Noon briefing of 21 December 2020

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY STÉPHANE DUJARRIC​,
SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES
MONDAY, 21 DECEMBER 2020

SENIOR PERSONNEL APPOINTMENTS
Today, the Secretary-General is announcing the appointment of Georgette Gagnon of Canada as his new Assistant Secretary-General, Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for Libya.
Ms. Gagnon succeeds Yacoub El Hillo of Sudan, who will complete his assignment on 5 January 2021. The Secretary-General is grateful for his distinguished service in support of the UN mandate in the country, and his work with the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL).
Ms. Gagnon brings to the position over twenty-five years of experience leading and implementing strategic initiatives on human rights, humanitarian action and development and coordinating multi-disciplinary teams in conflict and post-conflict situations.
Also, being appointed today is Ramiz Alakbarov of Azerbaijan as his new Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan with the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). He will also serve as the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the country.
Mr. Alakbarov succeeds Toby Lanzer of the United Kingdom, to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for his dedicated service.
Mr. Alakbarov also brings 25 years of experience in executive leadership, strategic planning and policy making, development programming and management, as well as humanitarian response, including as the Director of the Policy and Strategy Division in New York and the Country Representative in Haiti for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

SECURITY COUNCIL/MIDDLE EAST
This morning, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, briefed members of the Security Council. He said told them that the latest humanitarian needs assessment found that almost 2.5 million Palestinians – that’s 47 per cent of the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory – need aid.
Mr. Mladenov said he remains deeply troubled by continued Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Over the past year, Israeli authorities advanced controversial settlement plans that had been frozen for years. He added that the total number of units advanced this year are on par with 2019 numbers, despite an eight-month hiatus.
Also, Mr. Mladenov said that violence and attacks against civilians have continued in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. He said that he’s appalled that children continue to be victims – with a particularly troubling series of incidents over the past month in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. He urged security forces to exercise maximum restraint and use lethal force only when strictly unavoidable to protect life.

SECURITY COUNCIL/WESTERN SAHARA
This afternoon the Security Council will also hold a closed meeting on Western Sahara. They will be briefed by Bintou Keita, the Assistant Secretary-General for Africa, and Colin Stewart, the Special Representative and head of the UN Mission for the Referendum on Western Sahara (MINURSO).

ETHIOPIA
On Ethiopia, our humanitarian colleagues confirmed that two inter-agency assessment teams are expected to enter Tigray today following official approval from the Federal Government last Saturday.
One team is destined to visit Shire and another will go to Mekelle. The aim of the missions, which are expected to last one week, is to assess the humanitarian needs.
In the meantime, the Humanitarian Response Plan for Northern Ethiopia has been updated. We now seek $116.5 million until the end of January 2021. The goal is to address the immediate needs of an estimated 2.3 million people, including 1.3 million people impacted by the recent conflict.
The plan is currently 46 per cent funded with an outstanding gap of $63.4 million.

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) said that political and security tensions increased over the weekend in the midst of the electoral campaign for the presidential and legislative elections on 27 December.
A coalition of armed groups simultaneously attacked four prefectures in the western and southern part of the country. These groups also attempted to reach the capital, Bangui. UN Peacekeepers responded proactively and exchanged fire with armed groups in several areas. No damage was reported.
On Sunday, the Mission and members of the G5+ consisting of main international partners in the Central African Republic, issued a communiqué condemning the incidents and calling on stakeholders to stop the violence and expressed their support for the holding of the elections as scheduled.
We will continue to engage with all national stakeholders, in close cooperation with our partners, in an effort to de-escalate tensions, encourage parties to resolve their concerns through peaceful means, and ensure the holding of the elections, as planned.

BERLIN
On Friday, the Secretary-General wrapped up his trip to Berlin. He told reporters there that international cooperation has been tested this year like never before, but he saw seeds of hope in the way Germany has shown the world what solidarity looks like and in the way it has taken on the COVID-19 challenge.
He thanked German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her leadership, not just when it comes to the pandemic but also on the climate crisis, peacekeeping and human rights, among other issues. “Across the board, we have come to rely on Germany’s principled stance and leadership,” Mr. Guterres said.
During the trip, he also reiterated the need for a people’s vaccine that is accessible and affordable to everyone everywhere. He said that developed countries that have bought more doses of the vaccine than they need should make them available to developing countries through the COVAX facility. Vaccine nationalism is not the way to end the pandemic, he stressed.

CORAL REEFS
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) today released a report that warns that if we don’t drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, every one of the world’s coral reefs will bleach by the end of the century.
The report says that in 2014, coral reefs around the world turned a pallid white from heat stress. The bleaching began in the Pacific and rapidly spread across the Indian and Atlantic oceans. This event was the Third Global Bleaching Event and lasted 36 months, marking the longest, more pervasive and destructive coral bleaching incident ever recorded. The report warns that mass bleaching events like this could become the norm in the coming decades. It links the future health of the world’s reefs to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and calls for even more urgent action to limit the rise in ocean temperatures.

PRESS CONFERENCE TOMORROW
Tomorrow at 1.30 p.m., there will be a briefing by Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, the Permanent Representative of Germany to the UN. He will discuss Germany’s term on the Security Council, which comes to an end on 31 December.

FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTIONS
Happy Days! As we get closer to Christmas, we want to thank two more Member States for paying their full contributions to the regular budget. Our sincere thanks go to Antigua and Barbuda, as well as to Saint Kitts and Nevis. This takes us up to 141 fully paid up Member States.