Man with VR headset (Unsplash)

International Geneva zooming into the metaverse. Already used by many businesses, the metaverse has also come onto International Geneva’s radar, both in regulating the virtual tool and in using it to enhance its own operations. While a Global Digital Compact is being worked on and discussed by UN agencies ahead of next year’s Summit of the Future in New York, agencies and NGOs are embracing the technology for training and communications.

🌍Human rights crises in Africa will be under the spotlight this week as the Human Rights Council discusses the critical situations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Mali.

🐦The UN joint body for one health will meet on Monday and Tuesday to discuss progress in preparing for or averting future health threats by understanding the links between animal, human and environmental health. The initiative was launched in October by the UN agencies specialised in global health, the environment, animal health, and food and agriculture.

Syrian Arab Red Crescent in cooperation with the ICRC and the UN deliver aid to rebel-held Eastern Ghouta in Syria in 2018. (Keystone/EPA/Mohammed Badra)

ICRC staff call for audit amid financial crisis. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) went into official crisis management mode last week. The organisation decided to cut its budget by CHF440 million due to deep funding shortfalls, only three months after adopting the highest budget in its history, at CHF2.79 billion. Stunned employees called for an audit of a budget that ballooned over the last decade.