UN Peacekeeping radio stations have in recent decades helped build support for peace process in a dozen countries around the world including Cambodia, Croatia, Namibia and Timor-Leste.

States and business leaders must step up efforts to ensure that the selfless doctors, nurses, first-responders and other medical professionals working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic receive adequate protective equipment, a UN rights expert said on Friday.

Migrants are playing an increasingly important role in the provision of health care around the world. The number of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals who move from developing countries to take up posts in developed countries is expected to rise as the global population of older persons and children continues to grow.

Foreign direct investment flows are liable to drop by 30 to 40 per cent during 2020, into next year, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting a far more severe economic blow that initially projected, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said on Thursday in its latest Investment Trends Monitor report.

Around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic is overstretching health services, medical goods are in short supply, and transport disruptions have left supply chains facing “historic strain”, according to the head of the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF.