SECRETARY-GENERAL
Today, the Secretary-General launched the UN comprehensive response to COVID-19.
This new policy brief documents UN action over the past three months and sets out a forward-looking policy agenda to help countries recover better from the pandemic, while addressing the needs of the most vulnerable.
We cannot go back to the way it was and simply recreate the systems that have aggravated the crisis, said the Secretary-General as he introduced the response plan in a press conference. We need to build back better with more sustainable, inclusive, gender-equal societies and economies.
The plan presents a strategy based on three pillars, starting with a coordinated and comprehensive health response, guided by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan.
The COVID-19 response plan also includes elements to address the devastating socioeconomic, humanitarian and human rights aspects of the crisis, as well as to create adequate conditions for a recovery process that builds back better.
The policy brief is available online.
AFGHANISTAN
The Security Council held a virtual meeting today on Afghanistan.
Briefing the Council, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, Deborah Lyons, said that, in her meetings with people from across the political spectrum and civil society, they have all delivered one message: Afghanistan now has the unique opportunity to turn the corner to a brighter, more stable future after four decades of war, with many standing ready to support these efforts.
She noted that this moment of emerging hope comes at the time of an unprecedented global pandemic that threatens to unravel many of the hard-won socio-economic gains.
Despite the progress that Afghanistan has made, Ms. Lyons noted that too many Afghans still face daily struggles for survival. When it comes to civilian casualties, Afghanistan remains one of the deadliest conflicts in the world. The US-Taliban agreement and subsequent reductions of violence have given only brief respites from the all-too familiar carnage.
Like so many countries, she said, Afghanistan continues to be plagued by corruption, which corrodes the confidence of the population and the donor community and fuels the ongoing conflict.
Ms. Lyons said that, despite these manifold challenges, this is the time for continued and concerted support for Afghanistan.
She expressed cautious optimism that the talks between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Taliban negotiation teams will indeed start in the next few weeks in Doha, during the month of July. As the two sides embark on what will likely be a long and complex series of talks, she has encouraged them to show the necessary flexibility and foresight, the commitment to peace and most importantly compassion for their people that will be needed to bring these negotiations to a successful conclusion.
YEMEN
In a closed virtual meeting Security Council meeting yesterday, the Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock, said that the humanitarian situation in Yemen could be kept stable with the necessary funding to humanitarian organizations, which would also help with the country’s political process amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr. Lowcock noted that COVID-19 is spreading rapidly across Yemen, with about 25 per cent of Yemenis confirmed to have the disease have died, which is five times the global average.
With Yemen’s health system in collapse, many more coronavirus cases and deaths are going unrecorded, and burial prices in some areas have increased by seven times compared with a few months ago.
He underscored that this is unprecedented situation, with a severe domestic economic crisis overlapping with a sharp drop in remittances and major cuts to donor support for humanitarian aid, all amid a devastating” pandemic.
“At a minimum, we can expect many more people to starve to death and to succumb to COVID-19, to die of cholera and to watch their children die because they are not immunized for killer diseases. So I call urgently on all Yemen’s donors to provide predictable foreign exchange injections to avoid total economic collapse. This must be in addition to humanitarian funding, which I again urge donors to disburse immediately and to consider increasing,” Mr. Lowcock said.
ETHIOPIA
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have launched a three-year partnership to support the Government of Ethiopia prevent acute malnutrition in children and mothers and also to provide school meals and health services to students.
This is the first such partnership between the two UN agencies and will target 100 woredas, or districts.
Some 4.4 million people in Ethiopia – 2.7 million children and 1.7 million pregnant and breastfeeding women – will need treatment for severe and acute malnutrition this year.
UNICEF and WFP believe that sustained and intensive action is required, combining school and community-based prevention activities with expanded access to treatment for children and mothers with acute malnutrition in selected hotspot woredas. This approach would help Ethiopia move towards the goal of decreasing acute malnutrition in children from nearly 10 percent to less than 3 percent by 2030.
EBOLA DRC
Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have announced the end of the Ebola outbreak in the country’s East.
Declared in North Kivu on 1 August 2018, this outbreak was the second largest in the world, and had the additional challenge of taking place in an active conflict zone.
There were 3470 cases and 2287 deaths. In a tweet, the head of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus said “this outbreak took so much from all of us, especially from the people of the DRC, but we came out of it with valuable lessons & tools: a licensed vaccine as well as identified effective treatments.”
Over 1170 people who were infected and survived still need support, the WHO added in another tweet. Surveillance and response systems must remain in place to respond to potential flare-ups in the coming months.
While the outbreak in the East is now over, the country continues to battle the virus. In the Equateur province, cases of Ebola have been diagnosed since early June.
WORLD DRUG REPORT
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) today released the World Drug Report 2020, highlighting the impact of COVID-19 on global drug markets and showing that 269 million people around the world have used drugs at least once, while 35 million people suffer from drug-use disorders. Cannabis was the most used substance worldwide, with an estimated 192 million people using it. Opioids, however, remain the most harmful.
NATURAL HAZARDS
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) today launched a set of E-learning resources and courses for the Common Alerting Protocol, which is an internationally recognized standard for dissemination of warnings of extreme weather hazards to the public and to disaster management authorities. The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is a data format for exchanging public warnings of hazards such as floods, landslides, tropical cyclones, strong winds, drought and heat waves. It enables an easy, automated transmission of warnings over all communication platforms in order to better reach all users.
DAY OF SEAFARER
Today is the Day of the Seafarer, and this year's theme is Seafarers as Key Workers.
In a message, the Secretary-General said that the International Day of the Seafarer is a time to honour the world’s two million seafarers whose dedication and professionalism keep the vast majority of world trade moving safely, delivering vital goods – including food, fuel and medical supplies.
The Secretary-General said that even in the best of times, seafarers work for long periods away from home, their contributions largely unheralded. Yet in recent months, their burdens have grown exponentially with COVID-related travel restrictions that have prevented hundreds of thousands of seafarers from leaving ships.
He emphasized that this year, more than ever, all countries in the world must honour our seafarers by recognizing them as key workers and providing the necessary travel assistance to ensure safe crew changeovers and repatriations.
The Secretary-General noted that the United Nations agencies — including the International Maritime Organization and the International Labour Organization — along with the International Chamber of Shipping and the International Transport Workers Federation — have developed protocols to do just that. He renewed his call on all governments to urgently implement these protocols.
