Source: United Nations (video statements)
Interviews with different UN agencies on how they are using AI to carry out their tasks during the Global Dialogues on AI Governance in Geneva on 6-7 July 2026.
Launch of the SDG Report 2026, review of the 2030 agenda – Press Conference | United Nations
Source: United Nations (video statements)
“The High-Level Political Forum is the United Nations central platform for follow up and the review of the 2030 agenda,” said Lok Bahadur Thapa, President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), opening the 2026 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) in New York.
The forum runs under the theme “Transformative, equitable, innovative and coordinated actions for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals for a sustainable future for all.”
“The world does not need another catalog of challenges. We know the challenges. What we need is greater coherence, stronger partnerships, more effective, and international cooperations, faster implementations, and most of all, better delivery and the impact on the ground,” Thapa said.
“Over the coming days we will review progress on SDG6, 7, 9, 11 and 17 and hear from 36 countries presenting voluntary national reviews,” Thapa said.
“The 2030 agenda remains our shared promise to people, to planet and to future generations, who in the years ahead will not ask whether the challenges were difficult,” he continued. “They will ask whether we were equal to them. Let this forum show that when we connect ideas with actions, when we connect finance with innovations, and when we connect national leadership with international solidarity, progress is still possible.”
Li Junhua, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, noted that the Forum’s opening coincided with the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026. “Building on updates to previous HLPFs, the Secretary General’s Progress Report is a both a testament to what is possible and an urgent call to do far more,” he said. “With less than five years to achieve the SDGs the report offers a clear-eyed measure of our collective progress.”
Briefing reporters on the report’s findings, Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed cautioned that global averages conceal wide disparities. “The report is revealing the global picture, but we must not forget what it does mask and that is outstanding progress on SDGs in some countries, but also serious gaps across regions and countries,” she said.
“Today, thanks to these findings, we can say two things with confidence: that the Sustainable Development Agenda, its 17 Goals work; they are delivering for people just not fast enough, not evenly and more inclusively,” Mohammed stated. “And there is a huge risk of reversals.”
She pointed to gains in human development since 2020, including a global unemployment rate that fell to a record low of 4.9 per cent in 2025, nearly one billion more people gaining access to drinking water over the past decade, and women’s representation in parliaments and local government nearing 27 per cent. Nine in ten people now have access to electricity, Mohammed added, while 34 countries have met the target of under-five mortality and AIDS-related deaths have dropped by a third.
At the same time, Mohammed warned that conflict in the Middle East has disrupted maritime traffic, energy, fertilizer and food corridors, driving up inflation, and that war has erased 77 years of human development gains in Gaza.
Recent summers have ranked among the hottest on record, she said, with the world fast approaching a temporary overshoot of the 1.5-degree limit.
Military spending reached 2.9 trillion dollars in the same year that development assistance suffered its steepest fall on record, she noted, leaving an annual SDG financing gap of four trillion dollars.
“The overall picture is very clear,” Mohammed said. “We yield a real progress already in a number of areas, in a number of fronts, and also in a number of the regions and the countries. But at the same time, those progress does not achieve it at the hour expected the space and the scale. So the way forward is clear, as highlighted by the Under-Secretary-General. We need a political determination, political goodwill and also global partnership.”
Shantanu Mukherjee, Acting Director of the Statistics Division at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), said, “Cities are finally being built more efficiently, but slums continue to grow with 1.16 billion living in them,” he said. “Public services are improving but not keeping pace. As cities bring several SDGs together in practice offering a chance to improving billions of lives, we should capitalize on this opportunity.”
The Forum, convened under the auspices of ECOSOC, runs from 7 to 15 July and brings together governments, business leaders, civil society representatives, mayors, scientists, policymakers and international organizations to assess progress and accelerate action on the SDGs. This year’s session will review in depth Goals 6, 7, 9, 11 and 17, covering water and sanitation, energy, industry and infrastructure, sustainable cities, and partnerships for the Goals.
Families returning to destroyed southern #lebanon
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Despite a reduction in violence, the situation in southern Lebanon remains fragile as displaced families return to damaged homes lacking even basic services. UNIFIL peacekeepers continue monitoring the situation despite ongoing challenges, spokesperson Kandice Ardiel says.
HLPF 2026: Where hope turns into action for a sustainable future | United Nations
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Our world is grappling with multiple persistent crises.
Climate shocks, geopolitical tension, poverty, and growing economic uncertainty are all imposing burdens and impacting people’s everyday lives. With only four years until the 2030 deadline of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the need for action is more urgent than ever.
At the 2026 High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development, taking place from 7 to 15 July, the international community will come together to take stock of global progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and forge solutions. The three-day ministerial segment of the HLPF (13-15 July), convened as part of the ECOSOC high-level segment, will be followed by the segment’s concluding day on 16 July.
Learn more about the 2026 HLPF: https://hlpf.un.org/2026
Venezuela, Lebanon & other topics – Daily Press Briefing (7 July 2026) | United Nations
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Noon Briefing by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.
Highlights:
– Secretary-General Travel
– World Investment Report 2026
– Venezuela
– Lebanon
– Occupied Palestinian Territory
– Sudan
– Central African Republic
– State of the Climate in the South-West Pacific
– Kiswahili Language Day
– Briefings
WORLD INVESTMENT REPORT 2026
The World Investment Report 2026, today released by the UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), shows that global foreign direct investment rose 6 per cent to $1.6 trillion in 2025, ending two years of decline, but the recovery remains narrow, fragile and uneven. The report notes that inflows to developed economies rose 11 per cent, while developing economies recorded only 2 per cent growth, reaching $901 billion.
According to UNCTAD, the world’s top 20 host economies attracted more than 80 per cent of global foreign direct investment in 2025, underscoring a trend that runs throughout the report: investment is becoming more concentrated across countries, sectors and projects.
VENEZUELA
The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher, is arriving today in Venezuela on a four-day visit to meet with survivors and front-line responders after the devastating earthquakes nearly two weeks ago. Mr. Fletcher will also meet senior government officials and those supporting the search and rescue effort.
Tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m. New York time, Mr. Fletcher will speak, from Caracas, at a virtual ministerial-level Member States’ briefing about the humanitarian response so far and what comes next.
And I was asked yesterday about assessments going on in Venezuela. Our colleagues in OCHA are referring to rapid assessments of people’s immediate humanitarian needs, a process which includes humanitarian partners, field visits and surveys with affected people. These are not the overall damage and recovery assessments, which normally include development partners and international Financial Institutions.
OCHA also wants to clarify the current status of humanitarian funding in Venezuela which, as you know, had a response plan in place prior to the earthquakes. Before the earthquakes, the $632 million Humanitarian Response Plan for Venezuela this year had received around $115 million. Since then, total reported funding for that plan has increased to $300 million, and we expect to hear more about the appeal in tomorrow morning’s Member States’ briefing.
Full Highlights: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/noon-briefing-highlight?date=2026-07-07
5th UN Chiefs of Police Summit (UNCOPS 2026) – Press Conference on Upcoming Summit | United Nations
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Press Conference by Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, and UN Police Adviser, Faisal Shahkar, ahead of the fifth United Nations Chiefs of Police Summit (UNCOPS 2026).
Ahead of the fifth United Nations Chiefs of Police Summit (UNCOPS 2026), Peacekeeping Chief Jean‑Pierre Lacroix said budget cuts “have had real impact across the board where it really matters the most” for UN Police.
Lacroix told reporters in New York that “an integral part of UN Police work is their partnership with national police services to help build the skills, institutions and confidence needed for host countries to get to take increasing responsibility for their own security. “
He said the goal of the Summit “is to ensure that our organization is aligned and prepared to support the nearly 4,500 UN police from 77 countries who serve across our peace operations, while also helping shape how United Nations policing continues to evolve to meet today’s increasingly complex security environment.”
Lacroix said the Summit was also “an opportunity to enhance our collaboration with national police services, recognizing that today’s security challenges increasingly transcend borders and require collective responses.”
He noted that peacekeeping missions had to reduce their capacities “as a result of lack of full payment of assessed contributions,” including “reduced patrols in high-risk areas, longer response times to developing crises, and less opportunities to train and support local police so that they can assume full responsibility when the missions eventually wind down.”
For his part UN Police Adviser Faisal Shahkar said, “at a time of resource constraints, UNCOPS is an opportunity to show why an investment in United Nations Police is an investment in peace. A modern, people centered, rights based, specialized and fit for purpose UN police brings tangible returns for communities, national institutions and international peace and security.”
UNCOPS 2026 will bring together ministers, chiefs of police and senior representatives of regional and professional policing organizations to United Nations Headquarters from 7 to 8 July 2026 to engage on strengthening international peace, security, and development for all through the unifying power and enabling role of national and United Nations policing.
Building the Foundations for Human Dignity, w/ Jorge Moreira | UN ‘Awake at Night’ podcast teaser
Source: United Nations (video statements)
@unitednations
▶ https://youtu.be/s0618xFbT_M
Fighting for and believing in change is in Jorge Moreira da Silva’s blood. Now executive director of UNOPS, the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), the former Portuguese minister is helping to improve lives. From restoring roads and repairing power plants to running health centres and constructing renewable energy mini-grids, UNOPS implements projects in more than 130 countries – often in fragile and conflict-affected settings.
“It’s about providing social basic human needs. We have found a way to provide livelihoods to 15 million people in Afghanistan…rehabilitating roads, streets, water canals, paying men and women to do the job.”
In this episode, Jorge Moreira da Silva reflects on the practical and political challenges of delivering projects in complex environments – from funding gaps to lack of political will. He also shares how releasing an Iberian lynx and earning his pilot’s license have to do with keeping hope alive through dark times.
Since this interview was recorded, the UN Secretary-General has appointed Jorge Moreira da Silva to lead the UN task force for the Strait of Hormuz. The Initiative aims to facilitate the delivery and movement of much needed fertilisers and related raw materials to Asia and the African continent. The urgent delivery of these fertilisers is crucial to avert more hunger and food insecurity. He has been engaged in extensive consultations with all parties involved to drive this initiative.
“We Need to Act Before Warning Signs Become Mass Graves” – UN Chef de Cabinet | United Nations
Source: United Nations (video statements)
“We need to be proactive and vigilant, and act before warning signs become mass graves,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated on prevention of genocide in his remarks to the General Assembly.
Earle Courtenay Rattray delivered remarks on behalf of the Secretary-General, presenting the 18th report on the Responsibility to Protect and warning that early warning signs of atrocity crimes are too often ignored.
Speaking at the 97th plenary meeting, Rattray said the report takes stock of two decades of progress since Member States committed to the Responsibility to Protect principle. “Atrocity crimes can happen anywhere. But their effects on the world, and on our humanity, are shared. While prevention begins at home, it can be supported collectively,” he said.
The report, he noted, reaffirms the responsibility of States to ensure cooperation with affected communities, civil society, and regional and international organizations. “The report we are discussing today — the 18th since this commitment was made — takes stock of two decades of progress. It includes a clear re-affirmation of the responsibility of States to ensure constructive and sustained cooperation with affected communities, civil society, subregional and regional organizations and the United Nations,” Rattray stated.
He pointed to a sharp rise in global conflict as evidence of the urgency of the report’s findings. “This report is not only about looking back. It’s also about taking action, now. The Responsibility to Protect commitment is more vital than ever. The world faced more than 120 conflicts in 2025. Conflicts are becoming more protracted, more complex, and more interconnected,” the Chef de Cabinet said.
Rattray added that responses to atrocity risks continue to fall short. “Too often, early warning signs are ignored. And responses are often too little, too late. This report makes specific calls to strengthen the Responsibility to Protect norm for this new era of instability and geopolitical risk,” he told the Assembly.
At the national level, he said, the report calls on Member States to invest in prevention and protection programming. “At the national level, it calls on Member States to invest in national prevention and protection programming, and forge partnerships with civil society by designating focal points and establishing new domestic institutional arrangements,” Rattray noted.
He said the report also calls for atrocity prevention to be woven into regional and multilateral tools. “At the regional and multilateral levels, it calls for integrating atrocity prevention across all the tools of peacemaking, conflict prevention and humanitarian efforts – including mediation and preventive diplomacy and dialogue, as well as security, technological, human rights and accountability frameworks,” he said.
Rattray closed with a call to the Member States, “We need to be proactive and vigilant, and act before warning signs become mass graves.”
AI Governance: Call for Fair, Enforceable Policies -Global Advocate’s Video Message | United Nations
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the UN’s first Global Advocate for Human-centric Digital Governance, a role designed to strengthen public understanding of how digital technologies shape everyday life, rights and opportunities. In this video message to the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, the world’s first international platform on AI convened by the United Nations General Assembly, taking place in Geneva on 6-7 July 2026, he calls for policies that are effective, enforceable and fair in governing Artificial Intelligence.
AI: UN Chief Calls for Global Rules to Govern Powerful New Tech – Press Conference | United Nations
Source: United Nations (video statements)
UN chief António Guterres appealed on Monday for far-reaching, worldwide controls on Artificial Intelligence, as increasingly powerful AI chips that are designed for civilian use shift to the battlefield, where “killer robots” are already the norm.
Addressing the inaugural UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance in Geneva, the Secretary-General also insisted on the need for greater accessibility for the billions of people unable to access the revolutionary tech.
He insisted that any future agreement must be “worthy of global trust” and put safety first – and especially children’s – to protect them from digitally-generated manipulation and abuse.
Narrowing the digital gap
Other priorities for global checks and balances on AI should include locked-in access to the self-learning tech for developing countries, while all AI data centres should be powered by renewable energy by 2030, the UN chief stressed.
Although AI “sits at the heart of our common future”, it needs to be one where “machines can inform, but humans must decide, and answer”, Mr. Guterres told the summit gathered in Geneva, echoing calls for AI rules that he first made to the General Assembly in 2017.
In the three years since AI went mainstream, it has had a revolutionary impact across economies and societies, for better and for worse. Ahead of this, the UN has been leading international efforts to shape controls on the tech, culminating in Monday’s inaugural Global Dialogue on AI in Geneva.
The meeting involves companies, researchers, technical experts and civil society to discuss how to put humanity at the core of the transformative technology. A second Dialogue is scheduled for May 2027 in New York.
"AI is too consequential to be shaped by a few. We need a conversation that is global, inclusive and grounded in evidence," insisted Amandeep Singh Gill, UN Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies.
‘Great equalizer’
Used well and shared widely, AI “could compress decades of development into years” and become “the great equalizer of the 21st century”, the UN Secretary-General told delegates.
But before this can happen, the technology should be tested thoroughly for safety and legal responsibility assigned:
“When countries align on how to test systems, measure risk and assign responsibility, safety travels with the technology,” he said. “When they do not, a patchwork of incompatible rules raises costs, divides the world – and protects no one.”
Children’s safety and wellbeing should be priority in any future governance accord, Mr. Guterres continued, as he called for nations to adopt an AI Child Safety Pledge. “No child should be a guinea pig for unregulated AI…We do not let medicine reach a child until it is proven safe. We test every toy; yet AI has reached our children – their learning, their friendships, their most private questions, before anyone asked what it would do to them.”
What’s the Child Safety Pledge?
Under the UN child safety pledge, AI developers would need to prove:
• That the tech is safe – no company should deploy an AI system accessible to children without child-specific safety testing and independent oversight;
• Zero tolerance for sexual abuse – no company should allow its AI to generate sexual images of children; every company must detect, report, and remove them;
• When a child shows signs of distress, “the system must stop and connect them to real human support”, the UN chief said. “When a child is harmed, the answer must never be “the algorithm did it,” the UN chief said.
Human rights a priority
As second priority on AI controls, the UN chief stressed that human rights are not negotiable.
“AI must never strip away dignity or entrench discrimination. And in every high-stakes decision – in justice, in healthcare, in policing – machines can inform, but humans must decide – and answer,” he said.
Public funding in AI ‘a rounding error’
In a call for greater public investment in AI, the Secretary-General noted that private funding for AI infrastructure is approximately $500 trillion, while public support for AI capacity in developing countries remains “a rounding error”, by comparison.
To help close this gap, the UN chief announced that more than 20 countries had supported his initiative for a UN-supported Global Network for Exchange and Cooperation on AI Capacity Building.
“We cannot allow the digital divide to harden into an AI divide and the AI divide to become a development gap, a security gap, and a sovereignty gap,” he said.