Peru's then-foreign minister Javier González-Olaechea at the Bürgenstock Summit on Peace in Ukraine, in Stansstad near Lucerne, Switzerland, 16 June 2024. (Keystone/EDA/Pool/Urs Flueeler)

🗳️Peru seeks to lead UN labour body amid funding shortfall. Peru has put forward its former foreign minister, Javier González‑Olaechea, as a candidate for ILO director general. A Latin American with two decades of prior service at the agency, he joins incumbent Gilbert Houngbo and Spain’s labour minister, Yolanda Díaz, after the nomination deadline closed on Monday.

🛠️ILO chief proposes dismissing 120 staff to offset part of US debt. The proposal, presented on 17 August, is expected to be considered at the UN labour agency's governing body next week. But not everyone agrees with the process, with ILO workers' unions and staff unions maintaining that only the organisation’s full membership represented at the annual ILO conference has authority over a decision of such magnitude.

✂️UN refugee agency scales back posts and budget for 2027, documents show. After cutting about 5,000 jobs last year and slashing its budget by a quarter, the UNHCR is revising down next year's budget by a further 16 per cent and reducing its headcount by 3,500 positions, many of which were vacant due to insufficient funds, according to its spokespeople.

⛓️UN committee says countries must consider reparations for slave trade. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination published guidelines on Monday that say that the 1965 convention of the same name legally requires its state parties to address the transatlantic slave trade that oversaw the forced displacement of 2.5 million Africans between the 15th and 19th centuries and its enduring legacy of racial discrimination.

♀️Michelle Bachelet, UN Chief candidate: Time for a woman to lead. An interview with the former president of Chile and head of the UN human rights office in Geneva on why the top role she is vying for should go to a woman.

💵Exclusive: Samaritan's Purse turns down $300m from US State Department. The US-based evangelical Christian humanitarian aid group is one of three faith-based organisations the US State Department had announced it would be partnering with for a $2bn aid grant. But the organisation said it would rather rely “on God, not government, for funding”.