The UN chief spoke earlier in the day to President William Ruto of Kenya and with the Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, Moussa Faki.
Mr. Guterres will attend a virtual meeting on Sudan on Thursday, bringing together the AU Chairperson, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, the Executive Secretary of the East African bloc, IGAD, and other relevant organizations, to discuss ways the international community can help end the violence and restore order inside Sudan.
UN fully engaged
“Obviously, today he will continue to be fully engaged, making phone calls, trying to secure a 24-hour ceasefire, which will enable a much-needed reprieve to all affected civilians in Khartoum,” UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told journalists attending his daily noon briefing in New York.
The UN Special Representative in Sudan, Volker Perthes, also continues engagement with parties on the ground, key Sudanese leaders and Member States, in trying to secure an immediate de-escalation in the fighting.
The crisis between the Sudanese armed forces and formerly allied Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries emerged as the country appeared to be returning to the path towards democratic transition. The sides are at odds over the process of restoring civilian rule.
New 24-hour ceasefire
The deadly clashes erupted on Saturday. An initial 24-hour ceasefire, announced for 6 pm, local time, on Tuesday, collapsed within minutes of the deadline.
The parties committed to a new 24-hour truce on Wednesday, also beginning at 6 pm, local time, but some international media reported that the shelling has continued.
The UN, AU and IGAD – known as the Trilateral Mechanism – issued a statement appealing to the sides “to create necessary conditions during this period for the civilians to seek safe shelter, food and medical care.”
Devastating impact on civilians
Mr. Dujarric said the continued heavy fighting is having devastating consequences for civilians, as well as UN staff and other members of the international community.
“We reiterate to the parties to the conflict that they must respect international law,” he said.
“They are obliged to protect civilians and ensure the safety and security of all United Nations and associated personnel as well as their premises, our assets, and trapped civilians must be able to receive assistance, access essential supplies and evacuate to safer zones as needed.”
Vital supplies dwindling
As the crisis deepens, humanitarians warn that people are running out of food, fuel and other vital supplies, and many urgently need medical care.
“We desperately need a humanitarian pause so that wounded and sick civilians can reach hospitals,” Mr. Dujarric said, adding “people in Khartoum have been unable to safely leave their homes to buy food and other essential items for days.”
He reported that the humanitarian response remains severely hampered, calling for an end to attacks against aid workers and looting of humanitarian facilities.
“Humanitarians must be able to safely carry out their work. Aid agencies must be able to safely move staff and replenish critical supplies,” he stressed.
Health system concerns
The UN is also worried that Sudan’s healthcare system could completely collapse as hospitals need additional staff and supplies, including blood.
The violence and attacks have forced 16 hospitals across the country to close, nine in Khartoum alone, Mr. Dujarric said, citing the World Health Organization (WHO). Another 16 hospitals, including in Darfur states, could close soon due to staff fatigue and lack of supplies.
“It goes without saying that we condemn all attacks on health personnel, on facilities and ambulances – which is putting more lives at risk,” he said. “These are flagrant violations of international law, and they must stop.”
Sudanese refugees seek safety in neighboring Chad following an outbreak of violence in Darfur.
Sudanese refugees arrive in Chad
As fighting rages on in Sudan, humanitarian agencies are also monitoring the arrivals of new Sudanese refugees in neighbouring Chad, a representative of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said early on Wednesday.
UNHCR’s Laura Lo Castro tweeted about a joint mission conducted with the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and Chad’s national commission in charge of refugees, to observe the influx of new Sudanese refugees in the east, “assess urgent needs and agree on [a] response plan”.
She said there were an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 new refugees in the first three sites visited.
Any new arrivals will be entering a situation marked by soaring humanitarian needs and chronic underfunding.
Just last week, before the military power struggle erupted in Sudan, WFP warned that hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced people in Chad could face hunger because there was no funding for food assistance beyond this coming May.
Stéphane Dujarric described the direct transfer of money, mostly to those who have been displaced and lost their jobs due to the fighting, as “a continuation of crucial assistance that we, along with our partners, have provided in most regions of Ukraine”.
He said last year, some six million people across different parts of Ukraine had been provided with cash, and this year more than $200 million had been transferred to help Ukrainians meet their basic needs.
“This was made possible through the coordinated efforts of [more than] 20 partners, including UN agencies, national non-governmental organizations and international non-governmental organizations as well”, said Mr. Dujarric.
One billion target
He added that the target overall, was to provide cash assistance to around 4.4 million people, transferring close to $1 billion in total.
And overall, humanitarians are hoping to provide some kind of relief to more than 11 million people of the nearly 18 million who need assistance in Ukraine.
“To this end, we and our partners requested $3.9 billion for the response”, the UN Spokesperson continued. “So far, we received a total of $900 million so we count on the international community to sustain its support to the humanitarian response in the country, as the war continues to drive a grave humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, particularly in the east and the south.
Over the weekend, the UN managed to provide shelter materials and other vital items to more than 1,500 people in a community along the Dnipro River in Kherson region.
It’s the first time that aid workers have managed to reach the area just a few hundred metres from the frontline, “where the level of destruction is appalling”, according to the UN humanitarian affairs coordination office (OCHA) in Ukraine.
UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the country, Denise Brown, said on Monday that in getting two convoys into the Donetsk and Kherson regions last Friday, UN teams were “inching our way towards the frontline, to relieve the suffering of these communities who are under constant shelling”.
Pacific Community-led regional initiative aims to assist countries in the region with mitigating the impacts of climate change-induced tuna migration. Credit: Pacific Community/SPC
by Neena Bhandari (sydney)
Inter Press Service
SYDNEY, Apr 19 (IPS) – Climate change and warming ocean waters are causing tuna fisheries to migrate to international waters, away from a country’s jurisdiction, thereby putting the food and economic security of many Pacific Island countries and territories at risk.
Now a Pacific Community (SPC) led regional initiative will help ensure that these countries are equipped to cope with climate change-induced tuna migration.
“All the climate change projections indicate that there will be a redistribution of tuna from the western and central Pacific to the more eastern and towards the polar regions, that is not Antarctica or the Arctic, but to regions outside of the equatorial zones where they primarily occur at the moment,” says SPC’s Principal Fisheries Scientist, Dr Simon Nicol.
“This has really important implications for the Pacific Island countries. Our projections suggest that about one-fifth or about USD 100 million of the income derived from the tuna industry directly is likely to be lost by 2050 by these countries,” Nicol tells IPS.
The total annual catch of tuna in the western and central Pacific Ocean represents around 55 percent of global tuna production. Approximately half of this catch is from the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of Pacific Island countries.
The recent USD15.5 million funding by New Zealand for SPC’s ‘Climate Science for Ensuring Pacific Tuna Access’ programme will enable Pacific Island countries to prepare and adapt the region’s tuna fisheries to meet the challenges posed by climate change.
Nicol says that the investment that New Zealand has provided for the programme will allow for more rigorous and timely monitoring of the types of changes that are occurring, both due to the impacts of fishing and climate change, at a very fine resolution. Secondly, it will also provide the additional resources that are needed to increase the ocean monitoring capacity to remove the anomalies and biases to particular local conditions, which often occur in global climate models.
“We have noted, for example, that the boundary of the warm pool in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Nauru can have an element of bias associated with it. It’s an important oceanographic feature in the western Pacific equatorial zone, which moves in association with the El Nino Southern Oscillation. Sometimes its eastern boundary is right next to Papua New Guinea, and at other times, it extends all the way past Nauru. It is a key driver of recruitment for skipjack tuna, so we need to be quite precise where that boundary is for any prediction of skipjack recruitment that occurs in any given year,” he tells IPS.
Several Pacific Island countries and territories find their food and economic security at risk due to the climate-change-induced migration of tuna into international waters. Credit: Pacific Community (SPC)
The analysis at the ocean basin scale does not provide EEZ scale information for particular countries, and it is often not precise in predicting when the impact of climate change is going to manifest itself.
Under the programme, a Pacific-owned advanced warning system will be developed by SPC to help countries forecast, monitor and manage tuna migration, which is set to become more pronounced in the coming decades.
“The advanced warning system will allow us to zoom in on what the likely changes are in each particular country’s EEZ and also zoom in more accurately and precisely on when those changes are likely to occur, which is particularly important from a Pacific Island country perspective,” Nicol tells IPS.
Whilst Pacific Island countries manage the tuna resource collectively to ensure its biological sustainability, the income that they derive is very much a national-level enterprise. A recent study in Nature Sustainability estimates that the movement of tuna stocks could cause a fall of up to 17 percent in the annual government revenue of some of these countries.
The study notes that more than 95 percent of all tuna caught from the jurisdictions of the 22 Pacific Island countries and territories comes from the combined EEZs of 10 Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS) – Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu. On average, they derive 37 percent (ranging from 4 percent for Papua New Guinea to 84 percent for Tokelau) of all government revenue from tuna-fishing access fees paid by foreign industrial fishing fleets.
“The advanced warning system would allow for more refined predictions of the changes in tuna stock, abundance, distribution and the fisheries around them. This is very important to what each country gets as access fees, which relates to how much tuna is typically caught in their EEZ,” says Dr Meryl Williams, Vice Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation.
“Access fees usually form part of the general consolidated revenue that the government has to spend on hospitals, education and infrastructure, and hence it is a very important source of revenue for people’s economic development in many of the Pacific Island countries,” she adds.
Currently, the program is focused only on the four dominant tuna species – Skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis), Yellowfin (Thunnus albacares), Bigeye (Thunnus obesus) and the South Pacific Albacore (Thunnus alalunga) – caught in the Pacific Island countries.
SPC’s Director of Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability, Coral Pasisi says, “Without successful global action to mitigate climate change, the latest ecosystem modelling predicts a significant decrease in the availability of tropical tuna species (tuna biomass) in the Western Pacific due to a shifting of their biomass to the east and some declines in overall biomass. Negative impacts on coastal fish stocks important for local food security are also predicted”.
Curbing greenhouse gas emissions in line with The Paris Agreement could help limit tuna migration away from the region. “We have to ensure sustainable fishing levels for the Pacific Islands. To reach this goal, developed countries should act quickly and increase their ambition to stay below 1.5 degrees centigrade, and Pacific countries should maintain sustainable management of their fisheries resources,” Pasisi tells IPS.
She says the future of the Pacific region’s marine resources will be secured through nearshore fish aggregating devices, sustainable coastal fisheries management plans, and aquaculture.
“We must also complete the work on delineating all Exclusive Economic Zone boundaries to ensure sovereignty over the resources. We need and seek international recognition for the permanency of these. We also must work with all fishing nations in the Pacific to ensure that sustainable management of tuna fisheries continues, even if there is a shift into international waters,” Pasisi adds.
The programme will work with Pacific Island countries and territories to develop and implement new technologies and innovative approaches to enable the long-term sustainability of the region’s tuna fisheries.
There is a need to also recognise the more direct fisheries benefits that people, including women, receive from their contributions to the tuna industry, says Williams, who is also the founder and immediate past Chair of the Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries section of the Asian Fisheries Society.
“Looking at the whole of employment in small-scale and industrial fisheries tuna value chains, not just fishing but also processing, trading, work in offices and in fisheries management etc., we estimate that women probably make up at least half, if not more than half, of the labour force in the tuna industry. Hence, their role is very important in sustainably managing the tuna stock in Pacific Island countries,” she tells IPS.
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Apr 18 (IPS) – The Future We Want was the groundbreaking outcome of the Rio+20 Summit, the summit, held in 2012, where the idea of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was first conceptualized.
Amid the unfolding of several global crises, where geopolitics mixes with structural unbalances that are putting at risk the long-term viability of planet Earth, isn’t really high time we got serious about our future?
Can the SDGs be turned not just in a tool for global pressure and advocacy but also a planning tool that involves, mobilizes and empower the people? There is still so much to be done and the levels of urgency can’t be greater.
According to the recently released Asia and the Pacific SDG Progress Report 2023, “the region will miss all or most of the targets of every goal unless efforts are accelerated between now and 2030”.Can localizing the SDGs in the Asia Pacific region and also elsewhere, change the status quo?
In theory, localizing the goals can make a huge difference but we need to ensure that such process means the truly involvement and engagement of the citizens.
A recent online workshop tried to assess where we stand following the Rio+20 Summit whose ultimate scope was, twenty years after the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, to relaunch humanity’s commitment towards a different model of development.
One of the key points that emerged in the event, which also saw the participation of Paula Caballero, one of key architects of the SDGs, is the fact that these goals still remain a powerful but mostly unleveraged tool for change.
While it is essential to mobilize more funding for their implementation, the Secretary General is rightly pushing with the idea of an SDG Stimulus— a missed goal to see the SDGs as a tool to radically re-think the way governance works.
The best intentions and the many, often overlapping efforts now at play in terms of localizing the SDGs, do not even aim at such scope of ambition. At the best, localizing the SDGs is about planning local actions rather than new ways of governance.
Moreover, the UN is struggling to come up with anything effective at operational level. For example, the Local 2030 Platform remains still an unfinished job despite its ambitious objectives.
A December 2021 analysis about ways to strengthen it, authored by the Stockholm Environment Institute, did indeed confirm the need to an all-encompassing platform that brings the SDGs closer to the people.
Still, there is so much to be done to ensure that Local2030 Platform can become a catalyst for change. Unfortunately, we are still far from a global mechanism capable of turning the goals in a such a way that the people can use them as a tool of participation and genuine deliberation. The scattered, fragmented and often ineffectual way the UN System works certainly does not help the cause.
A similar initiative, the SDG Acceleration Actions, is supposed to be an accelerator of SDG implementation that is “voluntarily undertaken by governments and any other non-state actors – individually or in partnership”.
As important as they are, such initiatives lack linkages and risk becoming not only overlapping but also a duplication to each other. Could local bodies do the job and truly democratize the SDGs?
Such entities, both local and regional governments (LRGs) have a huge role. For example, the United Cities and Local Governments, a powerful advocacy group based in Barcelona, is undoubtedly breaking ground in this direction.
With now a much user-friendly web site and with a new catchy messaging, UCLG is a global force pushing strong towards empowering local governments and cities so that they can truly take the lead in matter of localizing the SDGs. UCLG also runs the most updated database on local efforts to implement the SDGs, the Global Observatory on Local Democracy and Decentralization or GOLD.
For example there are the “Voluntary Subnational Reviews (VSRs), considered as “country-wide, bottom-up subnational reporting processes that provide both comprehensive and in-depth analyses of the corresponding national environments for SDG localization”.
Still there is a disconnection among all these initiatives despite the fact that UCLG has been championing the Global Task Force of Local and Regional Governments. As an attempt at bringing together a myriad of like-minded groups run by mayors and local governments around the world, it is a praiseworthy undertaking.
While it is essential to create coherence and better synergies between what the UN is trying to do and the actions taken by mayors and governors globally in the area of SDGs localization. But it is not enough. There is even one bigger and more worrying disconnection.
Even if local authorities are truly given the resources and powers to shape the conversation about the implementation of the SDGs and back it up with actions on the grounds, we are at risk of forgetting those who should be truly at the center of the debate: the people.
Localizing the SDGs should mean truly giving the people the voice and the agency to express their opinions and ideas rather than become an exclusive fiefdom of local politicians.
Finding ways to truly allowing and enabling people to take central stage in implementing the SDGs implies a rethinking of old assumptions where local officials, elected or not, have the sole prerogative of the decision making. This is fundamentally a question of reinventing local governance and make it work for and by the people.
But it is easier saying it than doing it!
It is a real conundrum because, if it is certainly possible to come up with symbolic initiatives, all tainted by forms of fake empowerment, a totally different thing is to devise new forms of genuine bottom up, inclusive governance indispensable to achieve the SDGs.
The Global Platform in its Vision 2045 refers to genuine and better democracy practices leading the planning of local governments.What are they going to do to translate these words into real deeds?
It is an important event and the regional commission has been striving to be more inclusive and each year the summit also counts with a People’s Forum and even a Youth Forum. The problem is that, while integral part of the discussions, they are officially considered just as “associated and pre- events”.
Changing the protocol and the way the UN works is not easy but why should we keep holding such important engagements as just nice “add-ons”?
Even with the release of comprehensive Call to Action by the youths of the region before the APFSD summit, what real difference are their opinions and voice making? As simplistic as it sounds, much more should be done in making these conclaves really inclusive even though the real game won’t happen in these fora but at grassroots levels.
It is there where the challenge of localizing the SDGs must be won. It is where citizens really need to be listened to and where their power should be exercised.
In imaging the future, we really want, is to put citizens at the center of it. And it is high time we truly democratized the SDGs. After all, there is no, better form of localizing them.
Simone Galimberti is the co-founder of ENGAGE and of the Good Leadership, Good for You & Good for the Society.
The opinions expressed in this article are personal.
Launched by the UN’s High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, A Breakthrough for People and Planet: Effective and Inclusive Global Governance for Today and the Future, outlines an ambitious plan to overhaul the global architecture.
Co-chaired by former President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and former Prime Minister of Sweden, Stefan Löfven, the Advisory Board was appointed by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres in 2022, tasked with advising Member States on issues of key global concern where better governance could make a difference.
Future judgement
“Future generations will judge us by the decisions we take today,” Mr. Löfven said.
“Multilateralism can work, but it must work better and faster,” he added. “Our people-centred recommendations aim to strengthen international cooperation and support an accelerated implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement [on climate change].”
Ms. Johnson Sirleaf agreed.
“I am confident that the report provides the framework that the UN, Member States, and others need to strengthen international cooperation for current and future generations,” she said, noting that the report stemmed from a year-long engagement with hundreds of networks, organizations, and civil society groups committed to addressing global challenges.
“The solutions they shared will help current and future generations to avoid the catastrophic implications of our current trajectory and secure a more sustainable, just and peaceful world for people and planet,” she said.
Stronger global architecture
The recommendations include strengthening the global architecture for peace, security, and finance, delivering just transitions for climate and digitalization, and ensuring more equity and fairness in global decision-making.
The report also argues that gender equality needs to be at the heart of a reinvigorated multilateral system along with recommendations to ensure that system becomes more networked, more inclusive, and more effective.
Delivering for all
Six transformational shifts frame the report: rebuilding trust in multilateralism through inclusion and accountability; regaining balance with nature and providing clean energy for all; ensuring abundant and sustainable finance that truly delivers; supporting a just digital transition that unlocks the value of data and protects against digital harms; empowering effective, equitable collective security arrangements; and managing current and emerging transnational risks.
“Today’s geo-political tensions must not stand in the way of addressing multiple and growing challenges to our collective security,” Mr. Löfven said.
UN Women
Women’s leadership is one of the key drivers for gender equality worldwide.
‘Prepare better’
“We need to understand and prepare better for emerging and future risks; we need to build more transparency and trust in international relations,” he added, highlighting the report’s call for a renewed effort to reform the UN Security Council, strengthening of the UN peacebuilding architecture, and broadening of relations between the UN and regional organizations.
The report will inform ongoing deliberations leading up to the 2024 Summit of the Future, where Member States will consider ways to lay the foundations for more effective global cooperation.
Advisory Board mandate
The High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism was established by the UN Secretary-General and builds on Our Common Agenda, his report released in September 2021, at the request of Member States, pointing the way toward a greener, better and safer future for the planet.
Tasked with building on these ideas, the Advisory Board generates concrete suggestions for more effective multilateral arrangements across a range of key global issues, ensuring that the interests and needs of women and girls, young people, and future generations are taken fully into account.
For the first time in the Sahel, 45,000 people are at risk of experiencing catastrophic levels of hunger, or one step away from famine, they said. The majority, 42,000, are in Burkina Faso and Mali, where violent unrest in some areas has hampered the delivery of humanitarian aid.
The combined effects of conflict, climate shocks, the COVID-19 pandemic and high food prices, continue to drive up hunger and malnutrition in the region.
The number of people who do not have regular access to safe and nutritious food is expected to reach 48 million during the lean season from June to August, according to the latest analysis from Cadre Harmonisé, an early warning tool used by humanitarians.
Heart-breaking situation
This represents a fourfold increase in the last five years, and the results further confirm a longer-term trend towards a geographic expansion of food security.
“The spiralling food security and nutrition situation in Western Africa is just heart-breaking,” said Chris Nikoi, Regional Director for the World Food Programme (WFP).
“There is a crucial need for massive investment in strengthening the capacities of communities and individuals to withstand shocks while prioritizing local and long-term solutions to food production, transformation and access for vulnerable groups,” he added.
Child malnutrition rising
WFP alongside the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, have renewed their call for greater support to Governments in the region.
The data further showed that 16.5 million children under five are set to face acute malnutrition this year, including nearly five million who are at risk of debilitating severe malnutrition.
Their numbers represent a staggering 83 percent rise in global acute malnutrition compared to the 2015 to 2022 average.
Harder to help now
Conflict and population displacement are also fuelling the crisis, leading to reduced access to essential health, nutrition and water and sanitation services, as well as social protection.
“Growing insecurity and conflict means vulnerability is increasing in the region, and it is getting harder to help communities in isolated areas,” said Marie-Pierre Poirier, Regional Director for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Access to food, as well as availability, remain a major concern despite improved rainfall last year.
Trend will worsen
West and Central Africa are dependent on imports, but currency depreciation and high inflation are causing food import bills to rise. The situation is unfolding even as Governments grapple with major fiscal constraints and macroeconomic challenges.
There are also concerns that restrictions on seasonal cattle movements, and high concentrations of livestock in some areas, could lead to further deterioration in pastoral and security conditions.
Robert Guei, FAO’s Sub-regional Coordinator for West Africa, said the continued deterioration of the food and nutrition situation is “unacceptable”.
He added that despite the increase of cereal production, access to food for most people remains challenging as markets have been disrupted because of insecurity and high food prices.
“This trend will probably continue to worsen the food and nutrition situation and therefore we must address the root causes of this crisis in a concerted manner and immediately,” he said. “It is time for action to boost agricultural production to achieve food sovereignty in our region.”
Support regional governments
The UN agencies again appealed to development and humanitarian partners, and the private sector, to step up support to central governments.
“The food and nutrition crisis has a multi-sectoral impact on the living conditions of affected populations in the region, in areas already experiencing humanitarian crises and in all West and Central African countries,” said Charles Bernimolin, Head of OCHA’s office for the region.
“This requires the collective deployment of multisectoral approaches based on the needs expressed by the population putting West and Central Africa people at the centre,” he added.
The Afghanistan Socio-Economic Outlook 2023, released by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), provides an overview of the fallout resulting from the takeover of Afghanistan by its present-day de facto rulers, the Taliban, in August 2021.
Immediately after the Taliban assumed power, the Afghan economy collapsed, accelerating Afghanistan’s decade-long slide into poverty; with a population estimated by the UN at about 40 million and GDP of $14.3 billion in 2021, Afghanistan is among the countries with the lowest per capita income in the world, with around 85 per cent of the population estimated to be living below the poverty line.
Displaced children livingi in Khoshi District in Afghanistan receive hygeine kits.
Overwhelming dependence on international aid
Whilst the report points to some encouraging signs (a rise in exports, an expected eight percent increase in domestic fiscal revenue, stabilization of the exchange rate, and a reduction in inflation), it explains that this is largely down to the large-scale international aid funding ($3.7 billion in 2022, $3.2 billion of which was provided by the UN) sent to Afghanistan in 2022.
This does not point to a lasting recovery: income per person is expected to decline this year and in 2024: UNDP modelling suggests that, if aid drops by 30 per cent, inflation could reach 10 percent in 2024, and average incomes could fall by 40 per cent.
Any reduction in international aid will worsen the economic prospects of Afghanistan, and extreme poverty will perpetuate for decades: the UN aid appeal of $4.6 billion for international assistance in 2023 is therefore the minimum required to help Afghans in need.
No escape from poverty without women in the workplace
Surayo Buzurukova, Deputy Resident Representative, UNDP Afghanistan, at the UNDP office in Kabul.
Surayo Buzurukova, the UNDP Deputy Resident Representative in Afghanistan, told UN News that the Taliban’s decision to highly restrict women’s ability to study and work is an important reason for the economic woes of the country.
“We have run simulations to see how the removal of women from the workforce will affect the economy going forward,” said Ms. Buzurukova. “We calculated that it will not be possible to achieve growth and reduce poverty without women. That’s the message we try to deliver when we speak to the de facto authorities.”
Ms. Buzurukova remains hopeful that the situation will, eventually become less oppressive for women, particularly in the provinces, where the support of women aid workers is in high demand.
“After August 2021, it was difficult to work here, and it took time to be able to engage with the Taliban and ensure that they listened to me. But now I have created a network of trust with senior members of the de facto authorities, at the provincial as well as the national level; it’s very important that they understand the importance of women to the economy.
We continue to deliver services across the country, through our NGO partners, and we have exemptions for the health and education sector, where women can continue to work but, of course the ban is a challenge and staff morale is affected.”
“Sudan has already endured so much pain and suffering. The fighting is born out of power games and personal interests that only serve to alienate the democratic aspirations of the population,” said Mr. Türk, adding, “Do those responsible not understand that the civilian population now only craves a peaceful life?”
Trapped at home
The Sudanese army and a rival paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces have been locked in intense fighting for four days. The unrest erupted as Sudan appeared to be returning to the path towards democratic transition following three decades of military rule.
International media reported that the sides have agreed to a 24-hour ceasefire, which is set to begin at 6pm, local time.
In the interim, 270 people have been killed, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), citing the authorities. Three staff members from the UN World Food Programme (WFP) working in Darfur were among the victims.
Another 2,700 people have been injured, and humanitarian operations in many states in the country have come to a halt.
“Thousands upon thousands of civilians are trapped in their homes, shielding from the fighting, with no electricity, unable to venture out and worried about running out of food, drinking water and medicine,” Mr. Türk said.
‘Common sense must prevail’
He urged the warring sides to remind their fighters of their obligation to ensure the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals, as stated under international law.
The UN rights chief also said he was appalled by reports of attempted rape. He called for prompt, thorough and independent investigations into the killings of civilians, including the WFP staff, along with other reported violations, adding that those responsible must be held to account.
“Only a few weeks ago, Sudan appeared to be on the right path towards an agreement that would restore civilian rule,” said Mr. Türk. “Common sense must prevail, and all parties must act to de-escalate tensions. The shared interests of the Sudanese people must come first.”
“There has been a new dynamic in Libya,” Abdoulaye Bathily said, urging authorities to meet the people’s expectation that they will be able to choose new leaders via the ballot box, and deliver on all their commitments. “All international partners should support the current momentum and speak with one voice on Libyan matters.”
“Intensive consultations have taken place amongst security actors; institutional and political leaders have also taken action to move the political process forward,” he said, providing a snapshot of developments since he last briefed the Council in February.
Indeed, the international community should remain mobilized and vigilant to further enable the activity of Libya’s institutions and political actors towards elections, the Special Representative said.
Tense security landscape
While the overall security situation remains tense, the ceasefire continues to hold and there were positive developments on cooperation between the Libyan Army under the control of the internationally-recognized Government and the rival Libyan National Army, and on the withdrawal of foreign fighters and mercenaries, said Mr. Bathily, who also heads the UN mission in Libya (UNSMIL).
On the issue of the return of foreign fighters and mercenaries from Libya, the Special Representative travelled to Chad, Niger, and Sudan to discuss with leaders there, how best to improve conditions to make that happen.
“The withdrawal of foreign fighters should be conducted in a coordinated, sequenced and synchronised manner to ensure that they do not become a threat to the security of their home countries,” he said, adding that the process should also contribute to combatting terrorism, illegal gold mining, human and drug trafficking and all forms of criminality affecting border areas.
Outlining progress on a number of other fronts, he said the active mobilization of all those with a vested interest in the political future, including the Presidential Council, the Government, the House of Representatives and the High State Council, is key to achieving consensus on political matters, security issues as well as questions pertaining to the participation of women and youth.
Human rights restrictions
During the reporting period, civic space was further restricted, and operations of civil society organizations deemed illegal, he said.
Pointing to recent human rights reports recommending further efforts to combat impunity, he urged Libyan authorities to rise to their obligations, ensure accountability, and provide more space for the action of civil society organizations.
‘Unique opportunity’
Turning to the electoral process, he said it offers a unique opportunity to mobilize the entire country to ensure peaceful, inclusive, free, and fair elections.
In this vein, he said he engaged key Libyan political leaders through “shuttle diplomacy” to seek common ground and encourage them to make compromises that will “clear a path to elections”.
“They all expressed their readiness to discuss the parameters of the organization of elections,” he said, welcoming their commitment and calling for the translation of their engagement into concrete steps on the ground. “This action will continue and intensify as relevant actors will need to negotiate and agree on the most contentious issues pertaining to the holding of inclusive elections this year.”
Confidence-building gains
For purposes of promoting national solidarity, furthering national reconciliation, strengthening the ceasefire, and mobilizing all armed actors for election security, the Special Representative said he has facilitated the 5+5 Joint Military Commission’s engagement with Libyan security and military actors, including other armed groups from the country’s three regions.
“These meetings were of great symbolic value on the path to reconciling and unifying the country,” he said, urge political actors to follow the example set by military and security leaders. “As a result, on 8 April, Libyan National Army authorities released six detainees from western Libya as a confidence-building measure.”
‘Peaceful competition of visions’
Several rounds of consultations in Tripoli, Benghazi, and Sebha, with Libyans representing civil society, women, youth, and political parties, had amplified their views on elections and demands for greater inclusion, he said.
“It is vital for the success of elections that all parts of Libyan society are involved and have their voices heard, and that the electoral campaign provides an opportunity for a peaceful competition of visions and programmes and not an occasion that triggers hate speech and violence,” he said.
UNSMIL provided technical expertise for preparing election laws alongside support to the “6+6 Committee” of the House of Representatives and High State Council, he said, urging leaders of both chambers to expedite efforts and publish a timebound work programme.
Intensifying mediation
For its part, he said, UNSMIL will intensify its facilitation and mediation, through the multiple, interdependent, and mutually reinforcing axes of the mission’s comprehensive approach, to support the realization of all political, legal, and security requirements so elections can go ahead, later this year.
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 18 (IPS) – The massive leak of a treasure trove of highly-classified US intelligence reports—described as “one of the most remarkable disclosures of American secrets in the last decade”-– has also revealed a more surprising angle to the story.
The US not only gathered intelligence from two of its adversaries, Russia and China, but also from close allies, including Ukraine, South Korea, Egypt, Turkey and Israel.
The United Nations, which has long been under surveillance by multiple Western intelligence agencies, was also one of the victims of last week’s espionage scandal.
According to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), one of the US intelligence reports recounts a conversation between Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and his deputy, Amina Mohammed.
Guterres expresses “dismay” at a call from the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for Europe to produce more weapons and ammunition for the war in Ukraine.
The two UN officials also discussed a recent summit meeting of African leaders, with Amina Mohammed describing Kenya’s president, William Ruto, as “ruthless” and that she “doesn’t trust him.”
Responding to questions at the daily news briefings, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters: “The Secretary-General has been at this job, and in the public eye, for a long time, and “he is not surprised by the fact that people are spying on him and listening in on his private conversations”.
What is surprising, he said, “is the malfeasance or incompetence that allows for such private conversations to be distorted and become public.”
At a more global scale, virtually all the big powers play the UN spying game, including the US, the Russians (and the Soviets during the Cold War era), the French, the Brits, and the Chinese.
During the height of the Cold War in the 1960s and 1970s, the UN was a veritable battle ground for the United States and the now-defunct Soviet Union to spy on each other.
The American and Soviet spooks were known to be crawling all over the building -– in committee rooms, in the press gallery, in the delegate’s lounge, and, most importantly, in the UN library, which was a drop-off point for sensitive political documents.
The extent of Cold War espionage in the United Nations was laid bare by a 1975 US Congressional Committee, named after Senator Frank Church (Democrat-Idaho) who chaired it while investigating abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The evidence given before the Church Committee in 1975 included a revelation that the CIA had planted one of its Russian lip-reading experts in a press booth overlooking the Security Council chamber so that he could monitor the lip movements of Russian delegates, as they consulted each other in low whispers.
Dr Thomas G. Weiss. Distinguished Fellow, Global Governance, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, who has written extensively on the politics of the UN, told IPS: “As you say, it is hardly surprising that US intelligence services spy on the 38th floor. This is an ancient practice”.
He pointed out there is almost nothing that they don’t monitor. Indeed, it should come as a source of relief to UN fans that Turtle Bay is still taken seriously enough to spy on.
“The justification for the monitoring would be more intriguing”, he said.
“Is the SG pro-West (he has criticized the Russian War), or pro-Russia (according to rumors)?,” said Dr Weiss, Presidential Professor of Political Science and Director Emeritus, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center.
In his 1978 book, “A Dangerous Place,” Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a former US envoy to the United Nations, described the cat-and-mouse espionage game that went on inside the bowels of the world body, and particularly the UN library.
Back in October 2013, When Clare Short, Britain’s former minister for international development, revealed that British intelligence agents had spied on former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan by bugging his office just before the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the UN chief was furious that his discussions with world leaders had been compromised.
And as she talked to Annan on the 38th floor of the UN Secretariat building, Short told the BBC, she was thinking, “Oh dear, there will be a transcript of this, and people will see what he and I are saying.”
The United Nations, along with the 193 diplomatic missions located in New York, has long been a veritable battleground for spying, wire-tapping and electronic surveillance.
Back in September 2013, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, throwing diplomatic protocol to the winds, launched a blistering attack on the United States for illegally infiltrating its communications network, surreptitiously intercepting phone calls, and breaking into the Brazilian Mission to the United Nations.
Justifying her public criticism, she told delegates that the problem of electronic surveillance goes beyond a bilateral relationship. “It affects the international community itself and demands a response from it.”
Rousseff unleashed her attack even as US President Barack Obama was awaiting his turn to address the General Assembly on the opening day of the annual high-level debate. By longstanding tradition, Brazil is the first speaker, followed by the United States.
“We have let the US government know our disapproval, and demanded explanations, apologies and guarantees that such procedures will never be repeated,” she said.
According to documents released by US whistleblower Edward Snowden, the illegal electronic surveillance of Brazil was conducted by the US National Security Agency (NSA).
The Germany Der Spiegel magazine reported that NSA technicians had managed to decrypt the UN’s internal video teleconferencing (VTC) system, as part of its surveillance of the world body.
The combination of this new access to the UN and the cracked encryption code led to “a dramatic improvement in VTC data quality and (the) ability to decrypt the VTC traffic,” the NSA agents reportedly said.
In the article, titled “How America Spies on Europe and the UN”, Spiegel said that in just under three weeks, the number of decrypted communications increased from 12 to 458.
Subsequently, there were new charges of spying—but this time around the Americans were accused of using the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) in Baghdad to intercept Iraqi security intelligence in an attempt to undermine, and perhaps overthrow, the government of President Saddam Hussein.
The charges, spread across the front pages of the Washington Post and the Boston Globe, only confirmed the longstanding Iraqi accusation that UNSCOM was “a den of spies,” mostly American and British.
Established by the Security Council immediately after the 1991 Gulf War, UNSCOM was mandated to eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and destroy that country’s capabilities to produce nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
The head of UNSCOM, Richard Butler of Australia, however, vehemently denied charges that his inspection team in Iraq had spied for the United States. “We have never conducted spying for anyone,” Butler told reporters.
Asked to respond to news reports that UNSCOM may have helped Washington collect sensitive Iraqi information to destabilize the Saddam Hussein regime, Butler retorted: “Don’t believe everything you read in print.”
Around the same time, the New York Times weighed in with a front-page story
quoting US officials as saying that “American spies had worked undercover on teams of UN arms inspectors ferreting out secret Iraqi weapons programmes.”
In an editorial, the Times said that “using UN activities in Iraq as a cover for American spy operations would be a sure way to undermine the international organization, embarrass the United States and strengthen Mr. Hussein.”
“Washington did cross a line it should not have if it placed American agents on the UN team with the intention of gathering information that could be used for military strikes against targets in Baghdad,” the editorial said.
Samir Sanbar, a former UN Assistant Secretary-Genera, who headed the Department of Public Information (DPI), told IPS monitoring international officials evolved with enhanced digital capacity.
What was mainly done by security agents widened into a public exercise, he added.
Initially, he said, certain U.N. locations of interest like the Delegates Lounge were targeted by several countries, including with devices across the East River in Queens or across the lounge adjacent to the UN Lawn –and within shouting distance of permanent missions and residences of UN diplomats.
One senior UN official once said the closer he drove towards the S-G’s residence at Sutton place the more obvious was the radio monitoring.
“I recall a meeting with Kofi Annan the day U.S, President Bush announced the invasion of Iraq. He had suggested a “tete a tete”–the two of us alone.
While expressing his concern, and seated outside on lounge chairs, “we noted helicopters circling around The Secretariat building.”
“When I mentioned “Black Hawk Down” – relating to Somalia’s experience– he nodded and smiled casually. Kofi was a dignified colleague and an outstanding Secretary General who rose from the ranks, and inspired the whole Secretariat staff.”.
“May his soul rest in peace”, said Sanbar, who served under five different Secretaries-General during his long tenure at the UN.
Meanwhile, when the U.N. Correspondents Association (UNCA) held its annual award ceremony in December 2013, one of the video highlights was a hilarious skit on the clumsy attempts at spying going on inside the highest levels of the Secretariat—and right up to the 38th floor offices of then Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
When I took the floor, as one of the UNCA award winners, I gave the Secretary-General, standing next to me, an unsolicited piece of light-hearted advice: if you want to find out whether your phone line is being tapped, I said jokingly, you only have to sneeze loudly.
A voice at the other end would instinctively– and courteously– respond: “Bless you”.
And you know your phone is being tapped, I said, amid laughter.
This article contains excerpts from a 2021 book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That,” available on Amazon. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/
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