UNODC has launched a series of online dialogs with the students:
In India, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) initiated a series of "Lockdown Learners` online dialogs with students and educators" The series covers COVID-19 and its effect on Goals for Sustainable Development (SDG), stability and the rule of law. The dialogs were initiated by the United Nations agency under its "Learning for Justice" flagship programme.
Aim:
The program aims at educating students about vulnerable community problems and emerging issues such as cybercrime, misinformation, gender-based abuse, sexism, corruption among others.
Highlights:
♦ The Lockdown Learners series will provide students with a forum to obtain mentoring and encouragement of knowledge through activity-based learning, and use their talent and skills.
♦ The day also raises understanding and shares suggestions and strategies for tackling some of these problems.
♦ Educational services were shared with partner schools in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, under the initiative.
♦ This also focuses on organizing convened meetings with hundreds of students and educators, Samarth Pathak, South Asia`s Communications Officer at UNODC.
♦ The initiative called on schools to support the efforts of UNODC to create a supportive environment for students to be active and engaged during the lockdown era, alleviate tension through constructive messaging, and empower youth.
♦ The initiative`s items include free-to-use instructional content, comics, board and online games, cartoon series The Zorbs, and other modules and videos. Teachers and students at home will use this to build an appreciation of harmony and the rule of law.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC):
Established on: 1997
Headquarters: Vienna, Austria
UNODC functions under the United Nations Development Group. It addresses a coordinated, crime prevention and criminal justice, comprehensive response to the interrelated issues of illicit trafficking in and abuse of drugs, international terrorism, and political corruption.
UNCTAD cancels debts owed by developed countries from USD 1 trillion:
In the spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has canceled more than $1 trillion in debt owing by developing countries. It aims to help them tackle the impact of the pandemic coronavirus.
Highlights:
♦ UNCTAD report noted that more than 64 low-income countries are actually spending more on debt servicing than their health systems. Debt has become unavoidable for developing nations, contributing in particular to the COVID-19 pandemic.
♦ UNCTAD projected financing and liquidity needs to be at least $2.5 trillion because of the pandemic quantities.
♦ Developing high-income nations have debt servicing commitments between $2 trillion and $2.3 trillion in 2020 and 2021. UNCTAD also said middle and low-income countries had debt service commitments ranging from $700 billion to $1.1 trillion.
♦ The G20 countries have earlier reserved $8 trillion in funding for their own economies. The G20 nations decided to delay contributions by the world`s poorest countries for bilateral debt service by the end of 2020.
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