Latest Updates

Mission Leadership at the UN: Halting Progress Toward Parity

2020 has been a banner year for the long-overdue push to appoint women to the notoriously male-dominated leadership ranks of UN peacekeeping and political missions—a sign that the UN's gender parity strategy is making progess. This article provides a preview of some of the data from the UN Senior Appointments Dashboard that CIC and the Center for Global Affairs will soon launch, showing both real gains for gender parity, and a more nuanced picture of how well the UN is addressing the complementary priority of regional diversity.

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Sep 30, 2020
Multilateral Reform, Prevention and Peacebuilding

The Challenge of a Lifetime: Ensuring Universal Access to COVID-19 Health Technologies

On September 25th, during the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, leaders from around the world came together to call for a fair and equitable approach to the development, production, and distribution of vaccines for COVID-19. Speakers at this high-level event highlighted the vision and status of the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), discussed ongoing research and development, and issued a call to action for member states, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, and other key stakeholders to support a People's Vaccine. This short video shares highlights from the discussion.

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Sep 29, 2020
2030 Agenda, Global Governance, Humanitarian Crises, United Nations
Humanitarian Crises, Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies

Ebola in the DRC: The Perverse Effects of a Parallel Health System

Over the past two years, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has worked to contain its tenth and largest Ebola epidemic. This Congo Research Group group report, the first of three focusing on the epidemic, examines the public health aspects of the response—particularly the creation of a parallel health system funded by international donors. Despite clinical advances, these parallel structures significantly compromised the efficacy of the response, potentially prolonging the epidemic and contributing to violence.

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Sep 17, 2020
Congo Research Group

The New Secretary-General Report on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace: Prevention Back on the Agenda

The UN secretary-general’s third report on peacebuilding and sustaining peace launches this week. CIC’s briefing examines the new report, finding that it moves the prevention agenda forward in several respects, and identifies key opportunities for prevention to take root in the UN’s practice, especially as the UN and its partners work to respond to the crises unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Sep 10, 2020
Paige Arthur, Céline Monnier , Leah Zamore
Peace Operations, United Nations
Prevention and Peacebuilding

An Unexpected Reprieve in Idlib: COVID-19 and the Syrian Ceasefire

As the war-torn province of Idlib braces itself for the deadly impact of the coronavirus pandemic, there has been some startling good news: June saw the lowest monthly civilian death toll since the Syrian conflict began in 2011. The lull in fighting presents an opportunity to begin addressing the humanitarian situation in Idlib before COVID-19 cases rise. On the CIC blog, the authors of our May 2020 briefing provide an update on the situation and explain how to prevent further humanitarian crisis in northwest Syria.
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Aug 17, 2020
Tayseer Alkarim, Hanny Megally , Leah Zamore
Syria
Humanitarian Crises

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