The International Labour Organization has announced that its Governing Body will elect the next Director-General of the ILO on 16 November 2026, during the Governing Body's 358th Session at Geneva. The session itself runs from 9 to 19 November 2026. The Governing Body is the executive organ of the ILO and is made up of representatives of governments, of employers and of workers, which is the tripartite structure that marks the organisation out in the UN family. The vote will be taken by secret ballot beginning at 10 in the morning Central European Time. The Director-General-elect is expected to make a statement afterwards, and the result will be announced at an ILO Live event the same day. The person chosen will serve a five-year term that begins on 1 October 2027. Gilbert F. Houngbo is the Director-General in office, and the ILO is headquartered at Geneva.
Election date:16 November 2026Session:358th Session of the Governing Body, GenevaTerm:Five years from 1 October 2027
Why it matters for exams: The ILO's tripartite Governing Body, its Geneva headquarters and the Director-General's five-year term are standard questions.
World Athletics has published the qualification system for athletics at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, approved by the World Athletics Council. The athletics programme will have 48 events in all, 23 for women, 23 for men and two mixed events. The 4x100m mixed relay will make its Olympic debut, joining the 4x400m mixed relay already on the programme. The share of places filled through world rankings rises to 60 per cent, with 40 per cent coming through entry standards, a change from the earlier even split. The marathon qualification window opened on 1 November 2026 and runs to 30 April 2028, while most other events qualify between 19 June 2027 and 18 June 2028. The first twelve finishers at the World Race Walking Team Championships at Hefei will qualify directly, and the first fourteen national Olympic committees at the World Relays in the Bahamas will take the relay places. Entry standards include 9.93 seconds for the men's 100m and 10.96 seconds for the women's 100m.
Total events:48 (23 women, 23 men, 2 mixed)New event:4x100m mixed relayQuota split:40 per cent standards, 60 per cent world rankings
Why it matters for exams: World Athletics as the world governing body, the LA28 host city and the new mixed 4x100m relay are likely Sports questions.
The Asian Development Bank has approved a loan of 98 million dollars for Sri Lanka under its Advancing Digital Transformation Project. The money is meant to help the island build a digital economy that is inclusive, secure and able to withstand shocks. A large part of the project will go into spreading good quality broadband, especially in rural and underserved areas where high-speed access is patchy. It will also improve the government's data infrastructure and widen access to digital government services for citizens and businesses, with attention to women and underserved communities. The bank says gaps in digital and data infrastructure, cybersecurity, data protection and digital skills are holding back both public services and private enterprise in Sri Lanka. The Asian Development Bank was founded in 1966 and is owned by 69 members, of which 50 are from the Asia-Pacific region. It lends to governments for infrastructure, energy, transport, health and education projects across Asia and the Pacific.
Loan:USD 98 millionProject:Advancing Digital Transformation ProjectADB members:69, of which 50 are from the region
Why it matters for exams: The Asian Development Bank, its founding year 1966 and its 69 members are standard Economy questions.
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell told the Child Summit of the Paris Peace Forum that children's rights must not be the first thing dropped when budgets are cut or a crisis breaks out. She asked leaders to turn the Children First Declaration from a text into a commitment that is actually acted on. Russell set out four choices for governments: protection over impunity, investment over retreat, prevention over reaction, and technology built to protect children. On protection she asked that humanitarian and human rights law be upheld, that aid be given safe access, and that those who violate children's rights be held to account. On money she said funding for health, nutrition, education, protection, social assistance and water and sanitation must be shielded, using debt relief, restructuring and concessional finance. She said more than 500 million children live in countries where debt payments are outpacing spending on health, education and nutrition. On technology she asked that digital and artificial intelligence systems be safe by design, with privacy protection, age-appropriate safeguards, impact assessments and children's own views taken in. She recalled that UNICEF itself was founded eighty years earlier, after a world war, when leaders chose to invest in children.
Event:Child Summit of the Paris Peace ForumDeclaration:Children First DeclarationChildren in debt-stressed countries:more than 500 million
Why it matters for exams: UNICEF, its Executive Director Catherine Russell and the Convention on the Rights of the Child are standard questions.
The Government of Japan has contributed 3 million dollars to the World Food Programme for emergency food assistance in Yemen, reaching about 300,000 conflict-affected people. Part of the money buys 2,500 Immediate Response Ration kits for the inter-agency Rapid Response Mechanism, each kit feeding a family of seven for five days in the first days after displacement. The rest pays for 2,995 metric tonnes of wheat flour as follow-on assistance to vulnerable households. The announcement was made from Aden, and WFP Representative and Country Director in Yemen Elkhidir Daloum said Japan's partnership is vital to getting help to people when they most need it. Japan has given the World Food Programme about 170 million dollars for humanitarian and development work in Yemen since 2016. The World Food Programme is the food assistance arm of the United Nations and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020. Yemen has been among the world's largest hunger emergencies through years of conflict.
Contribution:USD 3 million from JapanPeople reached:about 300,000Wheat flour:2,995 metric tons
Why it matters for exams: The World Food Programme and its 2020 Nobel Peace Prize are a repeat question on UN agencies.
World leaders gathered at Antalya in Turkiye for the two-day high-level Summit of the COP31 climate conference, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres used it to press for a climate justice compact. He warned the Leaders' Summit that the world is on course for more than 2.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century, far past the limit the Paris Agreement set. Breaching the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold, he said, is now the danger governments have to reckon with. To show how lopsided the money is, he set two numbers side by side. The nine largest oil companies in the world earned 95 billion dollars in a single quarter. Against that, the international fund set up to answer loss and damage has received roughly 600 million dollars. A compact on climate justice, he argued, is the way to close that gap between who profits and who pays.
Proposed compact:climate justice compactWarming path:more than 2.5 degrees Celsius by century's endOil company earnings:$95 billion in one quarter, nine largest companiesLoss and damage fund received:roughly $600 million
Why it matters for exams: The climate justice compact, the Paris Agreement's 1.5 degree limit and the international loss and damage fund are core Environment questions.
World Athletics has narrowed its men's list for the 2026 World Athlete of the Year to three names: Alison dos Santos of Brazil, Mondo Duplantis of Sweden and Sabastian Sawe of Kenya. The winner will be named on stage at the World Athletics Awards in Monaco on 29 November. Who gets the trophy is settled by a ballot in which four groups each have a say, namely the governing body's own council, athletes, journalists who cover the sport and anyone from the public who votes online. Dos Santos runs the 400m hurdles, Duplantis is the pole vaulter who keeps pushing the world record higher, and Sawe is a distance runner. The three come from three different continents, which the governing body reads as a sign of how far the sport's talent now spreads. World Athletics runs the sport worldwide and carried the name IAAF until 2019. The same awards night also hands out the Rising Star, Coaching and Fair Play honours.
Finalists:Alison dos Santos, Mondo Duplantis, Sabastian SaweAwards venue:Monaco
Why it matters for exams: The World Athlete of the Year award, its venue Monaco and the IAAF to World Athletics name change are repeat Sports questions.
The International Labour Organization called partners to its Geneva headquarters to raise money for jobs and recovery in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Director-General Gilbert F. Houngbo convened the meeting together with the State of Qatar and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The money is for the Decent Work and Recovery Programme for 2026 to 2029, still being settled with Palestinian tripartite partners, which puts employment and enterprise recovery, social protection and labour market governance at its centre and gives particular attention to women, youth and persons with disabilities. Italy promised five million euros; about nine million dollars has been raised over the past year, seven hundred thousand of it from the ILO's own purse, while ten priority proposals point to a basic investment need of about 50 million dollars. The numbers put before the meeting were bleak. Gaza shed 252,000 jobs between the third quarter of 2023 and the third quarter of 2025, joblessness there climbed to 85.1 per cent and lost labour income came to 2.77 billion dollars. In the West Bank the figure for the second quarter of 2026 was 27.9 per cent out of work. Work already done had paid for roughly 130,000 workdays and had carried social allowances to more than 30,000 older persons and persons with disabilities.
Programme:Decent Work and Recovery Programme 2026-2029Italy's pledge:EUR 5 millionGaza unemployment:85.1 per centWest Bank unemployment:27.9 per cent
Why it matters for exams: The ILO's decent work agenda and its Director-General Gilbert F. Houngbo are repeat questions in International Organisations.
The Food and Agriculture Organization has published a guide titled Optimization and Minimization: Towards sustainable plant production, whose argument is that crop farming has to yield more while drawing on fewer resources. It asks countries to lift productivity and resilience at the same time, and to hold down both crop losses and pollution while doing so. Rather than treat each problem on its own, the guide wants five things handled as one system: the way seed is supplied, the way crops are grown in sequence, integrated plant pest management, farm machinery, and the advice services that reach the farmer. Smallholders who farm with few purchased inputs get particular attention, which the guide ties to the FAO Strategic Framework for 2022 to 2031. FAO records that plant pests wipe out as much as 40 per cent of the world's crop production in a year, a loss that better pest management could cut into. The guide also notes that more than 80 per cent of the calories people eat already come from plant production, and that about 80 per cent of the extra food the world needs by 2050 will have to come from the same place. Government officials, farmers, researchers, extension agents and development partners are the readers it is written for.
Publication:Optimization and Minimization: Towards sustainable plant productionPublisher:Food and Agriculture OrganizationCrop loss to pests:up to 40 per cent a yearShare of calories:more than 80 per cent from plant production
Why it matters for exams: FAO, its Strategic Framework 2022-31 and the figure that pests destroy up to 40 per cent of crops are Agriculture questions.
The International Health Regulations (2005) are the legal framework that sets out the rights and obligations of countries in handling public health risks and events that may cross borders. They form an instrument of international law, binding in law on 197 countries, among them the 194 WHO Member States. A country must designate or establish Responsible Authorities, build and maintain core capacities for surveillance and response and at points of entry, notify WHO of public health risks and events with actual or potential international public health implications whatever their origin or source, and verify information that WHO has become aware of through informal and unofficial sources. Reporting runs through National IHR Focal Points. WHO decides, with advice from external experts, whether a particular event is a public health emergency of international concern. The text now in force carries the amendments adopted by the Health Assembly in 2014, in 2022 and in 2024.
Countries legally bound:197WHO Member States covered:194Instrument:International Health Regulations
Why it matters for exams: The declaration of a public health emergency of international concern rests on the International Health Regulations, and who declares it and how many countries are bound are frequent questions.
The UNESCO Creative Cities Network was created in 2004. It builds cooperation among cities which treat creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development. The 408 cities in the Network share one objective: to put creativity and the cultural industries at the centre of what they plan locally, while working together across borders. UNESCO calls the Network a space for collaboration and experimentation to invent the city of tomorrow. The Network supports the Sustainable Development Goals, notably SDG 11, which seeks to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. UNESCO records that cultural and creative industries account for 13% of employment in major cities worldwide, and that member cities have submitted almost 500 reports over the years.
Created:2004Cities in the Network:408Goal supported:SDG 11
Why it matters for exams: The Creative Cities Network is a standard UNESCO question: the year it began, the number of cities in it and the Sustainable Development Goal it supports are all examinable.
The Rotterdam Convention governs the way certain hazardous chemicals and pesticides move in trade between countries. Its text was adopted by the Conference of the Plenipotentiaries at Rotterdam in 1998, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations acts as the Depository. Annex III lists the chemicals that are subject to the Prior Informed Consent Procedure, and that Annex has been amended by decisions of the Conference of the Parties so that more chemicals come under it. Annex VI was adopted in 2004 at the first meeting of the Conference of the Parties, and it sets out arbitration and conciliation procedures for Article 20 on settlement of disputes. The ninth meeting adopted Annex VII in 2019 on procedures and mechanisms on compliance under Article 17. Chemicals and pesticide formulations are examined by the Chemical Review Committee, which recommends to the Conference of the Parties whether they belong in Annex III.
Text adopted:1998Annex listing chemicals:Annex IIICompliance annex adopted:2019
Why it matters for exams: The Rotterdam Convention is one of the three chemicals and waste conventions, and its Annex III listing and the Prior Informed Consent Procedure are the facts an environment paper asks for.
Rotterdam ConventionRotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade — The full title of the treaty, which is usually called by the name of the city where its text was adopted.
PICPrior Informed Consent — An exporting country must tell an importing country before a listed chemical is shipped, and the importing country may refuse.
Annex IIIAnnex III to the Rotterdam Convention — The list of chemicals and pesticides covered by the procedure.
Chemical Review CommitteeChemical Review Committee of the Convention — The expert body that recommends whether a chemical should be listed.