HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY FARHAN HAQ,
DEPUTY SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES
THURSDAY, 28 OCTOBER 2021
SECRETARY-GENERAL TRAVELS
The Secretary-General will depart New York today to travel to Rome, Italy, to take part in the G20 Summit.
He will stress to leaders that we are at a make-or-break moment, with the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to wreak havoc across the globe, causing developing countries to suffer disproportionately.
The Secretary-General will underscore how we are moving further off-track from achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, with global poverty, hunger and inequalities rising.
Additionally, he will say that the spectre of climate change has become a deadly reality for developing and developed countries alike. Our goal of 1.5°C – and the future of humanity as we know it – are becoming even more elusive.
All of these require the full commitment of the G20, and the Secretary-General will call on G20 leaders to urgently put forward concrete solutions to end the pandemic, unleash a more balanced recovery, and ensure a more sustainable, resilient, and inclusive future for all.
At the G20 Summit, the Secretary-General will participate in sessions on the global economy and global health; climate change; and sustainable development. While in the Italian capital, he will meet with leaders in attendance, including Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy.
And he will also speak to the press tomorrow.
On Sunday, 31 October, the Secretary-General will depart Italy for the United Kingdom to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, in Glasgow.
On Monday, he will take part in the World Leaders’ Summit and the “Action and Solidarity – the critical decade” event, hosted and chaired by the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. He will call on countries to take bold action and implement new, concrete policies to tackle climate change, and he will reiterate the need to phase out coal and invest in clean technologies. He will also underscore the need for global solidarity to help all countries make this shift.
In addition, he will be holding bilateral meetings with leaders from various countries. He will also meet with his Youth Advisory Group and other civil society representatives and activists on Tuesday.
The Secretary-General will then go to Cambridge, where he will receive an honorary degree on Wednesday, and the next day, he will take part in a roundtable discussion on the ethics of climate change with Cambridge University students.
SECURITY COUNCIL
Speaking on behalf of the Secretary-General to the High-level Debate on cooperation between the UN and the African Union today in the Security Council, Amina Mohammed, the Deputy Secretary-General, said that today’s discussions are taking place in the context of worrying trends across the continent.
In too many places, the Deputy Secretary-General said, we are seeing a rise in seizures of power by force. She reiterated that the military coup in Sudan poses a major threat to the political transition.
And in northern Ethiopia, she added that the conflict continues unabated, despite appeals by the African Union and the United Nations for a permanent ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian access to the Tigray region.
Ms. Mohammed said that throughout the African continent, we’re seeing growing cooperation between the United Nations, the African Union, and sub-regional organizations on sustainable development, elections and peace processes.
But, she added, while our partnership is a necessary condition for peace, security, development, and justice in Africa, we also recognize that all Member States need to support these efforts.
SYRIA
The Security Council discussed Syria yesterday afternoon, and the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, warned the Security Council members that daily life in Syria is becoming less and less affordable. Over ninety percent of the population now lives below the poverty line, he said.
At the same time, Mr. Griffiths remains optimistic that we will be able to further expand cross-line access over the coming months.
Geir Pedersen, the Special Envoy for Syria, detailed last week’s meetings in Geneva of the Constitutional Committee. He said that the 45 members of the Small Body were not able to move from submitting and discussing initial draft constitutional texts to developing a productive textual drafting process. And he added that an agreement on dates and a commitment to meet twice before the end of the year was regrettably not possible.
IRAQ
The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, UNAMI, strongly condemned the attacks in Diyala on Tuesday night, which caused many deaths and injuries. The Mission extends its sincere condolences to the victims’ families and wishes the wounded a speedy recovery.
UNAMI calls on the authorities to fully investigate the attacks and exert every effort to ensure the safety and security of all citizens.
The Mission added that national unity is key, and that those who seek to harm and divide cannot do so if Iraqis stand together as one.
ETHIOPIA
The UN is extremely concerned about the continued escalation of hostilities and violence in the northern part of the country, including airstrikes in Tigray today.
Earlier today, two airstrikes were reportedly carried out on a residential area in Tigray’s capital, Mekelle. According to initial reports, six people were killed and 22 injured. A number of houses are understood to have been destroyed or severely damaged.
The UN is also alarmed by the ongoing hostilities in Afar and Amhara regions, which are causing large-scale displacement, livelihood disruptions and food insecurity, and preventing the delivery of humanitarian assistance to hundreds of thousands of people in both regions.
The escalation of hostilities risks worsening the already dire humanitarian situation in Tigray, Amhara and Afar, where millions of people need urgent humanitarian assistance.
The UN calls on all parties to the conflict to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure and to fulfil their obligations under international humanitarian law.
MISSION TO COUNTRIES AFFECTED BY BOKO HARAM
François Louncény Fall and Mahamat Saleh Annadif, the Secretary-General’s Special Representatives for Central Africa, and for West Africa and the Sahel are in Nigeria today to meet with government and military officials, as well as humanitarian and development partners. They will also visit internally displaced people and refugee camps.
This mission is the third leg of a tour of Lake Chad Basin countries affected by Boko Haram. Mr. Annadif and Mr. Fall are encouraging the countries affected by the resurgence of Boko Haram, and other extremist groups, to pool their efforts to confront terrorism.
Prior to Nigeria, Mr. Annadif and Mr. Fall went to Cameroon and Chad. They will finish their mission with a visit to Niger.
AFGHANISTAN
Humanitarians say that aid services continue to be carried out across the country by both male and female aid workers. In the northeast, food assistance and education programmes are ongoing.
In the coming weeks, the World Food Programme will provide food assistance to more than 100,000 people in Baghlan Province. Needs assessment will begin next week with each beneficiary family expected to receive four months of food rations.
In Kunduz province, the Education Cannot Wait Initiative will provide community-based education support to 250,000 out-of-school children. Among them, 33 per cent are boys and 63 per cent are girls.
UN humanitarians warn that the crisis in Afghanistan continues to deepen following decades of conflict, natural disasters, including an ongoing drought, and a looming economic crisis. Aid agencies need funding urgently to continue to scale up the humanitarian response.
Afghanistan’s Flash Appeal, seeking $606 million to help 11 million people through the end of 2021, is 48 per cent funded.
COVID AFRICA
The ACT-Accelerator has launched its new strategy for the next 12 months and is calling for US$23.4 billion to help the most at-risk countries secure and deploy COVID-19 tools.
Inequitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines is prolonging the pandemic everywhere, WHO said. It is also risking the emergence of new, more dangerous variants that could evade current tools to fight the disease.
According to WHO, so far, only 0.4% of tests and 0.5% of vaccines administered worldwide have been used in low-income countries.
And on a related note, our colleagues from WHO Africa said today that only five countries on the continent are projected to hit the year-end target of fully vaccinating 40% of their population, unless efforts to accelerate the pace take off.
Those countries are Cabo Verde, Mauritius, Morocco, the Seychelles, and Tunisia.
Africa has fully vaccinated 77 million people, just 6% of its population. In comparison, over 70% of high-income countries have already vaccinated more than 40% of their people.
COVID-19/KYRGYZSTAN
The UN team in Kyrgyzstan, led by Resident Coordinator Ozonnia Ojielo, says that yesterday, the country received 260,000 doses of vaccines donated by the Government of the United States through COVAX, in addition to another COVAX batch of over 110,000 doses.
The UN team on the ground has been supporting authorities to address the multiple impacts of the pandemic, including by boosting the vaccination drive to achieve the country’s goal of reaching 80 per cent of the eligible population. UNICEF is procuring vaccines, refrigeration equipment, and special supplies. Earlier this month, the first four ultra cold-chain freezers for vaccine storage were delivered and installed. The UN team is also training medical personnel on the correct use of this equipment.
REMOTE LEARNING
A report released today by the UN Children’s Fund shows that at least 200 million schoolchildren living in 31 low- and middle-income countries that remain unprepared to deploy remote learning in future emergency school closures. The report outlines the limitations of remote learning and inequalities of access, warning that the situation is likely far worse than the available data shows.
UNICEF notes that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of lack of remote learning readiness was especially felt by students living in countries where schools were fully or partially closed for at least half of the past 19 months, such as the Republic of the Congo and Madagascar.
CLIMATE CHANGE/ FORESTS
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization today released a report showing that forests in UNESCO World Heritage sites play a vital role in mitigating climate change by absorbing 190 million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year.
However, the report warns that ten of the 257 forests released more carbon than they captured between 2001 and 2020 due to pressure from human activity and climate change, which is alarming. The increasing scale and severity of wildfires, often linked to severe periods of drought, is also a predominant factor in several cases.
The report urges strong and sustained protection of UNESCO World Heritage sites and their surrounding landscapes to ensure their forests can continue to act as strong carbon sinks and stores for future generations.
ROAD SAFETY
Today, the World Health Organization is kicking off the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030, with the ambitious target of preventing at least 50% of road traffic deaths and injuries by 2030.
WHO notes that globally, more than 3,500 people die every day on the roads. This amounts to nearly 1.3 million preventable deaths and an estimated 50 million injuries each year – making it the leading killer of children and young people worldwide.
NOON GUESTS TODAY AND BRIEFINGS TOMORROW
The guests at the noon briefing today were Achim Steiner, the Administrator for the UN Development Programme and Cassie Flynn, UNDP Strategic Advisor on Climate Change and Head of UNDP’s Climate Promise programme. They briefed reporters on the launch of UNDP's NDC Outlook report which, among other things, finds that Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries continue to lead the way on greater ambition on climate action with their pledges, or 'nationally determined contributions', under the Paris Agreement.
Tomorrow at 11:30 a.m., the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation, Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, will brief reporters in the press briefing room.
Then at 12:30 p.m., the President of the Human Rights Council, Ambassador Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji, will do a press conference.
