HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY STEPHANE DUJARRIC
SPOKESPERSON FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES
TUESDAY, 16 APRIL 2024
LIBYA
Abdoulaye Bathily, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Libya, briefed the Security Council today on his discussions with Libyan parties. He said that his attempts to address their concerns were met with stubborn resistance, unreasonable expectations, and indifference to the interests of the Libyan people.
He said that since the end of 2022, the United Nations-led efforts to help resolve Libya’s political crisis through elections have faced national as well as regional pushbacks, revealing an intentional defiance to engage in earnest and a tenacity to perpetually delay elections.
Mr. Bathily asserted that the selfish resolve of current leaders to maintain the status quo through delaying tactics and manoeuvres at the expense of the Libyan people must stop. Libyan leaders must reach a political settlement based on negotiations and compromise.
The Special Representative added that he is deeply concerned about the rise in abductions, disappearances, and arbitrary arrests in Libya, perpetrated by security forces with impunity in both eastern, southern and western regions, which undermine fundamental freedoms and instil fear.
YOUTH FORUM
This morning, the Secretary-General spoke at the Youth Forum of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). He said that the energy and conviction of young people are infectious, and more vital than ever when our world is bristling with challenges, tragedies and injustices.
He thanked young people at the forum for speaking out and working for real change.
And on the occasion of the ECOSOC Youth Forum, the Department of Global Communications is kicking off a challenge as part of the ActNow campaign - “Act Now: 1 Million Actions for Our Common Future.”
This includes a global call to ‘Speak Up’ to show decision makers that people worldwide are taking a stand for a more sustainable future for all.
ActNow is a campaign that aims at encouraging people to take and record concrete steps toward sustainable living and climate action and it has so far registered more than 20 million individual actions.
DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL
The Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, will conclude today a two-day visit to Santiago, Chile. Earlier today, she opened the Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Forum for Sustainable Development, focusing on actions needed to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals.
Over the two days, Ms. Mohammed held meetings with senior officials, including Ministers representing Chile, Costa Rica, and Panama.
Together with Under-Secretary-General Guy Ryder, she participated in a special session with Member States from the region on the Summit of the Future. Both also held separate meetings with civil society, children and youth, representatives of the private sector, and a group of think tanks from the global south.
She also met with directors of UN entities to discuss regional-level efforts to effectively support SDG acceleration, and she met with UN Resident Coordinators from the region to take stock of the UN’s support in countries.
SUDAN
On the conference for Sudan and its neighbours, co-hosted yesterday in Paris by France, Germany and the European Union, the United Nations is very grateful to them for organizing the event and to the many donors for their strong show of support to the people of Sudan.
The UN also welcomes the endorsement by the co-hosts of a set of “Key Asks on Humanitarian Access,” outlining the main priorities and actions needed to facilitate aid operations in Sudan, including expanded and sustained access. These points were discussed at an informal meeting chaired by the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, on Sunday on the margins of the conference.
ETHIOPIA HIGH-LEVEL PLEDGING EVENT
According to the Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), today's High-Level Pledging Event for the Humanitarian Situation in Ethiopia has just wrapped up in Geneva. The event was organised with the Governments of Ethiopia and the United Kingdom, and was well-attended by donors, the diplomatic community and humanitarian partners.
Announcements of financial support were made totalling almost $610 million.
The UN’s Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Joyce Msuya, thanked the donors and said that this is just the beginning and that we hope for continued and increased support throughout the year.
The UN and its humanitarian partners, are backing the nationally-led response to scale up life-saving assistance to 15.5 million people, and food aid to 10.4 million people in Ethiopia. For the entire year, the plan requires $3.24 billion.
To fund the immediate response and ensure a pipeline of aid for the next five months, $1 billion is needed. The one-day conference will contribute towards that target.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the peacekeeping mission says that the security situation in North Kivu continues to deteriorate with heavy firing resuming between the M23 and the Congolese armed forces outside the town of Sake – around Kimoka and Mubambiro.
In response, peacekeepers have established a presence in the area, while the Congolese Army reinforced troops to deter attacks.
The Peacekeeping mission also intervened to help release five civilians, including a woman and two minors, following their abduction by an armed group close to Djugu, in the Ituri province. Following their release, MONUSCO provided temporary shelter and medical assistance before they were transported by the mission to their homes.
Also, in Ituri, peacekeepers deployed to a mining site, northeast of Bunia, to protect civilians in response to an attack by members of the CODECO militia. Four civilians were killed in the attack and the mission is monitoring the situation.
Volker Türk, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, is currently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on an official visit, at the invitation of the Government.
Today, he travelled to the eastern part of the country where he visited camps for internally displaced people and met with human rights defenders and civil society organisations.
In Kinshasa, the High Commissioner is due to meet President Félix Tshisekedi and senior members of the Government, as well as UN colleagues.
The High Commissioner will hold a news conference at the end of his mission on Thursday 18 April.
CAMEROON
Turning to Cameroon, the UN and partners today launched this year's Humanitarian Response Plan. The plan, launched jointly with the government, seeks $371 million to assist 2.3 million of the most vulnerable people in the country.
Armed conflict and violence, climate shocks, as well as epidemics, continue to drive humanitarian needs in Cameroon. This year’s plan will prioritize response efforts in the worst-affected areas, including the Far North, the North-West and South-West, as well as the eastern regions of Cameroon, which have seen an influx of refugees from the Central African Republic.
Last year, the appeal was less than a third funded. Despite this, humanitarian partners provided life-saving assistance and protection to some 1.2 million people in the country, including food, nutrition, protection, shelter, health, education, water and sanitation support.
Going forward, additional resources are urgently needed to ensure that the humanitarian community can continue to provide critical humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable people in Cameroon.
HAITI
In Haiti, aid agencies continue to deliver food, water, medicine and other essential support to people displaced by the violence in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
Yesterday, the World Food Programme distributed hot meals to more than 14,000 displaced people in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. The school meals programme continues to operate in the country and 200,000 children received a school lunch.
On Sunday, WFP also distributed food rations to 3,500 vulnerable people in Cap Haïtien.
Meanwhile, UNICEF and partners working on water, sanitation and health report that, as of yesterday, 5.2 million litres of water have been distributed in Haiti’s capital since the end of February.
UKRAINE
The UN team in Ukraine, led by Resident Coordinator Denise Brown, yesterday published a new report showcasing results from 24 UN agencies’ assistance to communities recovering from the war’s devastation.
From supporting small businesses, repairing homes, schools, and hospitals to building new energy infrastructure and beyond, the UN team scaled up recovery efforts in 2023, implementing half a billion dollars' worth of recovery initiatives. That’s more than twice the previous year’s amount.
The UN team ensured the installation of new heating, water, and energy infrastructure that served 6 million people, supported more than 2,000 small and medium businesses, repaired nearly 1,000 schools, and trained almost 320,000 people with new skills to help them find jobs.
The work was possible thanks to donors who contributed nearly $1.1 billion; this is 42 per cent of the amount requested for the recovery programmes in Ukraine in the last two years.
OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY
Today, UN Women launched its latest Gender Alert on Gaza, which says that six months into the war, 10,000 Palestinian women in Gaza have been killed, among them an estimated 6,000 mothers, leaving 19,000 children orphaned. More than one million Palestinian women and girls in Gaza have almost no access to food or safe water, with disease growing amid inhumane living conditions.
The publication launched today - titled “Scarcity and Fear” - focuses on the lack of access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services, which are vital to women's health, dignity, safety, and privacy. The series of gender alerts produced by UN Women on Gaza provides a detailed analysis of the reality of women’s and girls’ lives in the Gaza Strip, documenting abhorrent living conditions.
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
And I just wanted to say that the Secretary-General has taken note of the reappointment of Kristalina Georgieva of Bulgaria as the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.
He congratulates her on winning a second five-year term and looks forward to working with her in this capacity.
GUESTS TOMORROW
Tomorrow, Leyla Sherafi,the UN Population Fund's Chief of the Gender and Human Rights Branch and Emilie Filmer-Wilson, Human Rights Adviser at UNFPA, will brief journalists on the latest State of the World Population report.
