On 8 October, the Civil Society-UN Prevention Platform hosted a meeting between civil society and the newly appointed Under-Secretary General and Special Advisor on Policy, Ms. Ana Maria Menéndez. The Civil Society Prevention Platform, established in 2016, aims to enhance UN and civil society collaboration. As co-facilitator of the Civil Society Prevention Platform, QUNO hosted this off-the-record event in Quaker House. 

On 19 and 20 September 2016, UN Member States made important commitments for refugees and migrants.  Exactly a year later, QUNO will join other NGOs in this open briefing to member states, organized by IVCA, to look back on those commitments and analyse the achievements so far and processes underway to deliver on those promises.

Under the Friends World Committee for Consultation, QUNO is now an accredited observer of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This official observer status enables us to nominate authors and engage in the development of IPCC Reports, which provide decision makers worldwide with the most extensive collection of climate science research.

At the Human Rights Council in June, a resolution was passed mandating a new report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights related to the human rights of migrants. 

The report will be an important input to the developing a global compact on safe, orderly and regular migration, particularly to ensure that this new international agreement on migration is human rights based.

In this recently published paper in the Society for International Development (2017), QUNO’s Food & Sustainability Representative Susan H. Bragdon explores the two interlinked trends of using market-based solutions to end hunger and the weakening of the public sector in ensuring local and global food security. She argues that both of these phenomena play an important role in the creation of a modern food system that is harming the health of people and planet.