On this day in 1996, after three years of United Nations-moderated peace talks between the Government of Guatemala and representatives from the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity), the parties signed the Agreement on a Firm and Lasting Peace, ending decades of civil conflict that began in 1962 and took the lives of over 200,000 Guatemalans.

Long before the coronavirus (#COVID-19) arrived, the United Nations created a system to defend against the recurrence of an influenza pandemic like the 1918 flu that killed over 40 million people.

As the authoritative reference on the annual activities and concerns of the United Nations, the Yearbook of the United Nations regularly covers international economic and social questions in its Part Three. Take the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2020 survey of its publications and databases to let the United Nations know your views on these resources! The questionnaire concerns awareness and use of UN DESA publications; influence of UN DESA publications; translation, access and sharing of UN DESA publications; and demographics.

Science and technology are often considered to be the forte of men. #Today is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science (11 February), which presents an opportunity to dispel myths, celebrate women who made crucial discoveries and inventions in the world of science, such as physicist Marie Curie, primatologist #JaneGoodall and marine biologist Rachel Carson

The UN Climate Change Conference (2-13 December 2019) #COP25 in Madrid started today, less than a week after the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) issued its annual Emissions Gap Report. The report found that the world is not doing enough to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which hit a new high of 55.3 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2018.

2019 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the General Assembly’s adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which has become the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history and has helped transform children’s lives around the world.

“Breathe with Me", a public art action for the world, conceived and executed by Jeppe Hein with ART 2030, invites people to paint their individual breath onto large canvases in the shape of vertical blue lines, one for every exhale, raising awareness that the air we breathe is part of our connected world and climate.

The outcomes of five high-level events taking place at UN Headquarters in New York this week: the Climate Action Summit (23 September); the High-level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage (23 September); the SDG Summit (24-25 September); the High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development (26 September); and the

International Literacy Day (8 September), proclaimed by UNESCO in 1966 and endorsed by Economic and Social Council resolution 1276(LIII) in 1967, aimed to remind the international community of the importance of literacy for individuals, communities and societies. Since then, the concept of literacy has evolved.

Researchers and scholars along with other users of the Yearbook of the United Nations will be glad to know that 2015 and 2016 Pre-press material is now available, featuring detailed and hyperlinked chapter outlines for their respective topics. The 2015 Pre-press includes outlines for all Political and security questions, Human rights, Economic and social questions, Legal questions, and Institutional, administrative and budgetary questions chapters.