Given the complex and multifaceted challenges in the Persian Gulf region, the UN chief tells the Security Council that it is important to reflect more deeply on how everyone, particularly the Council itself, can “work in unison to promote peace and security”.  At the virtual ministerial-level debate, Secretary-General António Guterres stressed repeatedly his call for “an immediate global ceasefire”. 

The elimination of nuclear weapons is vital to the “survival of life on this planet”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the final major event of the General Assembly’s high level week. He told delegates gathered to commemorate the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, it was the only way “to completely eliminate nuclear risk.”

Secretary-General António Guterres called for all nations to provide further urgently needed funds – the equivalent of the total spent on cigarettes worldwide every two weeks – on behalf of global COVID-19 vaccine efforts to ensure that everyone, everywhere, gets protection from the virus. Launched at the end of April 2020, the ACT-Accelerator has secured $3 billion, critical for its start up, but it needs a further $35 billion – including an “immediate infusion” of $15 billion – he said at a high-level event to mobilize support for the initiative. 

The economic and social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic “are as bad as we feared”, the UN Secretary-General said, as he warned that the international community must act now if it is stave off a global recession, which could wipe out decades of development gains. Speaking at a high-level event on financing for development in the era of COVID-19 and beyond, António Guterres said that while countries reacted swiftly to the global crisis, mobilizing a fiscal response of more than $11.5 trillion globally, only a fraction was accounted for by developing and emerging economies.

In his centerpiece address to the historic and unprecedented 75th session of the UN General Assembly, Secretary-General António Guterres appealed for global solidarity to overcome the COVID-19, and again call for a global ceasefire during the pandemic, by the end of the year. Mr. Guterres characterized the pandemic from the podium as “not only a wake-up call” but “a dress rehearsal” for challenges to come.