HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY STEPHANE DUJARRIC

SPOKESPERSON FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES

THURSDAY, 14 FEBRUARY 2019

SENIOR PERSONNEL APPOINTMENT
Today, the Secretary-General is appointing Chandramouli Ramanathan of India as Controller, at the Assistant Secretary-General level, for Programme Planning, Budget and Finance in the Department of Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance.  
He succeeds Bettina Tucci Bartsiotas of Uruguay, to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for her commitment and dedicated service to the Organization.
Chandramouli brings to the position nearly 40 years of executive international experience in diverse organizational settings in finance and budget, management and information technology. 

YEMEN
The UN and its humanitarian partners today released the 2019 Humanitarian Needs Overview for Yemen. The crisis remains the worst in the world with an estimated 80 percent of the population – that’s nearly 24 million people – in need of some form of humanitarian or protection assistance, including 14.3 million people who are in acute need. The number of people in acute need is now 27 percent higher than last year. 
More than 20 million people across the country are food insecure, half of them with extreme levels of hunger. For the first time, we have confirmed pockets of catastrophic hunger, with 238,000 people affected in some locations. 
Some 3.2 million people require treatment for acute malnutrition – 2 million [children] under 5 and more than one million pregnant and lactating women. 
A total of 17.8 million people lack access to safe water and sanitation, and almost 20 million people lack access to adequate healthcare. 
An estimated 3.3 million people remain displaced in Yemen, up from 2.2 million last year. This includes 685,000 people who fled during fighting in Hudaydah and on the west coast from June onwards. 
A High-Level Pledging Event for the Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen will be hosted by the UN and the Government of Switzerland as well as Sweden, and is scheduled on 26 February in Geneva.

SYRIA
We remain concerned for the protection of civilians who remain trapped in the last Da’esh-held areas of Hajin, in Syria’s south-eastern Deir Ezzour Governorate, and for those who are able to flee the fighting. There are continued reports of civilians being killed and injured due to ongoing hostilities and air strikes around Hajin.
Today, the UN opened a transit centre in Suar, half-way between Hajin and Al Hol, with a capacity of some 400 individuals. A small number of displaced women and children are already using the services provided by the UN. 
Further assistance is urgently being dispatched today and in coming days, that’s including non-food items, food, children’s clothes, and access to drinking water and hygiene. UN mobile health and nutritional clinics will also provide assistance at the site - that’s together with our partners.
We are also concerned by reports of civilian casualties and suffering due to hostilities in the de-escalation zone of Idlib and Hama Governorates in the north-west Syria. Yesterday, artillery shelling in the north-west Hama Governorate reportedly resulted in the death of one civilian and injured others, including children.
The UN reminds all parties of their obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law to ensure the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure, and to exercise restraint.

HAITI
The UN Mission in Haiti, MINUJUSTH, reports that anti-government protests in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and throughout the country continue for the eighth day. 
Protests were marked by multiple instances of roadblocks, burning barricades, and sporadic street demonstrations amid calls for President Juvenal Moise's resignation. 
The Haitian National Police, supported by the UN Mission, have demonstrated considerable professionalism and resilience to restore order.  
The Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Haiti, Helen La Lime, has been in close contact with all national stakeholders to encourage them to de-escalate the situation through dialogue and to identify realistic solutions to restore public order, within the framework of the Constitution of Haiti.

MEASLES
Our colleagues at the World Health Organization (WHO) today briefed the media in Geneva on current global measles outbreaks.
WHO noted that provisional data indicates that with 230,000 cases, the number of measles cases initially reported for 2018 have already exceeded the total reported measles cases for the year 2017, which were just above 173,000 cases. The reporting period for 2018 has not yet closed, so this figure is still to increase. 
It is also important to note that officially reported cases are only a fraction of the full picture, but they provide us with an important sense of where we are heading. 
Officials from WHO’s Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals said it would be important for WHO, Ministries of Health and other partners to act with urgency, clarity and appropriate tactics to close the gap in vaccine coverage and ensure measles vaccines are available, accessible and delivered to all children who need them.
Measles is a highly contagious viral disease which remains an important cause of death among young children globally, despite the availability of a safe and effective vaccine.

CHILDHOOD STATELESSNESS
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today called on European countries and regional organizations to take urgent action to ensure no child is born, or remains, stateless in Europe. 
More than half a million people in Europe are estimated to be stateless and in 2017, some 2,100 children were registered as ‘stateless’, which represented a four-fold increase compared to 2010. 
To better address child statelessness in Europe, UNICEF and UNHCR are proposing a series of solutions which include ensuring that every refugee and migrant child is properly identified and protected upon arrival in Europe, simplifying procedures to enable stateless children to acquire a nationality, and adopting or amending legislation to include safeguards granting nationality to all children born in a country who would otherwise be stateless.

PRESPA AGREEMENT
Yesterday evening we issued a statement acknowledging that the Secretary-General had received official notification of the entry into force of the Prespa Agreement as of 12 February 2019, which, among other things, expresses the agreement by the parties to the name “Republic of North Macedonia”.  He welcomes this development, which settles the long-standing dispute between Athens and Skopje and demonstrates that even seemingly intractable issues can be resolved through dialogue and political will.
The Secretary-General calls on Member States, regional organizations and all international partners to support the historical steps that the parties have taken. 

HONOUR ROLL
Today we thank Ethiopia, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates, who have paid their budget dues in full and on time, bringing the Honour Roll to 47.