United Nations Development Group

J. Humberto Lopez has been announced as the World Bank's country director for Türk,iye to replace Auguste T. Kouame, who recently completed a three-year term.

Lopez, a Spanish national, will lead the World Bank's Program and Portfolio supporting the government of Türkiye to further its development agenda, the World Bank said in a press release yesterday.

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.

World food prices have fallen for a fifth consecutive month, partly thanks to the resumption of exports from Ukraine's Black Sea ports, a UN agency said on Sept. 2.

The International Monetary Fund is facing pressure to reevaluate how it imposes fees on loans it disperses to needy countries like war-torn Ukraine which is one of the fund's biggest borrowers.

The move comes as more countries will need to turn to the IMF, as food prices and inflation internationally continues to rise.

The IMF has called on European governments to pass on rising energy costs to wealthier consumers to encourage "energy conservation" and a switch to greener energy, the Financial Times reports.

Governments across Europe have tried to protect households from skyrocketing costs with broad price controls, tax cuts and subsidies.

"The situation in the world economy is extremely unstable and recessions are not excluded", the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, said in an interview with Reuters.

Asked about a possible global recession, the fund manager stressed: "The risk has increased, so it cannot be ruled out."

Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate quickened to 191.6 percent in June, more than doubling the consumer price increases of two months ago, official statistics showed on June 25.

Inflation which was at 96.4 percent in April, crept up to nearly 200 percent as prices of cooking oil and bread are leaping higher as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The International Labour Organization has elevated occupational health and safety to the status of a "fundamental right" for the world's workers, a "historic" decision that will mean new obligations for member states.    

Almost three million people die each year from work-related causes, the UN agency said.    

Nearly five million Ukrainians have been registered as refugees across Europe since Russia launched its invasion less than four months ago, the United Nations said on Thursday.

Two U.N. food agencies have issued stark warnings about multiple, looming food crises on the planet, driven by climate "shocks" like drought and worsened by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine that have sent fuel and food prices soaring.