Source: United Nations (video statements)
The thirteenth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) takes place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 17 to 22 May 2026. The theme of WUF13 is: Housing the world: Safe and resilient cities and communities.
Opening Ceremony of the Thirteenth Session of the World Urban Forum – WUF13
Source: United Nations (video statements)
The thirteenth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) takes place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 17 to 22 May 2026. The theme of WUF13 is: Housing the world: Safe and resilient cities and communities.
The official opening press conference of the thirteenth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) will set the tone for the week, introducing the theme “Housing the world: Safe and resilient cities and communities” and outlining key priorities for addressing the global housing crisis, strengthening urban resilience, and advancing sustainable urban development in cities and communities worldwide.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Panha (Max) Theng, a Cambodian storyteller and communications consultant, uses media to foster empathy and drive social change. As co-founder of Sampi TV and 606 Digital, she creates authentic, character-driven stories on identity, gender, and community to promote a more inclusive society.
To learn more: https://www.un.org/youthaffairs/en/panha-theng
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Executive Director of UNAIDS Winnie Byanyima told reporters, “we are at a perilous moment in the global AIDS response. Decades of progress are now at risk because the world is pulling back just when we need to push forward.”
Byanyima and Nigerian-born advocate for LGBTQI+ rights Micheal Ighodaro briefed reporters today (14 May) on the Interactive Multi-Stakeholder Hearing for the 2026 High-level Meeting on HIV/AIDS. The General Assembly will convene a high-level meeting on HIV/AIDS on 22 and 23 June 2026 at the UN Headquarters in New York.
The UNAIDS chief said that due to funding cuts, “prevention services have collapsed. Treatment expansion has stalled. Community organizations were the backbone of the response are being forced to shut their doors.”
She gave some examples of immediate and devastating impacts. In Uganda, Prep, which is a prevention tool, its uptake fell by 31 percent in just nine months between December 2024 and September of 2025. In Burundi, it fell by 64 percent in the same period. Even the most basic prevention tools are slipping out of reach. In Nigeria, for example, condom distribution fell by 55 percent in just three months from December 2024 to March 2025, Byanyima said.
She highlighted that the human cost is “unbearable,” stating in 2024, at UNAIDS’s last count, 570 girls and young women were infected by HIV every day of that year. “And yet, our count is that 60 percent of women led HIV organizations have lost their funding or shut down completely. People most at risk are being abandoned,” Byanyima added.
The UNAIDS chief also pointed out that the world is witnessing “a coordinated global pushback on human rights, the very rights that make progress against HIV possible – gender equality, sexual reproductive health and rights, the rights of LGBTQ people are under attack in many parts of the world.”
“But this is not accidental” she said, “it is organized. It’s well funded. It is geopolitical. It is proxy wars for critical minerals, for energy, for influence that are being fought instrumentaling the rights of the most marginalized people away from people.”
The Executive Director reiterated, “science is offering us solutions that could end this epidemic by 2030,” however the sudden cut in funding, plus the pushback on human rights, “is pulling us away from achieving the end of AIDS.”
Speaking about the upcoming high-level meeting on HIV/AIDS in June, Byanyima said, “it is at that meeting that governments will be recommitting to a progressive, actionable political declaration to steer the world in the right direction, setting ambitious targets for 2030, a direction that could save millions of lives and end AIDS as a public health threat.”
The Executive Director said, “Today, there are 9.3 million people living with HIV waiting to get on treatment. We must get them on. At the last count, we had 1.3 million new infections in 2024. We must stop new infections, and it’s possible.”
Micheal Ighodaro is a Nigerian-born advocate for LGBTQI+ rights. He is currently serving as the Executive Director of Global Black Gay Men Connect (GBGMC). Sharing his experience with living with HIV, he said, “if I stop taking my medications right now, I could literally die. I will have no future. That is the same for many people around the world.”
Ighodaro reiterated, “the AIDS response is not over. We have so much more to fight for,” adding that the high-level meeting with the participation of civil society can “ensure Member States and the world realizes that we don’t have a cure. We have amazing science. We have long-acting prevention treatment, but we don’t have a cure. So we have so much more to do. We have structural barriers. We have human rights barriers across different sectors.”
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Noon briefing by Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.
Highlights:
– Humanitarian Contribution by the United States
– Yemen
– Trip Announcement
– Deputy Secretary-General
– UNIFIL
– Lebanon
– Occupied Palestinian Territory
– Ukraine
– Cuba
– Haiti
– Children and Armed Conflict
– ECOSOC
HUMANITARIAN CONTRIBUTION BY THE UNITED STATES
The Secretary-General welcomes today’s announcement by the United States of an additional $1.8 billion for the life-saving humanitarian work of the United Nations and our humanitarian partners around the world.
This commitment will allow humanitarians to reach millions of people in the most urgent crises with lifesaving support.
YEMEN
Turning to Yemen, we welcome a major breakthrough in efforts to secure the release of conflict-related detainees. The parties to the conflict in Yemen agreed to release more than 1,600 conflict-related detainees – the largest such release deal since the start of the conflict. This outcome is the result of 14 weeks of intensive negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations in Amman, Jordan.
The UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, said that this is a moment of profound relief for thousands of Yemenis who have endured long and painful waits for the return of their family members.
Today’s agreement builds on an earlier round of negotiations in December 2025 in Muscat, Oman. As next steps, the parties have also agreed to reconvene to negotiate further releases, to conduct joint visits to one another’s detention facilities, and to ensure access to all detainees. We thank Jordan for hosting and supporting this round of negotiations, and the Sultanate of Oman and Switzerland for hosting the earlier rounds of talks.
We continue to call for the release of all those arbitrarily detained by the Houthis, including personnel from the UN, NGOs, civil society and diplomatic missions, as well as their families.
We expect a more official statement later today.
TRIP ANNOUNCEMENT
The Secretary-General will travel to Tokyo, Japan this weekend, where he will chair the biannual session of the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination, also known as the CEB, which brings together the heads of the UN system’s organizations.
While in Japan, the Secretary-General will have an audience with His Majesty the Emperor of Japan. He is also scheduled to meet with senior officials, including the Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, as well as with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Motegi Toshimitsu.
Also in Tokyo, the Secretary-General will participate in a high-level symposium entitled “Celebrating 70: Japan-UN Cooperation, EXPO 2025, and the Future of Multilateralism,” which will highlight Japan’s continued partnership with the United Nations and its commitment to multilateralism.
The symposium, hosted jointly by the United Nations University and the UN Information Centre, Tokyo, will bring together senior UN officials, representatives of the Government of Japan, and Japanese youth leaders for an open exchange on today’s challenges and the path ahead.
The Secretary-General is expected to hold a press conference on 20 May, and we will share additional information closer to that date. He is expected to be back in New York on Wednesday.
Full Highlights: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/noon-briefing-highlight?date=2026-05-14
Source: United Nations (video statements)
The United States today (14 May) announced a contribution of an additional $1.8 billion for the life-saving humanitarian work of the United Nations and humanitarian partners around the world.
At a press conference at UN Headquarters in New York, US Ambassador Mike Waltz said, “our partnership, our burden sharing, has increased, but duplication and inefficiencies have decreased that cost time, taxpayer money and, frankly, lives,” adding that this collaboration on reform “reflects President Trump’s priorities for the UN and helping it reach its potential.”
Waltz said, “we found that when the UN does what it does best, delivering humanitarian aid in remote, difficult locations at scale with a reliable and affordable supply chain, it can and does succeed. It’s only then, when the organization strays from its core mission, that it tends to not perform nearly as well as it should.”
The Ambassador said this 1.8 billion in humanitarian funding “will save more lives around the world but also drive forward the reforms that we’ve put in place for efficiency, accountability and lasting impact.”
For his part, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Tom Fletcher, said, “we are facing rising needs. Over 300 million people need our support. And we’re facing declining global funding. And we are, as a result, overstretched, under-resourced and literally under attack.”
Fletcher said the humanitarian response plan he presented last December, aimed at raising 23 billion dollars to save 87 million lives, “against the odds is working.”
He said, “we are fundraising for that 23 billion dollars, and up to this point in advance of the announcement that you’ve just heard, we’ve raised 7.38 billion dollars from 65 member states, plus other public and private sources of funding.”
Fletcher stressed that “the most important number that I have for you today on the delivery of that plan is that we have already reached in the first four months of the year, 14.4 million people with life-saving support.”
With this fresh funding, he said, “we will save millions of lives.”
Also briefing, the US Senior Official for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs, and Religious Freedom, Jeremy P. Lewin said, “the way we were funding this system before did not work for the United States and our taxpayers.”
Lewin said, “we’re not responsible to the United Nations,” and pointing to Waltz added, “we work for, I work for the American people. He works for the American people, no one else.”
Responding to a journalist question on past comments he had made, Fletcher said, “I wish there was more money being spent on humanitarian action and less money in the world being spent on war. I would love much more of that funding to be going to the plan to help us raise that 23 billion. You can do the maths. I’ve told you I need 23 billion to save 87 million lives. And I’m sad that a lot of money at the moment is being spent on drones. We’re seeing it in all of the crisis areas where we’re working. The arms dealers are getting richer at the moment at the expense of the people who I serve. And it’s driving up humanitarian needs. But, you know, we’re here with a piece of good news today about a very significant chunk of US funding that they have chosen to spend on humanitarian action.”
Lewin for his part said, “there are a lot of countries that are sitting on the sidelines and making criticisms of the United States and talking about humanitarian impacts. Many of them are wealthy. Many of them have not shown up for this plan or any other plan. All of the other developed countries have cut many by much more than us. And they are putting their money towards things that are less hyper prioritized towards light saving aid. They’re saving social programs at the expense of life saving aid. And so there are a lot of countries that criticize the actions of President Trump. But when it comes to humanitarian lifesaving aid and, you know, you can do all the math, it’s visible. And Thomas said it, we are still here as the most generous country in the world.”
Secretary-General António Guterres welcomed today’s announcement.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Hybrid press briefing by Ambassador Mike Waltz, U.S. Representative to the United Nations, Jeremy P. Lewin, Senior Official for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs, and Religious Freedom, U.S. Department of State, and UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher on funding to the humanitarian system.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Press conference by Andrew Saberton, UNFPA’s (United Nations Population Fund) Deputy Executive Director for Management. He briefed reporters on his recent mission to Chad and the situation for women and girls in the country.
Eastern Chad is facing a rapidly escalating humanitarian crisis as 927,452 refugees have crossed into Chad since the outbreak of conflict in Sudan in April 2023, bringing the number of displaced people in Chad to approximately 1.3 million.
Women and children make up 75 percent of the refugee population, underscoring the deeply gendered impact of the humanitarian crisis.
Among the displaced are approximately 68,880 pregnant women, while more than 91,000 babies are expected to be born in refugee camps over the next year.
Chad already records one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world—860 deaths per 100,000 live births—and the current influx is pushing an already fragile and overstretched health system to its limits.
Overcrowded camps and limited healthcare are sharply increasing risks for women and newborns, turning every delivery into a potentially life-threatening event.
During a seven-day high-level mission to Chad, UNFPA Deputy Executive Director for Management Andrew Saberton travelled to: the capital N’djamena, as well as Abeche and Adre in eastern Chad; and to Idrimi Refugee Camp in Iriba, to witness the scale of the emergency firsthand.
UNFPA teams are on the ground supporting the Government of Chad to strengthen emergency reproductive health services; deploy mobile clinics and set up safe spaces for survivors of gender-based violence.
However, operations are increasingly constrained by a mammoth funding gap for UNFPA’s humanitarian response with just 2.5 percent of UNFPA’s Chad programmes funded. This represents a 44 percent drop on our poor funding in 2025.
Despite its own severe economic and humanitarian pressures, Chad continues to keep its borders open to people fleeing violence.
UNFPA expressed deep appreciation for the Government of Chad and existing donors supporting the response, while warning that current resources remain far below what is needed.
UNFPA calls on the international community to sustain and scale up support and ensure that the needs and dignity of women and girls remain at the centre of the humanitarian response.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Noon briefing by Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.
Highlights:
Secretary-General/Travel
UNIFIL
Occupied Palestinian Territory
Syria
Sudan
Sudan/Humanitarian
South Sudan
Nigeria
Ukraine
Haiti
Republic of Korea
Financial Contribution
SECRETARY-GENERAL/TRAVEL
The Secretary-General is in Addis Ababa, where he is wrapping up his day. Earlier he participated in the 10th African Union-United Nations High-Level Dialogue, alongside the Chairperson of the AU Commission, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf.
In his opening remarks, the Secretary-General said that this was a moment of great emotion for him, as it most likely would be his last summit with the African Union as Secretary-General. He told the African Union delegation that they could count on the United Nations to support the AU fully in their initiatives and ensure that the international community understands that Africa’s success is absolutely essential for global success.
Following a working lunch, the Chairperson and the Secretary-General publicly signed a Declaration Reaffirming the Principles of the Joint Frameworks. The declaration reaffirms the strategic partnership between the United Nations and the African Union, emphasizing their shared commitment to multilateralism, African leadership, and the integrated pursuit of peace and security, sustainable development, and human rights.
In remarks to the press afterwards, the Secretary-General said that from the start of his mandate, he has taken steps to build a unique strategic partnership with the African Union.
The Secretary-General reiterated his call for fairer representation of Africa among the Security Council’s permanent members. “This is not about privilege or symbolism,” the Secretary-General said. “This is about ensuring that the Council is fit for purpose and able to act with legitimacy and effectiveness.”
Referring to a number of conflicts on the continent, the Secretary-General enumerated the various examples of the close cooperation between the UN and the AU in support of the African Union’s “silencing the guns” initiatives.
In concluding his opening remarks, the Secretary-General said he had always believed that Africa should be seen for what it is: a continent of immense richness and promise. In answer to a question from a journalist on foreign interference in African conflicts, the Secretary-General said that it was absolutely intolerable that countries external to Africa interfere in African conflicts, providing weapons and political support, only to serve their own strategic or economic interests.
Later in the afternoon, the Secretary-General, along with the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, were joined by President Emmanuel Macron for a meeting. During the meeting, they discussed the needed reforms of the multilateral and international financial architecture in an effort to make it more fair to those on the African continent, and beyond. They also exchanged views on the impact of the current conflict in the Middle East and how to mitigate it for African countries.
UNIFIL
Our peacekeepers from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon say they are increasingly concerned about the activities of Hezbollah members and Israeli soldiers near UN positions, including the increased use of drones, which has resulted in explosions in and around their bases and that puts peacekeepers at risk.
On Monday, three presumed Hizbullah drones detonated in an area where Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers could have been present, within metres of UNIFIL’s Naqoura headquarters. Another drone detonated in the same area on Tuesday.
A few minutes later, a presumed Hizbullah drone detonated inside UNIFIL’s Naqoura headquarters. No one was injured, but some buildings were damaged.
UNIFIL continues to remind all actors to avoid operating in proximity of United Nations positions and personnel, and further urge all actors to avoid any actions that could put peacekeepers in danger. UNIFIL protested IDF presence, activities, and movement of personnel and vehicles near the headquarters. Peacekeepers have also protested the activities of non-state actors near our positions to the Lebanese Armed Forces.
Despite the challenges, peacekeepers continue to impartially report what is happening on the ground in south Lebanon to the Security Council.
Full Highlights: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/noon-briefing-highlight?date=2026-05-13
Source: United Nations (video statements)
During a wide-ranging visit to Bunia in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, UN Global Peace Advocate Maryam Bukar Hassan, aka alhanislam, took part in a patrol by the Bangladeshi contingent of the UN mission, MONUSCO. Hassan engaged with women traders and community leaders on the security and economic challenges they face on a daily basis. She also met with women peacekeepers from the Bangladeshi, Indonesian, and Nepalese contingents, who shared their experiences in peacekeeping and the realities of their engagement as women serving communities.
Lastly, Hassan visited Martyrs’ Monument, which was erected in tribute to fallen peacekeepers. She reflected on the service and sacrifice of peacekeepers who have to spend time away from their families to protect people in some of the world’s most complex environments.
#Bangladesh #InvestInPeace #ServingForPeace
