UKRAINE
Rosemary DiCarlo, the Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, briefed the Security Council by via videoconference from Munich, in Germany, where she is accompanying the Secretary-General who is attending the Munich Security Conference.
She warned that the current situation in the region is extremely dangerous, noting with concern the reports of fresh ceasefire violations across the contact line over the past several hours. If verified, she said, these must not be allowed to escalate further.
Ms. DiCarlo said the Secretary-General has remained fully engaged with key actors and has reiterated the same unambiguous message: There is no alternative to diplomacy. 
Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders must be respected in accordance with relevant General Assembly resolutions.
Ms. DiCarlo also told the Members of the Security Council that the world is looking to the collective security mechanisms in Europe but also to the Security Council to help ensure that the only skirmishes will be diplomatic skirmishes.
 
DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL/HAITI
Our Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, is concluding her visit to Haiti today. This morning, she took part in the Technical Conference on Cholera Elimination.
Ms. Mohammed noted that the efforts of the Haitian people over the past 11.5 years have brought Haiti to the brink of a historical moment. As we look to eliminate cholera in Haiti, she said, the country will be the first in modern times to do so following a large-scale outbreak.
The Deputy Secretary-General said that Haiti’s efforts have made it an example to the world, and the country has led the way and confirmed that national expertise and leadership can implement the changes that are needed. She stressed that we must remain focused and determined as we look ahead, and that the final mile is never an easy one.
Also, this morning, Amina Mohammed had a meeting with religious leaders and took part in a townhall with UN staff in Haiti.
Yesterday, in her closing remarks at the International Event for the Financing of the Reconstruction of the Southern Peninsula of Haiti, Ms. Mohammed welcomed the fact that close to $600 million was pledged, surpassing the immediate target for the conference.
The Deputy Secretary-General emphasized that the reconstruction of the southern peninsula needs to be framed as part of a greater commitment to put Haiti on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
Later today, she is expected to speak with the media, and she will be arriving back in New York late this evening.
 
YEMEN
The high-level pledging event for Yemen will take place on 16 March and will be virtually co-hosted by the United Nations and the Governments of Sweden and Switzerland. This is the fifth year that Sweden and Switzerland are co-hosting the event, and we are very appreciative for their continued support.
This event will be a key opportunity for the international community to demonstrate its continued commitment to the people of Yemen.
We call on donors to pledge generously at the high-level event, and to commit and disburse funds even before the conference so that we can avert a further reduction of vital assistance.
As you will recall, the Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, two days ago mentioned the risk of further cuts of humanitarian aid to Yemen if funds were not received.
Also, I’d also like to mention a more positive development: We can confirm that the UN worker who had been detained in Ma’rib since mid-November was released on Monday, on 14 February.
An NGO worker who had been arrested in a separate incident in Ma’rib has also been released.
Regrettably, the two UN staff who were arrested in Sana’a last November remain in detention. We continue to call for full respect of UN privileges and immunities and for their immediate release.
Also, in a separate incident, as you will recall, last Friday, five other UN staffers were detained by armed men. They, unfortunately, remain in detention and we continue to work for their release.

ETHIOPIA
I have a humanitarian update on the situation in Ethiopia: The humanitarian situation in the northern region of Afar continues to deteriorate due to the ongoing conflict.
Due to insecurity, the UN and our partners are unable to access many of the sites where those displaced by the fighting have taken shelter.
We are providing aid in parts of Afar we can access. For example, nearly 80,000 children and pregnant and lactating women in seven districts have been reached with help to address malnutrition. Mobile health and nutrition teams are providing help in 14 districts.
In the neighbouring Tigray region, medical supplies were airlifted to Mekelle in the past week.
On February 11th, the World Health Organization airlifted 10 metric tons of medical supplies, including medical equipment, antibiotics, and medicine for malaria, diabetes, and reproductive health. However, the amounts of supplies that can be airlifted remains limited.
Many of these supplies also cannot be distributed to health facilities due to the continuing lack of fuel in Tigray
Also continuing is the suspension of truck convoys into Tigray – of course, including fuel tankers – and this limits the ability to distribute humanitarian aid more broadly. In recent weeks, fewer than 7,000 people received food assistance, and this was at reduced rations.
As part of the recent measles vaccination campaign in Tigray, more than 60,000 children under the age of five and some 11,000 pregnant and lactating women were screened for malnutrition. More than 20 per cent of children and 55 per cent of the women were found to be acutely malnourished.
In the Amhara region, in the past week, more than 127,000 people received food assistance. However, some parts of northern Amhara are still inaccessible to aid workers due to insecurity.
 
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
Today, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Government and the humanitarian community launched the country’s Humanitarian Response Plan for 2022. The Plan is seeking $1.88 billion to provide humanitarian assistance to 8.8 million vulnerable people.
The humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate in the country, particularly in the eastern provinces of the country, due to a volatile security situation. As we have reported, attacks against civilians, including internally displaced people, have increased over the past year, especially in Ituri and North Kivu provinces.
Today, more than 27 million people in DRC are facing severe and acute food insecurity, with nearly 5.5 million displaced people, forced to move, sometimes several times, and half a million men, women and children, who are refugees and asylum seekers from neighbouring countries, are hosted in the country.  
Humanitarian operations last year were the least funded in the last four years. The limited funding – 39 per cent of the amount needed for the 2021 Humanitarian Response Plan – was insufficient for humanitarian organizations to cover the basic needs of the 9.6 million people identified as being the most vulnerable.
 
SAHEL
Turning to the Sahel, the World Food Programme (WFP) is telling us the region is currently experiencing some of its driest conditions in many years.
In the past three years, they say, the number of people marching toward starvation has skyrocketed from 3.6 million to 10.5 million in five countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.
The current crisis is expected to outpace previous years due to compounding factors including insecurity, an increase in poverty due to COVID-19, and dramatic increases in the cost of staple food.
WFP said funding shortages are a concern. The agency needs $470 million for the next six months to continue operations in the Sahel. Despite a challenging security context, it has worked with humanitarian partners to maintain lifesaving support reaching 9.3 million people in the five countries in 2021.

CAMEROON/SCHOOLS
From Cameroon, the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator there, Mathias Naab – together with the UN team and humanitarian partners – condemned the recent attacks that destroyed schools in the country.
There have been two recent incidents that are the latest among a series of attacks on students, education staff and premises, depriving more than 700,000 children of their right to proper and safe education in the northwest and southwest parts of the country.
The statement stressed that an attack on education is, of course, an attack on the future of Cameroonians.
 
UNEP
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi says that wildfires are burning more severely and more often, urban noise pollution is growing into a global public health menace, and phenological mismatches – disruptions in the timing of life-cycle stages in natural systems – are causing ecological consequences.
These are some of the findings in a new report by UNEP released today.
The new publication identifies and offers solutions to these environmental issues, which highlight the urgent need to address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.

MONGOLIA/COVID-19
A update on COVID-19 today, from Mongolia, where our Resident Coordinator Tapan Mishra is leading the team, which continues to support authorities to address the impacts of the pandemic.
Through COVAX, we have helped to deliver COVID-19 vaccines for more than 40 per cent of the population and we have supported the construction of a new facility for central vaccine storage.
To date, more than 92 per cent of the target population has been fully vaccinated, with nearly 50 per cent already having received a third booster dose.
The UN team has helped to coordinate the vaccination campaign, training front-line healthcare workers and providing medical equipment.
We have also supported remote learning for schools and have delivered food and other items to more than 2,500 vulnerable households.
 
SENIOR APPOINTMENT
The Secretary-General has appointed Ted Chaiban of Lebanon as Global Lead Coordinator for COVID-19 Vaccine Country-Readiness and Delivery, at the level of Assistant Secretary-General, in UNICEF.
Mr. Chaiban will lead a senior inter-agency team to ensure an effective global response to the pandemic, supporting the COVID vaccine country-readiness and delivery.  He will coordinate inter-agency efforts to forecast vaccine needs, as well as provide financial and technical assistance to overcome bottlenecks in country-level implementation. 
Mr. Chaiban has worked in a number of positions for UNICEF since 1997, and his bio is available to you.

FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTION
Lastly, we want to thank our friends who may be far away, but they have paid their budget dues in full: New Zealand. They bring up the total of fully-paid Member States to 57.