HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY FARHAN HAQ,
DEPUTY SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES
WEDNESDAY, 21 JUNE 2023
SECRETARY-GENERAL/PARIS SUMMIT
The Secretary-General met in Paris with Emmanuel Macron, the President of France. They discussed the objectives of the Paris Summit, including the importance of reforms to the international financial architecture, debt relief, access to liquidity as well as the urgent need for climate action and climate justice.
The Secretary-General and the President also discussed the war in Ukraine as well as the situation in the Sahel, the crisis in Sudan and its regional implications.
Tomorrow morning, the Secretary-General will deliver remarks at the opening ceremony of the Paris Summit hosted by President Macron.
He will renew his appeal for ambitious reforms to the international financial architecture and will present his proposals – including an SDG stimulus - to better support developing and emerging economies and put us back on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
Later in the day, the Secretary-General will go to Sciences Po university to take part in a discussion on the state of world affairs with students, alumni and academics.
ECOSOC
This morning, the Secretary-General spoke, in a video message, to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Humanitarian Affairs Segment. He emphasized the urgent and unprecedented global humanitarian needs, noting that 360 million people worldwide require assistance. This is a 30 per cent increase from the previous year, with over 110 million forcibly displaced people and more than 260 million facing severe food insecurity.
The Secretary-General commended the efforts of humanitarian aid agencies in reaching more people and maximizing resources, but he underscored that there is a persistent funding crisis, with only 20 per cent of the required funds under the Global Humanitarian Appeal having been received.
The Secretary-General called for discussions during the ECOSOC segment to address increasing humanitarian resources, enhancing the efficiency of aid delivery, protecting vulnerable individuals, especially women and girls, and addressing the root causes of conflict to reduce food insecurity, and investing in climate adaptation to build resilience.
SECURITY COUNCIL/AFGHANISTAN
This morning, the Security Council held a meeting on Afghanistan. Briefing Council members, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Rosa Otunbayeva, said that the United Nations continues to face a complicated situation in Afghanistan. She noted that the April 5 restrictions against Afghan women working for the UN place a question mark over our activities across the country.
Ms. Otunbayeva said that we will not put our national female staff in danger, and therefore we are asking them not to report to the office. At the same time, we have asked all our male national staff performing non-essential tasks to stay home to respect the principle of non-discrimination. Finally, she said, we are steadfast: female national staff will not be replaced by male national staff as some de facto authorities have suggested.
Ms. Otunbayeva also noted that UN cash shipments, required for humanitarian operations, are expected to decrease as donor funding declines, warning that this could begin having a negative effect on monetary stability.
Ms. Otunbayeva said that in her regular discussions with the de facto authorities, she is blunt about the obstacles they have created for themselves by the decrees and restrictions they have enacted, in particular those against women and girls.
She said that we have conveyed to them that, as long as these decrees are in place, it is nearly impossible that their government will be recognized by members of the international community.
Ms. Otunbayeva noted that, based on our discussions with many interlocutors across the country, it is also clear that these decrees are highly unpopular among the Afghan population. She noted that they cost the Taliban both domestic and international legitimacy, while inflicting suffering on their population and damaging their economy.
AFGHANISTAN/WFP
The UN World Food Programme Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, Carl Skau, yesterday finished a visit to Afghanistan, where he saw first-hand WFP’s operations in one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises. He witnessed the impact of the latest restrictions on women’s employment and of an acute funding crisis which recently forced WFP to cut rations and drastically reduce the number of people it serves with lifesaving assistance.
WFP notes that in Afghanistan, rations have had to be reduced for people even in the areas with the highest levels of food insecurity, and 8 million highly vulnerable people will no longer receive WFP’s emergency assistance due to funding shortfalls. WFP urgently needs $918 million to maintain operations for the coming six months.
UKRAINE/ UKRAINE RECOVERY CONFERENCE
The Under-Secretary-General and UN Development Programme Administrator Achim Steiner, in his capacity as the Vice-Chair of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group, is in London representing the Secretary-General at the Ukraine Recovery Conference.
In his remarks, Mr. Steiner said that he had just returned from Ukraine, where the people he met with have had their lives and livelihoods shattered by war. He noted that the UN continues efforts to provide assistance to all of those in need, including in areas currently under Russian control where humanitarian access is extremely limited.
To chart a way forward, Mr. Steiner said that we, along with our partners, are also developing a damage assessment with a focus on agriculture and the environment. He said that in 2023, the UN scaled up its recovery efforts, implementing $1 billion of recovery and development programming in line with the Government’s priorities, driven by 24 UN entities and more than 3,000 personnel.
Mr. Steiner highlighted that the UN’s pledge to stay and deliver in Ukraine is characterized by community-level recovery -- jointly planning, sequencing, and layering our humanitarian, development, and social cohesion support.
He said that we are connecting Ukrainians’ resilience with the tools that people need today to invest and rebuild towards futures that are not defined by this war.
The Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine, Denise Brown, is also attending the Conference in London.
UKRAINE
The World Food Programme Representative and Country Director and the senior humanitarian on the ground, Matthew Hollingworth, condemned an attack on Kherson yesterday that killed and injured rescue workers from the State of Emergency Service of Ukraine.
Mr. Hollingworth recalled that this incident was yet another example of the human impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and reminded about the obligations to protect civilians, including rescue workers, under international humanitarian law.
On the response front we, along with our humanitarian partners, continue to work non-stop to assist people impacted by the devastation caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, complementing the remarkable work being carried out by volunteers, in addition to the Government response.
Two weeks since the disaster, UN agencies and humanitarian partners organized 12 inter-agency convoys, including two by boat and amphibious trucks, delivering 50 truckloads of vital supplies to help people in the Kherson Region and those living in the Dnipro Region, where access to drinking water is extremely limited due to the disaster. This is in addition to the assistance provided separately by UN agencies and NGOs.
Overall, and across all affected areas, the UN - along with our partners - delivered more than 2 million litres of water, 130,000 ready-to-eat food rations, hygiene items, medical supplies, shelter kits, sleeping bags, blankets and other essential items. This is in addition to medical services, counselling, legal services and cash assistance. Over 2 million people were also reached through mine-awareness campaigns.
JOINT COORDINATION CENTER
In a statement issued yesterday, the Secretary-General expressed disappointment at the slowing pace of inspections and the exclusion of the port of Yuzhny/Pivdennyi from the Black Sea Initiative. This has resulted in a reduction in the movement of vessels coming in and out of Ukrainian sea ports, leading to a drop in the supply of essential foodstuffs to global markets.
Food exports through the maritime humanitarian corridor have dropped significantly from a peak of 4.2 million metric tonnes in October 2022 to 1.3 million metric tonnes in May, the lowest volume since the Initiative began last year.
The Secretary-General calls on the parties to accelerate operations and urges them to do their utmost to ensure the continuation of this vital agreement, which is up for renewal on 17 July.
The United Nations is fully committed to supporting the implementation of both the Black Sea Initiative and the Memorandum of Understanding on Russian food and fertilizer exports so that exports of food and fertilizers, including ammonia, from the Russian Federation and Ukraine reach markets around the world safely and predictably. This is especially critical now as the new grain harvest begins in both Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
SUDAN
Over the past four weeks, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has facilitated the movement of 438 trucks carrying some 17,000 tons of aid to different parts of Sudan. Fifty of those trucks moved during the first two days of the latest ceasefire.
The United Nations will continue to deliver, ceasefire or not. But also continues to call for an end to the fighting so that we can reach all people in need in Sudan, wherever they are.
Meanwhile, the United Nations is alarmed by the impact that attacks on health care are having on women and girls in the country. The World Health Organization and the UN Population Fund say that more than two-thirds of hospitals are closed in areas impacted by the fighting. Several maternity hospitals are also out of action.
Of the more than two-and-a-half million women and girls of reproductive age in Sudan, nearly 263,000 are estimated to be pregnant. One third of them will give birth in the next three months. And all of them need access to critical reproductive health services.
As the fighting continues in Sudan, the number of people internally displaced by the violence has risen to nearly 2 million, according to the International Organization for Migration. The highest proportion of internally displaced persons have been observed in West Darfur, River Nile, White Nile and Northern states.
SOUTH SUDAN
Yesterday afternoon, Nicholas Haysom, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), briefed the Security Council on challenges impeding the peace process in the country.
He stressed that the ongoing conflict in Sudan threatens South Sudan’s political landscape, placing already fragile peace gains at risk by diverting attention at a critical phase of the country’s democratic transition.
Mr. Haysom urged South Sudanese leaders to harness political will to achieve constitutional and electoral benchmarks—which are 10 and 9 months delayed respectively—as well as to create civic and political space for all citizens to participate in these nation-building processes.
INTERNATIONAL DAYS
Today is the International Day of Yoga.
In his message for the Day, the Secretary-General said that Yoga unites body and mind, humanity and nature, and millions of people across the globe. It connects us to our planet, which so badly needs our protection.
Today is also the International Day of the Celebration of the Solstice. The solstices, together with the equinoxes, are connected with seasons, harvests and livelihood.
