I am deeply concerned about the rapidly escalating humanitarian crisis in Mosul, Iraq, and the heightened threat to the health and lives of pregnant women who may be cut off from life-saving emergency obstetric care.

To eradicate poverty – like any other goal to improve the human condition – we need to fully understand the world’s demographics.

Poor countries with burgeoning youth populations may find it difficult to meet many of our global development goals, as they face more people entering primary and secondary school age, more people looking for health care, and many more entering labour markets, looking for productive jobs in the coming years.

“Is anyone out there even thinking of improving our lives?” asks Susmita, a teenager from Odisha, India.

Susmita has never gone to school. She tends the few animals her family owns and attends to household chores. Like more than one in three girls in her community, she may be married before turning 18. She dreams about going to school – even just for one day.

Population ageing – one of the most significant trends of the 21st century – represents both a cause for celebration and a challenge. To ensure that everyone’s well-being is enhanced through this demographic shift, more efforts are needed to minimize lifelong inequalities and improve the life conditions of older people.

This World Humanitarian Day, we call for global solidarity and stand together with everyone affected by crisis. We unite as one humanity.

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, celebrates International Youth Day by reaffirming and recognizing the central role of young people in promoting the well-being of their families, communities and nations. This year’s theme, “The Road to 2030: Eradicating Poverty and Achieving Sustainable Production and Consumption,” couldn’t be more relevant and timely.

The teenage years are for some girls a time of exploration, learning and increasing autonomy. But for many others, it is a time of increasing vulnerability and exclusion from rights and opportunities, or just plain discrimination.

Today, 23 May 2016, as world leaders gather for the World Humanitarian Summit, we jointly commit to intensify support to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights in crisis settings to save lives, uphold human rights and dignity, and ensure that no one is left behind.

Statement by Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director, UNFPA, The United Nations Population Fund: On this International Day of the Midwife, UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, salutes the contribution of midwives to saving the lives of women, adolescent girls and newborns, sometimes under very difficult circumstances, in hard-to-reach communities, in humanitarian emergencies, and in fragile and conflict-torn countries.

Concerned by reports of the Zika virus spreading through sexual contact, UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, strongly urges governments and all other partners to provide information and access to voluntary family planning, including condoms.

For millions of women and girls around the world, gender equality and the full enjoyment of human rights remain elusive.