UNITED NATIONS, New York –Diana Kendi Makale, a journalist from Kenya, was selected as the winner of the first Efua Dorkenoo Pan African Award for Reportage on Female Genital Mutilation. Ms. Makale, who works for the QTV Nation Media Group, will be honoured during a ceremony to take place in Abuja, Nigeria, on Tuesday, 9 February. As the winner of the award, she will be trained for one month at The Guardian’s FGM Multimedia and Investigations Unit in London.

UNITED NATIONS, New York – UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is seeking $107.1 million to meet the urgent needs of more than 5 million women and girls from Syria affected by the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. About $51.93 million of the sum is to keep women and girls inside Syria healthy and safe, while $55.17 million will be used to tackle the special needs of refugees in neighbouring countries.

UNITED NATIONS, New York – President Joko Widodo, of the Republic of Indonesia, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, the Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, and numerous global leaders at the International Conference on Family Planning in Nusa Dua, Indonesia, called for urgent action to increase access to family planning services worldwide, which will support the implementation of the new development agenda.

NEW YORK/GENEVA – Oumo , a young woman from sub-Saharan Africa is fleeing persecution that has left her brother-in-law dead and her sister missing. Fearing for her life, she made the dangerous and difficult journey to Europe where she is hoping to find asylum and safety. During her journey to Greece, Oumo was forced to engage in transactional sex twice to secure passage on a boat and a fake passport. Upon arrival on a Greek island, she slept in the open without shelter, privacy or access to assistance. “I fear that I will go crazy,” she admitted.

UNITED NATIONS, New York, 3 December 2015 --The health needs of women and adolescents are too often neglected in humanitarian response to natural disasters and conflicts around the world, even though whether women and girls live or die in a crisis often depends on access to basic sexual and reproductive health services like midwives and HIV prevention, says a new report released today by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK/ISTANBUL – With hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants moving from Greece through the Balkans to reach Western and Northern Europe, the countries along the transit routes need urgent support to ensure that women and girls have access to life-saving sexual and reproductive health care and are protected from violence, UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, said in an appeal for $4.2 million in humanitarian assistance launched today.

A tool for implementing comprehensive programmes on HIV and sexually transmitted infections with men who have sex with men was released today by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. The publication, Implementing Comprehensive HIV and STI Programmes with Men Who Have Sex With Men: practical guidance for collaborative interventions, presents concrete steps that public-health officials, health workers and non-governmental organizations can use to implement HIV and STI programmes for men who have sex with men.

As the United Nations intensifies its humanitarian efforts to respond to the ongoing crisis in Yemen, UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is working with partners to ensure safe birth for pregnant women and to prevent and respond to gender-based violence.

NAY PYI TAW—A comprehensive profile of Myanmar’s 51.5 million people and how they live is available for the first time in three decades, after today’s release of the 2014 Population and Housing Census main results.

UNITED NATIONS, New York — Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, a former Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, and the African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC), an African non-governmental organization, have won the 2015 United Nations Population Award. The General Assembly established the award in 1981 to recognize outstanding achievement in the fields of population and health.