HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY STEPHANE DUJARRIC,
SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES
TUESDAY, 18 APRIL 2017
 
SECRETARY-GENERAL NOMINATES ACHIM STEINER FOR U.N. DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME POST

• Following consultations with the Executive Board of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Secretary-General has written to the President of the General Assembly requesting the General Assembly to confirm Achim Steiner of Germany as the new Administrator of UNDP for a term of four years. 
• Mr. Steiner’s career includes assignments with Governmental and non-governmental, as well as international organizations in different parts of the world, including as Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, and Director-General of the UN Office in Nairobi.

• The Secretary-General will address the Security Council at 3 p.m. on Maintenance of International Peace and Security; Human Rights and the Prevention of Armed Conflict.
• The Secretary-General will stress that our world is facing unprecedented peace and security challenges that result from a lack of prevention, and from insufficient implementation of human rights obligations.
• The consequences for people and States, and indeed for humanity, are being felt by tens of millions and by entire regions.
• Ensuring improved action on human rights is a critical part of meeting this challenge.

• The United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, and the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, will convene tomorrow 19 April the first UN-AU Annual Conference.
• The two recently-appointed leaders will look into how to strengthen the partnership between the two organizations to face common challenges and opportunities in the continent, on issues of peace and security, sustainable development and human rights.
• They will also sign the Joint United Nations-African Union Framework for an Enhanced Partnership in Peace and Security.
• The Secretary-General and Mr. Faki Mahamat will be speaking to the press at 1 p.m. outside the Trusteeship Council.
• Mr. Faki Mahamat will give a longer press conference at 3.45 p.m.

• The Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, spoke today at the High-Level meeting on Financing the Sustainable Development Goals.
• She stressed that after the adoption of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda in 2015, governments need to act on their promises and implement their own action plans to achieve the SDGs.
• Ms. Mohammed said “it is in the interest of all countries, companies and people to tap the wealth of good that sustainable development will bring in environmental, economic and social terms.”
• She also pointed to partnerships between the government and the private sector and the engagement of youth as key aspects to stimulating investment and achieving sustainability.

• The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that food and water shortages continue in western Mosul, which has been cut off from its main supply route since November 2016, and remains largely inaccessible to aid workers.
• Given the chronic shortages of clean water, many people are drinking untreated water. Humanitarian workers are concerned over an increased number of displaced children who are fleeing western Mosul with diarrhoea.
• These shortages have likely been exacerbated by Da’esh’s recent attacks on the Badush water treatment plant, western Mosul’s largest functioning treatment plant.
• Nearly 130,000 people in west Mosul have received food aid to date.
• Approximately 500,000 people live in Da’esh-controlled areas of west Mosul.

• The UN Mission in Mali said today that a UN military vehicle hit an improvised explosive device or a mine this morning 30 km south of Tessalit, in the Kidal region. Two peacekeepers and one civilian were gravely wounded.
• Also this morning, the Malian armed forces and the National Guard were attacked by unidentified armed men in Gourma Rharous, 120 km east of Timbuktu. The UN mission deployed attack helicopters in support of the Malian armed forces and is facilitating the evacuation of the wounded.
• The Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Mahamat Saleh Annadif, condemned these attacks and expressed concern over the continuing insecurity in the north and centre of the country. He reiterated the need for all parties to intensify their efforts to make progress on the peace process.

• Yesterday, the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia and other international partners welcomed a series of decisions taken by the Somali Federal Government and the Federal Member States after two days of consultations in Mogadishu.
• The consultations included topics like national security, drought response and the fight against corruption.
• The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Somalia, Michael Keating, welcomed in particular the agreement reached on the key points of Somali national security architecture and added that “this agreement marks a major milestone for Somalia” and is “a cornerstone of the federal state building process.”

• The International Organization on Migration (IOM) report that nearly 9,000 migrants were rescued over the past long weekend by individual NGOs and by the international flotilla.
• The rescued migrants were mostly Africans, but there was also a large number of Bangladeshis.
• There have been 900 migrant deaths at sea so far in 2017, 90 per cent of them on the Libya-Italy stretch, and as many as 20,000 migrants are estimated to be in detention in unofficial detention centres, according to the IOM.
• The UN refugee agency repeated its calls on the EU and Governments to help save lives.

• Today and tomorrow in Conference Room 1, the International Dialogue on Migration is taking place with the theme “Strengthening International Cooperation on and Governance of Migration towards the Adoption of a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration in 2018.”
• Organized by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), this is part of the preparatory process of the Global Compact on Migration.
• At 1:00 p.m., the IOM Director General William Swing Lacy will be having a question and answer session in Conference Room 1.

• The High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein expressed deep alarm at an apparent widespread pattern of rallies in several provinces across Burundi where young men from the Imbonerakure militia - the youth wing of the ruling CNDD-FDD party - repeatedly chant a call to impregnate or kill opponents.
• Mr. Zeid said the organized nature of the marches, coupled with reports of ongoing serious human rights violations, lay bare the campaign of terror being waged in Burundi.　
• The CNDD-FDD party issued a statement earlier this month condemning the chanting but recent reports indicate that similar, larger rallies have since then been organized across the country by officials from the Government and the President’s party.　

• Tomorrow at 3:00 p.m., there will be a briefing here by Gordon Brown, the UN Special Envoy for Global Education on efforts to provide every refugee and displaced child with an education through a new model for education finance.

• The Spokesman provided clarification regarding a story about an individual who was arrested in connection with a series of bank robberies in the Midtown neighbourhood of New York.
• He noted that, contrary to what was reported, the suspect, Abdullahi Shuaibu, is not an employee of the United Nations nor is he an accredited journalist to the United Nations nor was he arrested at the United Nations.
• The Spokesman noted that until 2012, he was a resident correspondent representing the News Agency of Nigeria.
• He did work very briefly for the UN in October and November of 2013 but has never worked for the United Nations since.