“The combined immunization campaign constitutes an important step forward for Chad in its agenda to accelerate child survival and development,” said Bruno Maes, the Representative in Chad for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which is supporting the effort along with the World Health Organization (WHO).

“Vitamin A supplementation offers the child a better chance of survival and lower risks of being infected by serious infectious diseases. Meanwhile, children who are de-wormed have a better nutritional status, grow faster and develop better learning skills,” Maes added.

More than 9,600 additional community workers have been mobilized across the country to ensure that all targeted children are reached, including nomadic children, who are often difficult to reach, according to a UNICEF press release.

The agency noted that Chad has made tremendous progress towards the eradication of polio, with only 5 cases diagnosed in 2012 compared to132 cases in 2011.

“The campaign will help consolidate gains made in polio eradication in Chad, where no cases have been reported since June 2012,” Maes said.

He cautioned, however, that fundamental concerns remain in the country. There are still a significant number of unvaccinated or missed children during campaigns. “This is a concern in 8 of the 19 regions where the proportion of unvaccinated children has increased during supplementary immunization activities,” he said.

The Government is committed to overcoming those challenges, UNICEF says, noting that Chad has joined the UNICEF global initiative known as ‘Commitment to child survival: a promise renewed’, which aims to reduce the infant mortality rate in countries to below 20 per 1,000 births by 2035.

Launched by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and partners, the campaign – ‘Think, Eat, Save. Reduce Your Foodprint’ – seeks to accelerate action to eliminate wasteful practices and help countries share successful initiatives on these issues. It specifically targets food wasted by consumers, retailers and the hospitality industry.

“In a world of seven billion people, set to grow to nine billion by 2050, wasting food makes no sense – economically, environmentally and ethically,” said UNEP’s Executive Director, Achim Steiner. “To bring about the vision of a truly sustainable world, we need a transformation in the way we produce and consume our natural resources.”

About one-third of all food produced globally, worth around $1 trillion, gets lost or wasted in food production and consumption systems, according to FAO. Food loss occurs mostly at the production stages – harvesting, processing and distribution – while food waste typically takes place at the retailer and consumer end of the food supply chain.

Roughly 95 per cent of food loss and waste in developing countries are unintentional losses at early stages of the food supply chain due to limitations in harvesting techniques, storage, packaging and marketing systems.

In the developed world, however, food waste occurs because consumers are quick to throw away food due to over-buying, inappropriate storage, and preparing meals that are too large, while food manufacturers are retailers produce waste because of inefficient practices, confusion over date labels and quality standards that overemphasize appearance.

“In industrialized regions, almost half of the total food squandered, around 300 million tons annually, occurs because producers, retailers and consumers discard food that is still fit for consumption,” said FAO’s Director-General, José Graziano da Silva. “This is more than the total net food production of Sub-Saharan Africa, and would be sufficient to feed the estimated 870 million people hungry in the world.”

In Europe and North America, the average waste per consumer is between 95 and 115 kilograms per year, while consumers in sub-Saharan Africa, south and Southeast Asia each throw away only six to 11 kilograms annually.

“If we can help food producers to reduce losses through better harvesting, processing, storage, transport and marketing methods, and combine this with profound and lasting changes in the way people consume food, then we can have a healthier and hunger-free world,” Mr. da Silva added.

The campaign will seek to involve families, supermarkets, hotel chains, schools, sports and social clubs, the private sector, city mayors and world leaders to reach its food potential. It will also provide simple tips in its website that will allow users to made food waste pledges, and a platform for those running campaigns to exchange ideas and create a global culture of sustainable consumption of food.

“This year’s World Humanitarian Day presents an historic opportunity to bring together one billion people from around the world to advance a powerful and proactive idea: people helping people,” Ban said in his message marking the Day, which falls on 19 August.

“From international efforts to avert a hunger crisis in West Africa to urgent assistance to civilians in Syria, to a single good deed from one neighbour to the next, the spirit of people helping people improves conditions for all,” Ban said. “That is the best way to honour the many fallen aid workers we mourn today, and to celebrate the efforts of others who carry on their noble mission by rushing assistance to those who are suffering.”

The General Assembly proclaimed 19 August as World Humanitarian Day in 2008 to commemorate the 2003 Canal Hotel bombing in Baghdad, Iraq, which claimed the lives of 22 UN staff members, including the world body’s top envoy to the Middle Eastern country, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and wounded more than 150 people.

The Day aims to honour those who have lost their lives in humanitarian service and those who continue to bring assistance and relief to millions, in addition to drawing attention to humanitarian needs worldwide and the importance of international cooperation in meeting those needs.

For this year’s observance, the UN has launched a global campaign, entitled ‘I Was Here,’ to engage one billion people through social media so they can pledge a humanitarian action, however big or small, and share their individual actions with others through an interactive website, www.whd-iwashere.org.

“Individual actions may seem small, but collectively they will reverberate around the world, generating unstoppable momentum for a better future,” Ban said.

Organized by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the campaign is supported by US performing artist Beyoncé Knowles, who along with songwriter Diane Warren, donated the “I Was Here” song to the campaign, recently filming a video clip for the song at the General Assembly Hall at UN Headquarters in New York.

The video will premiere on the Day, with displays on big screens in the cities of Dubai, Geneva, Addis Ababa, as well as in New York City’s Times Square, among other locales.

“‘I Was Here’ says I want to leave my footprints in the sands of time, and that is leaving our mark on the world,” Ms. Knowles said in a special joint interview conducted at the UN Television studios with US journalist Anderson Cooper. “We all want to know that our life meant something and that we did something for someone else, and that we spread positivity no matter how big or how small.”

In the same interview, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos, said that the Day would help to spread a message of hope and raise awareness of the millions of people helping others around the world.

“This is a day that is both a commemoration, because there are a lot of people who lost their lives trying to help people, but it is also a celebration of the things that people do,” she said. “There is an amazing amount that people do every single day that goes unrecognized.”

In a statement, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Somalia, Mark Bowden, praised the dedication of humanitarian workers, especially in the east African country, where conditions are particularly difficult due to conflict and food insecurity.

“Every day in Somalia, non-governmental organizations and the UN humanitarian agencies work with the Somali people to overcome the effects of drought, hunger and conflict on innocent people,” Bowden said, adding that aid workers risk their lives daily when doing their jobs. “The dangers are very real. Since the last World Humanitarian day, 19 aid workers were killed and eight others kidnapped in Somalia, four of whom remain in captivity.”

Bowden called on all parties to respect humanitarian work and allow humanitarian access to people in need. “Whether aid workers are international staff far from their homes and families or national staff working in the community in which they were raise, their only agenda is to help the most vulnerable,” he added.

Echoing Bowden, the Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), Ertharin Cousin, said it is unacceptable that humanitarian workers face physical violence, intimidation and even death, on a daily basis in certain parts of the world.

“Sadly as the world’s largest humanitarian agency, WFP has all too often endured these challenges and more, much more, as a common workplace reality,” she said in a statement.

Over the past year, 12 WFP staff, contractors and partner staff have been killed while working to fight hunger in Haiti, Côte d’Ivoire, Somalia, Sudan, and South Sudan. Others were kidnapped, injured and traumatized by violence directed against them.

“Transnational organized crime reaches into every region, and every country across the world. Stopping this transnational threat represents one of the international community’s greatest global challenges,” said UNODC’s Executive Director, Yury Fedotov, in a news release. “Crucial to our success is our ability to raise public awareness and generate understanding among key decision and policymakers.”

The $870 billion turnover from transnational organized crime is six times the amount of official development assistance, and is comparable to 1.5 per cent of the global domestic product, or seven per cent of the world’s exports of merchandise, according to UNODC.

Drug trafficking is the most lucrative form of business for criminals, with an estimated value of $320 billion a year. Human trafficking brings in about $32 billion annually, while some estimates place the global value of smuggling of migrants at $7 billion per year.

The environment is also exploited: trafficking in timber generates revenues of $3.5 billion a year in South-East Asia alone, while elephant ivory, rhino horn and tiger parts from Africa and Asia produces $75 million annually in criminal turnover, UNODC notes. At $250 billion a year, counterfeiting is also a high earner for organized crime groups.

In addition to the financial costs involved, the agency’s awareness-raising campaign seeks to highlight the human costs of these criminal activities to societies. Each year, countless lives are lost to drug-related health problems and violence and firearm deaths, among other causes. In addition, some 2.4 million people are victims of human trafficking.

“The UNODC-led campaign also illustrates that despite being a global threat, the effects of transnational organised crime are felt locally. Crime groups can destabilize countries and entire regions, undermining development assistance in those areas and increasing domestic corruption, extortion, racketeering and violence,” UNODC noted in a news release. “The campaign drives the message that someone ultimately suffers and there is always a victim.”

The campaign, which is being rolled-out through online channels and international broadcasters, consists of 30 and 60-second Public Service Announcements in multiple languages, a set of posters, a series of fact sheets and various online banners that illustrate that despite being a global threat, the effects of transnational organized crime are felt locally. The campaign is also being promoted through various social media channels.

Six parties apart from apart from PASOK, New Democracy, the Communist Party (KKE), Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS), Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) and Ecologist Greens which were not represented in the last parliament and are contesting the upcoming elections will be given some airtime on ERT, according to a joint ministerial decision signed on Monday by Interior Minister Tassos Giannitsis and Minister of State Pantelis Kapsis.

This decision is in response to an an appeal to the council of state by Drasi Party , which objected a cross-party committee decision to provide airtime just to the five parties who won seats at the 2009 elections and the Ecologist Greens, who won a seat in the European Parliament in the same year.

Any party that has received at least 0.25 the previous national elections or European Parliament elections will be guaranteed some airtime.

State broadcaster ERT is obliged to carry a 45-minute interview with the leader of each party and will have to cover live one of the group’s public rallies, ANA reports. ERT and private channels will also allocate each party two five-minute spots during their evening broadcasts and a total of 25 minutes for campaign ads.

However, the issue of a televised debate between party leaders remains undecided. PASOK has challenged ND leader Antonis Samaras to a two-way debate with Socialist chief Evangelos Venizelos. The conservatives rejected this idea yesterday, arguing it would simply lead to “monologues” by the two politicians. ND called for a cross-party committee to agree on a format involving more leaders. “They are rejecting dialogue because they are afraid,” said PASOK spokeswoman Fofi Gennimata, according to Kathimerini.