HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY STÉPHANE DUJARRIC,
SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES
MONDAY, 9 OCTOBER 2017
 
IN ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA, DOMINICA, SECRETARY-GENERAL APPEALS FOR INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY IN WAKE OF HURRICANES

• The Secretary-General was in Antigua and Barbuda, and in Dominica over the weekend, following the devastation caused by hurricanes Irma and Maria.
• In Barbuda, whose entire population had to be evacuated to the island of Antigua, he said he witnessed a level of devastation that he had never seen in his life. In Dominica, he noted that the country had been decimated, its whole population impacted and its forest ravaged by the hurricane.
• He reiterated that we have now hurricanes and storms with a much higher frequency and a much higher intensity, with a direct established link with climate change.
• The Secretary-General called for an enhanced engagement of the international community against climate change and strongly appealed for international solidarity with the Caribbean islands – through humanitarian aid but also through new mechanisms allowing for effective reconstruction to build up resilience.
• Most of the countries impacted are middle-income countries and because of that, they are deprived of the form of assistance or concessional loans that low-income countries can have access to, he said.
• One of the ideas that the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean has expressed is the possibility to transform the repayment of debt in investments made by the countries in resilience to storms.
• The Secretary-General stressed that the World Bank will soon be organizing a donors’ conference: when Caribbean countries are facing external shocks of the magnitude that we are witnessing, it is absolutely crucial that they benefit from innovative forms of funding, and from assistance, concessional loans and new bonds, he said.

• The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that the number of Rohingya refugees who have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar since late August has reached 519,000.
• Aid workers continue to work with the Government to scale up their operations, and, as of 4 October, 515,000 people had been provided with food assistance.
• The revised humanitarian appeal for $434 million, which seeks to help 1.2 million people, is currently 24 per cent funded.
• The UN Migration Agency, IOM, says that at least 13 Rohingya refugees – mostly children – drowned when a fishing boat carrying them to Bangladesh capsized in stormy weather.
• There were approximately 60 refugees aboard the 20-metre, wooden fishing vessel when it left Myanmar under cover of darkness, hoping avoid patrols on both sides of the border, survivors told IOM.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners will roll out a vaccination campaign – the second largest of its kind ever – in Cox’s Bazar beginning tomorrow.
• They aim to deliver cholera vaccinations to 650,000 people initially, followed by a second round to 250,000 children between the ages of one and five.

• The UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) reports an attack against its base in Mamundioma in North Kivu this morning. The attack was carried out by suspected Allied Democratic Forces.
• Initial reports suggest two peacekeepers are dead and several more have been wounded.
• The Mission deployed attack helicopters as well as the Force Intervention Brigade in support of operations and to reinforce its presence.
• MONUSCO forces are also deployed on the road between Kamango and Mbau to restore order and protect the populations of these towns. The injured peacekeepers have been evacuated to Goma for medical assistance.

• The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock announced today that the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has reached its 2017 funding target of US$450 million, following an additional commitment of $6 million from Sweden.
• He said that given the many challenges we face today with 145 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, achieving the target set for 2017 provides a much-needed boost.
• But with the increase in needs brought on by ongoing conflict and natural disasters this year, the Emergency Relief Coordinator stressed that it is more important than ever that donors enable the CERF to reach its 2018 funding target – which is of $1 billion.

• Although the fighting in and near Hawija in Iraq’s Kirkuk Governorate is ending, the UN and its aid partners are still deeply concerned about the safety of civilians in the area.
• The Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Lise Grande, said that more than 5.4 million civilians have been displaced in Iraq since 2014, stressing that nothing is more important than protecting civilians who have been impacted by the conflict.
• She said that protection remains her over-riding concern, with aid workers being deeply worried about incidents of collective punishment, restrictions on free movement, evictions, forced returns and sexual exploitation and violence, including in emergency sites and camps.

• The Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Ursula Mueller, will begin a three-day visit to Ukraine tomorrow.
• She will meet with senior Government officials, members of the humanitarian and diplomatic communities, and families displaced by the conflict.
• She is also expected to visit parts of eastern Ukraine to see first-hand the humanitarian situation of people in the areas affected by fighting, now in its fourth year.

• The World Food Programme (WFP) has joined forces with Kyrgyzstan to create an online platform that can forecast food security crises in the country.
• The new system, developed with funding from Japan, creates many scenarios based on food price spikes caused by natural disasters, conflicts or socio-economic crises.

• UNICEF warned today that a nutrition crisis, exacerbated by continuing violence, instability and displacement, is threatening the lives and futures of thousands of children in Mali.  
• New data published today shows that the rate of acute malnutrition among children under five has reached critical levels in the conflict-affected areas of Timbuktu and Gao, while the national rate remains very high. 15.7 per cent of children in Timbuktu and 15.2 per cent in Gao are acutely malnourished.
• An estimated 165,000 children are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition across the country in 2018. Children who suffer from the severe form of acute malnutrition have grave muscle wasting, very low weight for their height, and are nine times more likely to die in case of disease due to a weakened immune system.

• The State of Food and Agriculture 2017 report was published today by the Food and Agriculture Organization.
• This report argues that millions of young people in developing countries who are poised to enter the labour force in the coming decades need not flee rural areas to escape poverty.
• On the contrary, rural areas actually have vast potential for economic growth pegged to food production and related sectors. And with the majority of the world's poor and hungry living in these areas, achieving the 2030 development agenda will hinge on unlocking that oft-neglected potential.
• Doing so will require overcoming a thorny combination of low productivity in subsistence agriculture, limited scope for industrialization in many places, and rapid population growth and urbanization — all of which pose challenges to the capacity of developing nations' capacity to feed and employ their citizens.

• In a video message to the Committee on World Food Security, gathered in Rome today, the Secretary-General stressed that hunger was on the rise, with 815 million chronically undernourished people in the world.
• Investing in food security and rural development creates stronger and more resilient communities so that people can prosper and thrive without having to move, he said.