Latest news on the Asia-Pacific region from the United Nations

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Friday welcomed the news that secondary schools are due to reopen in Afghanistan on Saturday, after months of closure due to COVID-19, but stressed that girls must not be kept from the classroom.

The return of humanitarian flights to Kabul since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is a turning point in the crisis, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday. 

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday hailed significant international financial support pledged to the people of Afghanistan following a meeting in Geneva, which nearly doubled the initial $606 million flash appeal for the country.

The international community should urgently offer a “lifeline” to millions of vulnerable Afghans “who face perhaps their most perilous hour”, the UN Secretary-General said on Monday.

The complexities of the years-long war in Yemen “multiply as the conflict drags on”, the country’s new UN envoy told the Security Council on Friday, adding that he was “under no illusions about the difficulty of the task” at hand.

Peaceful protesters in many parts of Afghanistan have been met with an increasingly violent response by the new Taliban authorities over the past four weeks, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Friday, including the use of live ammunition, batons and whips. 

While the choices available in Afghanistan are “not comfortable” ones, continued international engagement and unwavering commitment to the country’s people can help steer the situation to its best possible outcome, the UN’s senior official in Kabul told the Security Council on Thursday.

With food aid running out, Afghanistan is facing the collapse of basic services, said UN agencies on Tuesday, releasing a flash appeal for more than $600 million to support around 11 million across the crisis-wracked country to the end of the year.  

Climate change will “wreak havoc” across the Australian economy if coal is not rapidly phased out, a senior UN official warned on Monday. 

Women in Afghanistan play a “critical role” in delivering aid, the top UN Humanitarian told the leadership of the Taliban in Kabul on Sunday, calling on all parties to “ensure their rights, safety and well-being”.

The imminent execution of an Iranian Kurdish prisoner must be halted and his death sentence repealed, UN-appointed independent human rights experts said on Friday. 

A major humanitarian crisis is looming in Afghanistan, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, warned again on Friday, amid ongoing uncertainty about the situation for vulnerable Afghans seeking shelter across the country's borders. To address the crisis, the UN announced a major fundraising conference to take place in Geneva on 13 September.

Poverty in Lebanon has drastically increased over the past year and now affects about 74% of the population, warned the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) on Friday.