

Turkey's zero waste project has won the UN Development Program Turkey's first (UNDP) Global Goals Action Award.

"The project will receive UNDP Turkey's Sustainable Development Goals Action Award due to its important contributions to the goal Responsible Production and Consumption, one of the Sustainable Development Goals," the UNDP Turkey said in a statement.

Turkey has donated $650,000 for an agricultural project in northern Uganda, an area battered by years of conflict and refugee influx, a diplomat said on Feb. 24.

Turkey donated the funds to Uganda through the UN Development Program, which is working on the project, Ambassador Kerem Alp told state-run Anadolu Agency.

Saudi Arabia has given Bosnia and Herzegovina 2 million US dollars to help deal with the issue of surplus weapons and munitions, much of it left over from the 1992-5 war.

This money is provided for the project "Explode plus", to complete infrastructure at the Kula munition storage site in Mrkonjic Grad and the Teufik Buza Tufo site in Visoko, central Bosnia.

For the first time in the United Nations' 70-year history, candidates vying to become secretary-general will make their pitch for the job to world governments in hearings beginning next week.

Helen Clark, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, has officially announced she is running for the UN Secretary-General's office.

Clark, who at the moment heads the UN Development Program, is seen as a strong rival to UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova. To date, the latter has been described as a "frontrunner" in the race.

Two Bulgarians might turn out to be the main rivals for the United Nations Secretary General's seat that will be vacated by Ban Ki-moon late next year, Russian news outlet Nezavisimaya Gazeta has said.

Gaza reconstruction is moving at a "snail's pace" and at this rate, it would likely take 30 years to rebuild the extensive damage from last summer's Israel-Hamas war, a senior UN official said.