United Nations

UNESCO Creates Education Monitoring Database

July 20, 2017

As part of its push to meet education targets under the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has created an online database permitting the public, including rights activists, to monitor countries' education systems and pressure them to expand efforts to fulfill the global "right to education."
UNESCO Calls for More Teacher Training on "Citizenship Education"

July 20, 2017

Based on a recent study, the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) has called for countries to match their mandatory integration of the "global citizenship education" agenda, which prioritizes diversity and inclusiveness, in their national curricula with a higher level of training for teachers to permit them to appropriately deliver the agenda to students.
UN Committee Blasts Israeli "Rights Violations"

July 19, 2017

An annual evaluation from a UN Committee established specifically to target Israel over alleged human rights violations concluded that "Israeli authorities continue with policies and practices," including administrative detention and extrajudicial killings, "that negatively impact the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory."
UNESCO Pushes "Sustainability" Education in Southern Africa

July 19, 2017

Representatives from a group of Southern African countries recently approved a training course and materials supported by the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) with the aim of transposing the international organization's "Education for Sustainable Development" agenda in school curricula across the region.
UNESCO Seeks Way Forward for "Sustainability" Education

July 19, 2017

The UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recently hosted a symposium in Germany in which it solicited ideas from an international group of experts on how best to implement UNESCO's agenda on "education for sustainable development" to promote "empathy, passion and sustainable behaviour" in education systems around the world.
UN Meeting Emphasizes Comprehensive SDG Push

July 19, 2017

Demonstrating the single-minded prioritization of achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across all parts of the UN system, a recent meeting between UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed and UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) officials focused on "UN system-wide engagement in delivering the SDGs."
NGO Calls for Competitive Elections at UNHRC

July 19, 2017

Echoing similar calls of US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, Akshaya Kumar of Human Rights Watch asserts that the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) must hold competitive elections for its seats to prevent the election of notorious human rights violators through “clean slate” deals that allow countries to win seats without competition.
UN Report Pushes for More SDG Investment

July 19, 2017

UN officials are using a report purporting to show a lag in progress toward meeting the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) "to eradicate poverty, address climate change and build peaceful, inclusive societies for all by 2030" to push countries to ramp up their investments in achieving the comprehensive SDGs.
UN Official Criticizes US Policies on Gender Equality

July 18, 2017

In remarks during a roundtable on gender inequality in Washington, D.C., UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka expressed dismay regarding "unequal pay across the board" between US men and women and criticized as "fundamental" discrimination the lack of federally mandated paid maternity leave in the country.
UN Women Seeks "Gender Perspective" in Migration Compact

July 18, 2017

Raising the possibility that activists will use the UN compact on global migration, to be adopted in 2018, as a vehicle for "gender mainstreaming," UN Women recently produced a set of recommendations for countries to "integrate a gender perspective" into the compact's provisions and ensure it aims to make the "experience of migration" more "empowering" to women.