Sometimes soldiers take over a school entirely, but often they use just a part of the school or university and in doing so expose students to attacks and other violence.

The report “Louder than words: An agenda for action to end state use of child soldiers” is published to mark the tenth anniversary year of the entry into force of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict. It examines the record of states in protecting children from use in hostilities by their own forces and by state-allied armed groups. It finds that, while governments’ commitment to ending child soldier use is high, the gap between commitment and practice remains wide.

Geneva (ICRC) – Major crises that erupted in 2011 in the Middle East and Africa, alongside existing armed conflicts and other violent situations all over the world, caused immense suffering among millions of people that lasted well into 2012 and made them heavily dependent on aid. In addition, increasing food demand in several parts of the world continued to fuel unrest and conflict, as did the consequences of drought and floods. The worldwide economic crisis further compounded the woes felt by many.

FOREWORD

2011 was an important year for the humanitarian community and for OCHA. There was barely a moment when our community was not faced with a relentless series of natural disasters, political crises and chronic emergencies.

But in the midst of this, we achieved something quite remarkable. At the end of December, humanitarian response partners, UN agencies, NGOs and the International Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement agreed on a series of reforms that focused on making our response efforts faster and more effective.

Dear friends and colleagues,

IRIN is ending the year on a high.
Our climate change expert, Jaspreet Kindra, was invited to chair two separate panel discussions at COP 17 in Durban, and our PlusNews staffer, Keisha Rukikaire-Kagwa, was part of a satellite discussion on HIV in emergencies at the ICASA HIV/AIDS conference in Addis Ababa – great recognition of the quality of their work.

GENEVA, 03 October, 2011– UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres warned today that an increasingly complex international environment is making it harder to find solutions for the world’s more than 43 million refugees, internally displaced and stateless people.

Speaking at the opening of the annual meeting in Geneva of UNHCR’s governing Executive Committee, Guterres said the international community needed to up its collective game to prevent conflict, to adapt to climate change and to better manage natural disasters.

GENÈVE, 25 août (HCR) – Aujourd'hui, à travers le monde, il y a des millions de personnes qui vivent au ban de la société. Administrativement, ils n'existent pas. Ils ne sont citoyens d'aucun pays, ils sont apatrides.