To strengthen their 69-year-old partnership, leaders from Rotary and the United Nations met this month in New York City for Rotary Day at the United Nations. The two organizations began working together with the aim of maintaining peace after World War II. Today, the relationship has evolved to include humanitarian work in areas like gender equality, child and maternal health, and disease treatment and prevention. While the UN's Millennium Development Goals are set to expire in 2015, its leaders are preparing for an even more ambitious humanitarian agenda of eradicating extreme poverty by...

Rotary and its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) are approaching a significant milestone: the eradication of type 3 wild poliovirus. The last case of polio caused by the type 3 virus was reported in Yobe, Nigeria, on 10 November 2012. "We may have eradicated a second of three; that's a major milestone," said Dr. Stephen Cochi, a senior adviser at the Center for Global Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaking to the BBC. Rotary has played an important role in bringing type 3 polio close to extinction. PolioPlus grants have provided key...

More than 23,000 viewers in 24 countries tuned in to Rotary's World Polio Day event, streamed live on 24 October. Health officials including James Alexander, senior medical epidemiologist for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gave an update on the polio eradication campaign and praised Rotary's achievements to date. Rotary has contributed more than $1.2 billion to polio eradication since 1979. For World Polio Day, Rotary released $44.7 million in grants to fight the disease in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. In addition to the update, the event included entertainment by...

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot in the head for speaking out against the Taliban in support of girls' education, has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014. Yousafzai, whose father is a Rotarian, shares the prize with Kailash Satyarthi, a native of India who has worked to combat the exploitation of children for financial gain, according to an announcement in October from the Norwegian Nobel Committee. In announcing the award, the committee praised Yousafzai for demonstrating that "children and young people, too, can contribute to improving their own situations." It noted...

Business owners and community leaders in Evanston, Illinois, USA, joined Rotary staff and family members in a celebration of the organization's cultural diversity at an open-house Rotary Day event at Rotary's world headquarters on 25 October. Rotary President Gary C.K. Huang is urging clubs and districts to hold these informal events to showcase Rotary's good work. The open house was held immediately after Evanston's Day of Caring, during which volunteers planted trees, fixed up buildings, performed yard work, painted, and participated in other community projects throughout the city. Visit...