The Lid is On

In the Pact for the Future UN Member States pledged to do more to fight the climate crisis, a subject that has dominated several sessions at UN Headquarters this week. On Thursday’s episode of Focus on the Future, Conor Lennon and Sachin Gaur discuss some of the big climate-related events, including a General Assembly meeting on sea level rise. The rate of sea level rise has more than doubled over...

Reforming the Security Council, to make it more representative of today’s world, has been under discussion for decades. The subject made it into the Pact for the Future, adopted earlier this week. Does this mean that it is more likely to happen? Global governance is the key theme of today’s show, which is dominated by the opening of the General Debate, when Heads of State, Prime Ministers and Pres...

Crippling debt burdens are holding many African countries back: some  of them are paying more on repayments than on health, education and infrastructure. On today’s show Conor Lennon is joined by Sachin Gaur from the UN News Hindi Unit, to cover the events focused on sustainable development and rethinking the entire international financial architecture. The big question is, how we can make it...

On the first episode of Focus on the Future, our mini-series running throughout High-Level Week of the UN General Assembly, Conor Lennon and Shanaé Harte explain what the Summit of the Future is all about, how to bring back trust between countries and why UN HQ was full of young people all weekend! Contact us: thelidison@un.org LINKS UN News Summit of the Future page Summit of the Future | UN News...

Since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, the numbers attending High-Level Week at UN Headquarters in New York have steadily ticked upwards, and this year is set to be a packed event. If that sounds overwhelming, worry not. UN News is releasing a daily podcast mini-series, designed to make sense of it all. Each episode of Focus on the Future will have a main topic linked to the focus of the day, and...

The future of UN peacekeeping and the “new models” it needs to create to remain relevant in the 21st Century are set to be discussed at the landmark Summit of the Future taking place in New York from 22 September. There are currently 11 UN missions around the world, mainly in Africa and the Middle East. Their goal is to help countries torn by conflict to create the conditions for lasting peace. Pa...

Workers with the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA, have some of the toughest assignments going in the humanitarian field, helping protect new mothers and babies often born in the midst of intense conflict zones. For this episode of UN News’s flagship podcast, The Lid is On, two UNFPA representatives reflect on their life-saving work with UN News’ Shanaé Harte.  They discuss s...

A Ugandan man, some of whose family and friends were abducted in the East African country, tells the story of his journey from war-torn childhood to becoming the youngest ever African nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Victor Ochen grew up in northern Uganda at a time when the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, was terrorising the region with violent abductions, forced child soldier recruitment, an...

The cultivation of sisal plants by some of the most vulnerable communities in southern Madagascar is helping to tackle desertification and allow people to stay on their land, thanks to a project by the UN Development Programme. The seasonal Tiomena wind, a fiercely strong wind that blows over the coastline,  has driven sandy soils across productive farmland forcing many people to give up thei...

Dominica is described as highly disaster-vulnerable: the country is regularly hit by hurricanes and, when the last one swept through in 2017, it caused huge devastation across the island. The government, led by President Sylvanie Burton, the first woman and the first member of the indigenous Kalinago community to be the country’s Head of State, wants to make Dominica the world’s first ‘c...

The vast majority of small island developing States (SIDS) are heavily dependent on polluting, and expensive, fossil fuels for their energy needs: some spend around a quarter of their national budgets on imported fuel.  However, for Trinidad & Tobago, fossil fuels have been a boon to the economy: the country has exploited its oil and gas reserves for several decades and profited from the...

Thailand has been lauded for the progressive legislation it has passed into law which ensures that women and girls have the right to a range of sexual and reproductive health services, but many teenagers struggle to access the care they need. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has been working with organizations in the South East Asian country to make sure those young people receive the support they a...

UN peacekeeping operations are facing more challenging political and security conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa and require the united and committed support from Member States. However, as the head of UN peacekeeping, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, tells the Lid is On podcast from UN News, a multiplication of crises, and divisions amongst Member States are complicating peacekeeping operations.

The UN chief has a strong message for those who say the absence of some key leaders is a blow to this year’s General Assembly week – rise to the moment and deliver on your promises. In this special edition of the Lid is On, we speak exclusively to Secretary-General António Guterres about the SDGs, climate change and much more.

Countries in Southeast Asia are coming together with the support of the UN to tackle what is being described as “one of the biggest drug-trafficking corridors in the world.” Traditionally, the highly addictive drugs, opium and heroin were trafficked out of the region, but now more dangerous synthetic drugs are being manufactured in remote jungle laboratories in ever larger quantities. Closer colla...

With the world currently recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, and reeling from the economic fallout of the war in Ukraine, progress on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals remains slow. So, can we pick up the pace in the seven years we have left in this decade, and get closer to realizing the Goals? And can Youth Leaders make a difference? During the 2023 UN Youth Forum , Conor Lennon fro...

On today’s episode of The Lid Is On, Conor Lennon speaks to three exceptional young changemakers who have been recognized by the UN for the contributions they are making to a more sustainable world. Vee Kativhu is an award-winning education activist from Zimbabwe, American Paralympian Jamal Hill launched a foundation to cut the number of people who drown each year, and Karen Wang, from China, is t...

The UN Young Leaders for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an inspiring group of young people from across the world, achieving great things in areas as diverse as gender equality, climate action, and health equity. The current cohort were all in New York in April for the 2023 UN Youth Forum , an annual gathering where youthful changemakers can voice their opinions, contribute to policy...

In the final episode of Humanitarian Leadership Stories, a mini-series produced in collaboration with the UN Humanitarian Office, OCHA,we find out why there’s so much more to relief work than just delivering emergency assistance. Daniel Johnson hears from humanitarians in hotspots such as Gaza, Haiti, and Libya, on why it’s essential to help those in chronic conflict zones to become more resilient...

For veteran UN Humanitarian Coordinator Imran Riza, holding the line on impartiality is key in emergencies. And he should know, having served as the Organization’s top relief official in Damascus, Syria. Hear Imran’s story in episode five of Humanitarian Leadership Stories, a mini-series produced in collaboration with the UN Humanitarian Office, OCHA, which also includes fascinating insights from...

In episode four of Humanitarian Leadership Stories, a mini-series produced in collaboration with the UN Humanitarian Office, OCHA, we hear how tough discussions with warring sides are part and parcel of being a top UN relief coordinator. This podcast also takes us to Nigeria, South Sudan, Jordan and Lebanon, where we’ll find out how the work of the UN’s relief chiefs is driven by putting vulnerabl...

In the third episode of Humanitarian Leadership Stories, our mini-series produced in collaboration with the UN Humanitarian Office, OCHA, Daniel Johnson from UN News speaks to frontline relief veteran Najat Rochdi, about restoring hope to people in crisis. It’s what Najat did, when she helped women facing gender-based violence in Lebanon, where she was the UN’s Humanitarian and Resident Coordinato...

In the second episode of Humanitarian Leadership Stories, our co-production with OCHA, the UN Humanitarian Office, top UN relief officials explain how the key humanitarian principle of putting people in crisis first – and remaining accountable to them – guides their work. Daniel Johnson hears how UN humanitarian coordinators go about their work, taking calculated risks where armed groups are conce...

What makes a good aid chief? That’s the question we set out to answer in Humanitarian Leadership Stories, a mini-series produced in collaboration with the UN Humanitarian Office, OCHA. Helping people in emergencies is part and parcel of being a humanitarian, but there’s a lot more to helping vulnerable communities than you might think, as we’ll hear, in this compelling podcast series. In this...

Unless drastic changes are made the future of water looks bleak. On World Meteorological Day, held on 23 March, Conor Lennon spoke to Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organisation, Lindsey Blodgétt, Former President of the World Youth Parliament for Water, and Maarten van Aalst, Director of the Dutch Royal Meteorological Institute, about the changes that societies need...