AP: U.N. General Assembly to decide on rival COVID-19 resolutions
“How should the U.N. General Assembly and its 193 member states respond to the coronavirus pandemic? Members have been sent two rival resolutions for consideration — and under new voting rules instituted because the global body isn’t holding meetings, if a single country objects a resolution is defeated. One resolution, which has more than 135 co-sponsors, calls for ‘intensified international cooperation to contain, mitigate, and defeat the pandemic, including by exchanging information, scientific knowledge, and best practices and by applying the relevant guidelines recommended by the World Health Organization.’ The other, sponsored by Russia with support from Central African Republic, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, also recognizes the leading role of WHO in combating the pandemic, but it calls for abandoning trade wars and implementing protectionist measures, and not applying unilateral sanctions without U.N. Security Council approval…” (Lederer, 4/1).

AP: U.N. chief says COVID-19 is worst crisis since World War II
“U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned Tuesday that the world faces the most challenging crisis since World War II, confronting a pandemic threatening people in every country, one that will bring a recession ‘that probably has no parallel in the recent past.’ There is also a risk that the combination of the disease and its economic impact will contribute to ‘enhanced instability, enhanced unrest, and enhanced conflict,’ the U.N. chief said at the launch of a report on the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19. Guterres called for a much stronger and more effective global response to the coronavirus pandemic and to the social and economic devastation that COVID-19 is causing…” (3/31).

VOA: U.N. Creates COVID Trust Fund to Assist Poorer Countries
“The United Nations is establishing a trust fund to support low- and middle-income countries in responding to the coronavirus pandemic and recovering from its socio-economic shock. ‘It is a call to action,’ U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres told journalists Tuesday during the virtual launch of the plan and his ‘Shared Responsibility, Global Solidarity’ report…” (Besheer, 3/31).

Additional coverage of the U.N. and World Bank responses to the COVID-19 pandemic is available from PRI, Reuters, and U.N. News.