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The purpose of this paper is to help reference librarians in academic institutions to more effectively use UN information resources to meet users' needs.

This paper outlines the United Nations' structure, addresses the effects of misconceptions regarding the organization's boundaries, describes the categories of UN information resources and their most useful content, identifies and evaluates the most important reference tools by or about the UN, and casts light on little‐known obstacles to intellectual access in the UN information environment.

Access to UN information is often hindered by the idiosyncrasies of UN documents and their records, misconceptions about the United Nations' relationships with other organizations, and a lack of in‐depth information about UN reference sources. The effects of these problems can be ameliorated, however, through the information, techniques, and strategies presented here.

This article identifies and evaluates the UN reference sources of greatest use to general reference librarians. This is the first publication to demonstrate how indexing policies and common characteristics of UN documents impede access to UN information and to show how these barriers can be circumvented.

This chapter, based on a keynote presentation at the Moana: Water of Life conference at the University of Lincoln, UK, in August 2019, explores how individual people of faith, and faith actors, engage with the confluence of member states, UN entities, and civil society that make up the UN system, in order to address climate change and water, informally and formally. Interviews with faith-based organizations, UN entities, and UN ambassadors revealed lessons learned on the successes, challenges, and obstacles in engaging with the UN on climate action. Drawing from this research, the author revealed some “lessons learned” in order to respond to a key question: How can faith-based participants engage with the United Nations (UN) on climate action in smart, strategic ways in an era of climate emergency? The research aims to equip the readers with a sense of the urgency of climate action and an appreciation of their own agency and action and practical tools for using their faith in climate action with the UN.

As a new century approaches, the evolving global village becomes difficult to ignore. More than ever before, the United Nations will act as both universal meeting hall and clearinghouse. Consequently, information from and about the United Nations has potential instructional and research value to a wide variety of information professionals and their patrons. For many research topics, an international perspective will enhance the information‐gathering process. Reference librarians should take advantage of this perspective whenever possible, using or referring patrons to intergovernmental organization (IGO) information. This article is intended to serve as a collection development guide to sources of United Nations information and thus help librarians attempting to cope with the lack of bibliographical control over United Nations materials.

This chapter traces the history of global crime governance from the final decades of the nineteenth century to today, with particular attention paid to the United Nations and its crime programme after World War II. It highlights significant changes to the structure and mandate of the UN crime programme over the last 70 years and how UN agencies have helped shape the international crime policy agenda and its focus on development. The chapter then illustrates how vestiges of prevailing beliefs about development and crime and the global political economy that gave rise to them continue to influence the work of the UN system and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) today. In this regard, our analysis highlights some institutional and structural challenges inherent to containing the ‘dark side of globalisation’ together with the ways in which the UN's efforts to do so privilege the interests and understandings of Northern countries. We conclude that these power asymmetries represent an obstacle to the UN's custodianship of criminological targets that feature in the SDGs, but stop short of suggesting that the governance of the crime–development nexus should be viewed as a coherent, neo-colonial project given the institutional weaknesses within the UN system, the ‘Rise of the South’ and the potential for civil society to contest its priorities and agendas.

Neoliberal globalization processes have created the conditions for the differential incorporation of men and women around the globe (Castles & Miller, 2009; Toro-Morn & Alicea, 2004). Indeed, this has been called the age of global migrations. People are on the move sometimes by their own choice, but most frequently pushed by forces beyond their control. Modern nation-states occupy a curious place in this process as it has traditionally managed and restricted the conditions and terms of entrance. This has prevented groups from entering under legitimate conditions creating migration flows of undocumented peoples. The treatment of refugees by modern nation-states in the global North has been problematic at best, neglectful and criminal at worst. In keeping with the goals of this volume, this chapter examines the rhetoric of one modern nation-state – the United States – in implementing border controls and immigration policies. Nation-states have always sought to control borders and regulate flow of people, but the current era offers some moments that demonstrate the contradictions embedded in the neoliberal regimes for modern, nation-states. In this paper, the authors are attentive to current immigration policies to expose the inconsistencies and tensions. The nation-state with its desire to enforce borders and social controls creates a humanitarian crisis unseen in modern history. The authors propose that modern nation-states in the era of global migrations cannot escape the contradictions engendered by neoliberal globalization.

Issues of women’s education and empowerment of women have been incorporated in the framing of the role of women in international development from the 1970s, primarily as a response to the liberal feminist movement agenda of the time. This analysis examines the degree to which liberal feminism and liberal feminist theory is reflected in comparative education scholarship in the lead up to and beyond the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The analysis first explores the underpinnings of liberal feminism, which constitutes the ideal embedded in development education for girls and women. It follows up with a reflection on the literature in the field of comparative education that reference liberal feminism framework and feminist theory in exploring educational issues and ways in which the theory is located in the research. Illustration of examples that demonstrate the limits of liberal feminism as a theoretical framework and barriers to the use of liberal feminist theory as an ideological guide are captured in the findings. The search is limited to the six dominant scholarly outlets in the field of comparative education; namely Comparative Education Review (CER), Comparative Education (CE), Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education (Compare), Prospects: Quarterly Review of Comparative Education (Prospects), International Review of Education (IRE), and the International Journal of Educational Development (IJED). Only works that explicitly mention liberal feminism/liberal feminist perspectives are included in the analysis. This research contributes to the acknowledgement of the liberal feminist theory in development education and for the field of comparative education. It will also help with understanding the politics of ideology and representation in scholarship and development interventions.