Convened by the Government of the United Kingdom, the day-long conference brought together representatives from more than 20 countries to shore up efforts to achieve zero hunger and end malnutrition, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Far off track
Speaking during a session on creating new approaches to ending preventable child deaths, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that the world is far from reaching these objectives.
“By the time we have finished our meeting today, about 900 children will have died because they don’t have enough food or care – children whose lives have only just begun,” he said.
Of the 45 million under-fives who are wasted, more than a third have the most severe form of the condition, with the greatest risk of dying.
Weak and wasting
Tedros explained that a child who is moderately or severely wasted is 11 times more likely to die than a child who is not malnourished, often because their body is too weak to fight back against diarrhoea and pneumonia.
Although the factors that drive wasting vary, they are largely a result of poverty and rising food prices, preventable diseases, inadequate access to healthcare, and a lack of clean water, sanitation and hygiene.
“Conflict, the climate crisis, natural disasters and resource depletion all dramatically increase the risk of hunger and famine,” he said.
Maternal nutrition important
Tedros added that “malnutrition is also generational” as an infant’s nutritional status is closely linked to their mother’s before, during and after pregnancy.
Poor maternal nutrition impairs foetal development, contributing to low birthweight, wasting and poor growth.
Children who survive will suffer from malnutrition and ill health for most of their lives, and be stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty, debt, and ill-health.
Therapeutic food essential
He said severe acute malnutrition can be treated with therapeutic milks, foods and fluid support, according to the needs of the child.
However, although treatment coverage has increased, many children who need it cannot access sufficient care. WHO this year added ready-to-use therapeutic foods to its Essential Medicines List which he hopes will increase their production and availability while also reducing costs.
Tedros previewed some of the information in the guidance, which stresses the importance of adequate diet at home, access to quality health services, and early identification of both mothers in need and infants at risk of poor growth and development.
WHO is working with the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, and other UN agencies to support governments and health workers to implement the recommendations and adapt them to country needs.
“We are seeing some encouraging signs of progress. Twenty-three countries have now completed country roadmaps to tackle wasting in children,” he reported.
“Now we must support these countries to turn their roadmaps into action and lives saved.”
In concluding, Tedros thanked the UK for convening the Summit and underlined that child deaths from wasting are predictable and preventable.
“WHO looks forward to working with all of you to make food a source of life and hope for all the children of our world,” he said.
Addressing an open debate of the Security Council on the link, António Guterres said that while development alone cannot guarantee peace, it is an essential component.
“No peace is secure without inclusive and sustainable development that leaves no one behind,” he said, drawing parallels to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“Just as progress towards one goal lifts all others, failure in one area risks reversing gains across the board. And no failure is more calamitous than the failure to prevent conflict,” he stressed.
Worrying pattern
Mr. Guterres observed a global pattern where countries closer to conflict tend to be further from achieving any measure of sustainable and inclusive development.
Nine out of the ten nations with the lowest Human Development Indicators have experienced conflicts or violence in the past decade, he said, identifying inequalities, lack of opportunities, corruption, climate chaos, and environmental degradation.
“Organized crime, violent extremist and terrorist groups find fertile ground in such environments – fraying the social fabric and further aggravating insecurities and corroding effective governance,” he said.
Mutually reinforcing
The UN chief stressed the mutually reinforcing relationship between development and conflict prevention, emphasizing that human development promotes hope, prevention, security, and peace.
He called for simultaneous efforts to advance peace and sustainable, inclusive development.
To achieve this, Mr. Guterres outlined key steps, including ensuring food security, education, skill development, healthcare, social protection, and dignity for all.
SDGs off track
As 85 per cent of SDGs targets are off track, Mr. Guterres called for urgency and ambition.
Developing countries, especially the Least Developed Countries, face multiple crises, including crushing debt, climate catastrophes, widening inequalities, and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I have been advocating for bold steps to make our global institutions – including the international financial architecture – more representative of today’s realities, and more responsive to the needs of developing economies,” he said, adding:
“I have also proposed a set of concrete actions we can take now – including an SDG Stimulus of $500 billion a year to reduce debt burdens and release resources for long-term, affordable financing from multilateral and private sources.”
Collective action
He emphasized the need for collective action, recalling the New Agenda for Peace, which he proposed in July.
“We must recognize that – as an international community – we are only as strong as our weakest link,” he said.
Looking ahead, he urged Member States to approach the Summit of the Future in a spirit of solidarity and ambition.
“To secure peace and advance development, we must jettison the self-defeating logic of zero-sum competition, recommit to cooperation, and nurture the courage to compromise.”
The open debate
The open debate was organized by China, which holds the Council presidency for November.
An open debate is a meeting that allows for the participation of non-Council Member States, regional organizations and others as appropriate, providing a platform for a broader range of voices to address specific issues on the agenda.
Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) was speaking as Israeli forces continue to attack Gaza, whilst preventing most Palestinians from leaving.
“I witnessed many wars before in Gaza, but I did not see the magnitude of this tragedy before. It is a new Nakba (catastrophe) for the Palestinians. I did not expect or imagine seeing hundreds of thousands of people displaced to the south; they have left everything behind.
I have never seen, in my life, entire neighborhoods wiped off from existence in Gaza City. I saw people, the original residents of Gaza City, who had not left Gaza for thousands of years but today they have become refugees and displaced to a new location.
Everyone is in severe shock. You feel like it’s a nightmare. Some people don’t believe what actually happened. Today I met a person who came to our headquarters to ask to be registered at a shelter center in an UNRWA school.
He started talking and saying that he lost five of his children, his wife and his sister. He was speaking in a normal way, he was still unaware of the magnitude of the loss, he was still in a state of shock. He said he wanted to look for a place to stay because he had no money or anything. He told me he only came with his clothes on.
Palestinians continue to flee from the most dangerous parts of the Gaza Strip.
When he introduced himself, I knew that he was from one of the well-off families in Gaza that owned businesses, and now he suddenly had nothing.
He has lost his family, lost his job, lost everything, and now he is looking for a place to go where he feels safe, so we can provide him with some water and food that he can’t get himself.
This is the major dilemma that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are experiencing, in addition to the lack of feeling of security. If you are in UNRWA schools, and you are raising the blue flag, you do not feel safe, in the street you do not feel safe, in cars you do not feel safe. There is no safe place and there is little food and water.
I’m seeing hundreds of kids asking for water or food; people are hungry and thirsty. I’ve never witnessed this situation in Gaza. It is so crowded, people are quarreling, shouting, screaming.
In front of desalination plants, the ones that are still functioning, you can see thousands of people waiting for drinkable water. Actually, people lost everything they don’t have cash, they just came with their clothes. They don’t have anything. They even didn’t prepare themselves for winter. It’s a big dilemma.
It is the same situation if you are a member of the public or if you work for UNRWA. We are displaced and living in shelters. This is a feeling I and other colleagues have never felt before in Gaza.
Sometimes I stop and think, what am I talking about? Am I talking about collective suffering? Or the suffering of individuals? Every human being has a story, the story of losing family, money, property, land, and everything.
Once again, the Palestinians are back to zero. The central question they always ask is: How do you see things, what could happen? No one can answer honestly.”
In reply to a question at a press conference dealing with the latest emissions report, Secretary-General António Guterres said that in all the reports issued during his tenure, on children in conflict, it was clear that the current war in Gaza has seen thousands of child deaths – compared with hundreds, in conflicts in Yemen and Syria.
Without entering into discussing the accuracy of the figures released by the health ministry in Gaza, which are regarded by UN agencies as reliable, he said that “what is clear is that we have had in a few weeks thousands of children killed.”
Latest reports from health authorities indicate that more than 13,000 civilians in total have died in the enclave since the 7 October terror attacks by Hamas, and subsequent Israeli offensive.
“This is what matters. We are witnessing a killing of civilians that is unparalleled and unprecedented in any conflict since I have been Secretary-General.”
Opportunity out of tragedy
Also addressing how the region can move forward once the fighting stops, the UN chief said that it was “important to be able to transform this tragedy into an opportunity.”
“For that to be possible, it is essential that after the war we move in a determined, irreversible way to a two-State solution“, he told correspondents.
“It means also that after the war – and this is my opinion – I believe it to be important after the war to have a strengthened Palestinian authority to assume responsibilities in Gaza.”
‘Unliveable’
Meanwhile, in Gaza a tweet by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNWRA on Monday, described the situation in shelters as “unliveable”. It said that Gazans had “no options”, echoing repeated warnings from UN humanitarians nowhere is safe for civilians in Gaza.
Since Hamas’s terror attacks on Israel on 7 October that claimed around 1,200 lives with nearly 240 hostages captured, hundreds of thousands of Gazans have fled south, following an evacuation directive from the Israeli military.
Astonishing exodus
Satellite images of the exodus showed a mass of people moving across a landscape of shattered buildings, while photographs taken at ground level showed families carrying their belonging on foot and a woman dragging two babies in car seats behind her.
In an update on Sunday, Tom White, Director of UNRWA Affairs, told US network ABC that 13 UNRWA sites where people had been “sheltering under the UN flag” had been “directly hit” since 7 October, while “countless other shelters” had suffered “collateral damage” – many of them in the south of Gaza, where civilians had been told to flee.
Dozens killed in shelters
Mr. White said that 73 people had been killed in UNRWA shelters to date, “a large proportion of them in the south”.
“The reality is the Gazans have got nowhere to go for safety and they are all exposed to the threat of fighting and particularly airstrikes,” the UNRWA official said.
According to the UN agency, more than 880,000 internally displaced have sought shelter in 154 UNRWA installations across all five of Gaza’s governorates. Out of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, 1.7 million are now displaced.
To date, 104 UNRWA staff have been killed along with at least 11,000 people in Gaza according to health authorities.
“Houses have been hit all across the Gaza Strip,” said UNWRA’s Mr. White, who said that people’s main concern was, “If they’re in the north or in the south, are they safe?”
The 2023 Emissions Gap Report, released on Monday by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), carried a clear message – unless countries step up climate action and deliver more than promised in their 2030 pledges, the world is heading for a 2.5-2.9°C temperature rise above pre-industrial levels.
A broken record
Presenting the report from Nairobi, UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said that no person or economy is being left untouched by climate change, underscoring the urgent need to “stop setting unwanted records on greenhouse gas emissions, global temperature highs and extreme weather.”
“We must instead lift the needle out of the same old groove of insufficient ambition and not enough action, and start setting other records: on cutting emissions, on green and just transitions and on climate finance,” she emphasized.
To get back on track for the 2°C temperature rise above pre-industrial levels, emissions must be cut by at least 28 per cent compared to current scenarios. Bringing it to within the 1.5°C limit will require a 42 per cent cut.
If nothing changes, in 2030, emissions will be 22 Gigatonnes higher than the 1.5°C limit will allow – approximately the total current annual emissions of the United States, China and the European Union (EU) combined.
Bridging continents
Ms. Andersen’s message, from Africa, received unequivocal support on the other side of the world, in New York, where Secretary-General António Guterres issued a powerful appeal to world leaders.
“The emissions gap is more like an emissions canyon – a canyon littered with broken promises, broken lives, and broken records,” he said, stressing that change must begin at the top.
“All of this is a failure of leadership, a betrayal of the vulnerable, and a massive missed opportunity.”
Reiterating that renewables have never been cheaper or more accessible, he urged leaders “to tear out the poisoned root of the climate crisis: fossil fuels.”
He called on countries to commit to phasing out fossil fuels with a clear time frame aligned to the 1.5°C limit, as well as for those that gave yet to do so, to announce their contributions to the Green Climate Fund and the new Loss and Damage fund to “get it off to a roaring start.”
Sand flows from a child’s hand like through an hourglass. In southwestern Ethiopia, drought worsened by climate change is threatening crops and livestock, pushing the population to the brink.
Stocktake at COP28
The appeal comes with just ten days to go before the COP28 climate change conference in Dubai gets underway, where the first Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement implementation is to conclude and inform the next round of National Determined Contributions (NDCs) that countries should submit in 2025, with targets for 2035.
Global ambition in the next round of NDCs must bring greenhouse gas emissions in 2035 to levels consistent with 2°C and 1.5°C pathways.
In the most optimistic scenario, where all conditional NDCs and net-zero pledges are met, limiting temperature rise to 2.0°C could be achieved.
However, net-zero pledges are not currently considered credible: none of the G20 countries are reducing emissions at a pace consistent with their net-zero targets. Even in the most optimistic scenario, the likelihood of limiting warming to 1.5°C is only 14 per cent.
“At no time since the CRC was adopted 34 years ago have children’s rights been in greater jeopardy,” she said.
Children in the crosshairs
Although the 1989 treaty acknowledges that all boys and girls have inalienable rights which governments promised would be protected and upheld, “unfortunately, children today are living in a world that is increasingly hostile to their rights,” she said.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in the experience of children impacted by conflicts. UNICEF estimates that some 400 million – roughly one in five – are living in or fleeing conflict zones.
“Many are being injured, killed, or sexually violated. They are losing family members and friends. And some are being recruited and used by armed forces or groups,” said Ms. Russell.
She added that many have been displaced multiple times, risking separation from their families, losing critical years of education, and fraying ties to their communities.
One billion face climate risk
Furthermore, it was “deeply troubling” that this coincides with other threats to children’s rights including rising poverty and inequality, public health emergencies, and the climate crisis.
Globally, more than one billion children currently live in countries that are at ‘extremely high-risk’ from the impacts of climate change, according to UNICEF.
“This means half the world’s children could suffer irreparable harm as our planet continues to warm,” said Ms. Russell.
“They could lose their homes or schools to increasingly violent storms … they could suffer from severe wasting because local crops have dried up from drought … or they could lose their lives to heat waves or pneumonia brought on by air pollution.”
UNOCHA
Children in Maroua, Domayo, in the Far North of Cameroon, a region impacted by the conflict in the Lake Chad region coupled with climate change.
‘Children need peace, now’
Ms. Russell called for stronger advocacy towards the fulfillment and protection of children’s rights, including through supporting the alignment of national legal frameworks with the CRC and ensuring accountability for violations wherever they occur.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres put it plainly in a post on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter. “Children need peace, now,” he wrote.
‘A day for mourning’
Also sounding the alarm is the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which “calls for ceasefires and a return to basics of humanitarian law to safeguard all children.”
World Children’s Day has become “a day for mourning for the many boys and girls who have recently died in armed conflict,” members said in a statement.
“More than 4,600 children have been killed in Gaza in only five weeks. This war has claimed the lives of more children in a shorter time and with a level of brutality that we have not witnessed in recent decades,” they said.
War on children
Although a UN Security Council resolution adopted last week, which calls for humanitarian pauses and corridors, is a positive step, they said “it does not end the war that is waging on children – it simply makes it possible for children to be saved from being killed on some days, but not on other days.”
The Committee also voiced concern over the thousands of children dying in armed conflicts in many other countries, including Ukraine, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Myanmar, Haiti, Sudan, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia.
“Verified figures show that in 2022, the global figure of children killed or maimed was 8,630,” they said. “Of deep concern is the fact that up to 4,000 children were denied humanitarian access last year. Given the current situation in Gaza, the number of child victims of these grave human rights violations is rising exponentially.”
‘Crisis point’ for girls
The rights experts also highlighted the situation of girls affected by armed conflict which “is also at a crisis point”, with verified reports of the abduction and rape of girls in Sudan and Haiti.
Additionally, they expressed concern over children of “so-called ‘foreign fighters’”, such as those currently in camps in northeast Syria who should be repatriated.
While some States have acted to return children and their mothers, they said an estimated 31,000 children are still living in abysmal conditions in the camps.
They also drew attention to the plight of boys who are being separated from their mothers when they reach early adolescence, as well as several hundred boys who are in prison.
Aya, a 5-year-old girl clutching her doll to ease her fear, gazes at Gaza’s sky filled with warplanes from inside an UNRWA school in the Gaza Strip. Credit: UNRWA
by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Nov 20 (IPS) – As the global community marks World Children’s Day, every child should be guaranteed their rights, including those in the Gaza Strip, where heavy bombardment and military operations by Israel have killed more than 11,000 people, 40 percent of them children.
“Under international humanitarian laws and the Safe Schools Declaration, civilians—in particular children, schools, and school personnel—must be protected. What we are seeing in this conflict are bombs pounding the most densely populated area on earth, schools and other civilian infrastructures being attacked, and an entire population being trapped in the most dire conditions, with no safe place to flee to. Surviving children are maimed, orphaned, or have lost close and extended family. Horrors of unimaginable proportion are unfolding before our eyes,” Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait, the UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, tells IPS.
“No child can or should have to be prepared for what is happening in Gaza. Children and adolescents are hurting and traumatized. According to UNRWA, initial assessments in October showed that at least 91 percent of children are demonstrating signs of acute stress and trauma and are in need of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS).”
According to the UN, children account for nearly half of the population in Gaza. More than 625,000 students and 22,564 teachers have been affected as attacks continue. At least 86 percent of school buildings are either being used as shelters for the displaced population, catering for up to four times their capacity, or have been destroyed.
Camilla Lodi, Norwegian Refugee Council’s (NRC) Global Psychosocial Support Head of the Better Learning Programme, told IPS the impact of war on children was devastating.
“When children experience conflict, war, and displacement, they go through personal, ongoing life threats—constantly witnessing violence and its effects. Prolonged exposure to such traumatic events increases the risk of complications in processing trauma. When the fighting stops, the journey to recovery starts for children and adults who have gone through high levels of stress and trauma. Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) is not a luxury but a necessity. It helps regain a sense of normalcy,” she said.
“NRC works specifically on a psychosocial support program within broader education in emergency interventions. Simply, children cannot learn unless they feel well and safe. MHPSS is an essential, necessary, and mandatory intervention that should be embedded in every education in emergency programs. The Better Learning Programme (BLP) is NRC’s signature non-specialized classroom-based psychosocial support intervention that helps restore learning capacities for children that have gone through trauma and high levels of stress.”
The program has been at the forefront of providing immediate and long-term critical care and psychosocial support for more than a decade, investing in children’s futures in 33 countries, such as Ukraine, Sudan, and Palestine. Lodi stresses that MHPSS is critical in crises and emergencies.
Sherif stresses that as homes and schools lie in ruin in this high-level stress cycle, surviving children are at risk of severe lifelong mental health problems. A life of debilitating chronic anxiety, depression, and various degrees of trauma now beckons for more than 224 million children and adolescents in conflict and crises globally. She adds that Education Cannot Wait, which supports education programs for children in over 40 countries affected by emergencies and protracted crises, has included MHPSS as a core component of all its country-level investments since 2020. This includes support for the NRC’s Better Learning Programme.
“ECW has prioritized MHPSS to protect and promote students’ and teachers’ well-being, as mental health is the foundation of learning. We have a target to invest at least 10 percent of our resources for mental health and psychosocial support services,” says Sherif.
ECW recently announced a $10 million 12-month grant in support of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and UNICEF to provide children in Gaza with life-saving mental health and psychosocial support.
“For Gaza specifically, it is a humanitarian catastrophe defined by a relentless cycle of violence. Past research within the Better Learning Programme found that 1093 students (6–17 years of age) who sought help for nightmares and sleep disturbances reported recurrent traumatic nightmares on average 4.57 nights per week, with an average duration of 2.82 years,” Lodi says.
“We always talk about the cost of inaction. Neglecting MHPSS can result in five significant risks, notably the perpetuation of cycles of violence and trauma. As a conflict concludes, the suffering and psychological impact on children commence and, if left unaddressed, can endure throughout their lives. This neglect also results in the loss of educational and developmental milestones, increasing susceptibility to mental health disorders. Additionally, the diminishing sense of community connectedness, a stabilizer for peace, is compromised. There is also an economic fallout, as increased healthcare costs and long-term productivity losses contribute to a substantial financial and economic impact.”
Lodi stresses that no child should pay the price of adults’ conflict and that a ceasefire is urgent to help re-establish a sense of safety and predictability and for children to resume recreational play and education activities in a safe environment, which will allow a safe break for their body in “emergency, flight mode.”
“The catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza cannot continue. All parties must respect the UN Charter, international humanitarian law, and universal human rights. I join my colleagues in the United Nations’ call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire now,” says Sherif.
If soul-shattering human suffering is not halted and safety restored, Sherif says our moral standing as an international community will be questioned by the young generation today and for generations to come. How can we make promises to children in crisis during this World Children’s Day, whose theme is For Every Child, Every Right? Children everywhere in the world, including more than 224 million crisis-affected children, deserve every right and promise delivered despite, and especially because, of their hardships.
Marking World Toilet Day on November 19th, the global community faces a pressing sanitation crisis affecting 3.5 billion people. Credit: Lova Rabary-Rakontondravony/IPS
Opinion by Thokozani Dlamini (pretoria, south africa)
Inter Press Service
PRETORIA, South Africa, Nov 19 (IPS) – World Toilet Day 2023, on 19 November, focusing on ‘Accelerating Change’ – Toilets are a foundation stone of public health and play a critical role in protecting the environment”Celebrated annually on the 19th of November, World Toilet Day aims to inspire concerted efforts in addressing the pressing global sanitation crisis, which currently leaves approximately 3.5 billion people without access to safely managed sanitation.
Even today, a staggering 3.5 billion individuals lack safely managed sanitation, and an appalling 419 million people continue to use ‘open defecation’, a condition that encourages the spread of diseases and claims the lives of 1,000 children under the age of five daily. This sanitation crisis, a hazard to human health and the environment, disproportionately affects women, girls, and other vulnerable groups.
Given the fact that only seven years remain to attain the 2030 target for Sustainable Development Goal 6 – ensuring safe water for all – the global community needs to accelerate its efforts to ensure that the 2030 agenda is realized.
Our current pace, coupled with insufficient funds, escalating demand, deteriorating water quality, and the inadequacies of existing governance frameworks, gravely threatens the realization of this goal.
In alignment with this year’s theme – ‘Accelerating Change’ – it’s imperative that we expedite our global efforts to achieve the UN’s 2030 target. Governments and major institutions must synergistically operate, take accountability for their promises, and timely deliver on them. Actually, every individual, regardless of their contributions’ scale, has a role in accelerating this progress.
Implications of poor sanitation
The implications of poor water and sanitation are widespread and deleterious, gravely affecting individuals who are forced to use unsanitary toilet facilities or consume and utilize contaminated water. Diseases linked to sanitation, like diarrheal diseases, cholera, typhoid fever, hepatitis A, and various parasitic infections, pose significant public health risks.
These illnesses can result in extensive sickness, hospitalizations, and even fatalities, particularly in areas with sparse access to clean water and adequate sanitation facilities. Enhancements of sanitation infrastructure can decrease these disease burdens and elevate public health globally.
Benefits of good sanitation
Absolutely, having good sanitation facilities indeed has numerous benefits. They go beyond the improvement of public health. Proper sanitation infrastructure can reduce healthcare costs as there are fewer cases of sanitation-related diseases. It can also increase productivity as individuals are healthier and can devote more time to work. studies, or other activities.
This results in a better quality of life for individuals and their communities. Furthermore, good sanitation infrastructure contributes to environmental sustainability. It aids in reducing pollution since waste is properly managed and does not end up contaminating water bodies and other natural environments. A safe and clean environment, in turn, helps protect vital natural resources, including clean water sources.
Collaborative efforts
Governments, donors, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations all play significant roles in advancing sanitation infrastructure. They need to cooperate and work cohesively towards delivering water and sanitation services effectively. Furthermore, research institutions can contribute by providing the necessary scientific understanding and technological innovations. This joint endeavour will not just help in achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, specifically Goal 6, but also improve public health and well-being on a global scale.
SADC-GMI’s efforts
SADC-GMI has made commendable efforts by implementing various projects in SADC Member States to ensure everyone has access to water and sanitation as per the United Nations Agenda 2030. These initiatives have positively impacted local communities by ensuring a continuous water supply which ultimately leads to better hygiene. Beyond hygiene, these water supply projects have also brought about improved economic benefits for the communities. Indeed, the projects are transformative, aiding communities in gaining access to dependable water supply for both domestic and economic uses.
These projects, despite the complications posed by climate change, continue to thrive and be sustainable. This resilience greatly benefits communities, offering steady water for various needs. This ties into reaching the sanitation goals defined by the United Nations Agenda 2030.
Yes, with the 2030 deadline of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals approaching, fast progress is needed to ensure everyone has access to basic sanitation facilities and clean water. Sanitation and drinking water are human rights, and access to these services is crucial for people’s health and the integrity of the environment. To this end, cooperation between different sectors – governments, donors, the private sector, research institutions, and civil society will be critical in facilitating this progression.
Thokozani Dlamini is SADC-GMI Communication and Knowledge Management Specialist
Migrants come ashore from the Chucunaque River after crossing the Darién jungle.
A rising number of migrants are attempting the dangerous journey across the Darién jungle spanning the Colombia-Panama border. For Etzaida Rios, 35, the impact of providing hope and help runs deep.
She works as a Community Officer with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in a temporary migrant reception centre in San Vicente, one of the first points of arrival for migrants, who are often exhausted, malnourished, dehydrated, or injured.
“People arrive with pressing needs and many questions,” she said, after attending to Zuleybis, who fractured her leg while crossing the Darién with her husband José and four children. The Venezuelan family received treatment at the centre before continuing their path north.
“The biggest challenge is witnessing suffering and hearing heartbreaking stories,” she said. “While we see terrible things on television or read about them, it is even harder and more frustrating to see it with your eyes as it unfolds before you.”
Top UN officials echoed that call to improve conditions for Gaza’s 2.3 million people, 1.7 million of which have been displaced since the 7 October Hamas attack in Israel resulted in the killing of 1,200 Israelis and capture of 240 hostages. Since then, more than 11,000 people have been killed in besieged Gaza.
“This war is having a staggering and unacceptable number of civilian casualties, including women and children, every day,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement on Sunday. “This must stop. I reiterate my call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.”
Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said in a statement on Sunday that: “The horrendous events of the past 48 hours in Gaza beggar belief.”
Growing despair
“The killing of so many people at schools turned shelters, hundreds fleeing for their lives from Al-Shifa Hospital amid continuing displacement of hundreds of thousands in southern Gaza are actions which fly in the face of the basic protections civilians must be afforded under international law,” Mr. Türk said, stressing that failing to adhere to these rules may constitute war crimes.
According to the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), which issued its latest situation report on Sunday, nearly 884,000 internally displaced persons are sheltering in 154 UNRWA installations across all five governorates of the Gaza Strip.
“Just getting into one of the shelters makes you burst into tears,” an UNRWA employee said. “Children looking for food and water and standing in queues for over six hours just to get a piece of bread or a bottle of water. People are literally sleeping on streets here in Khan Younis as thousands keep escaping from the north.”
Attacks on schools, shelters
In less than 24 hours, two UNRWA schools sheltering displaced families were hit, causing “many deaths” and injuries, mostly of women and children, in addition to other deadly incidents across Gaza and the West Bank against the backdrop of soaring humanitarian needs, UNRWA said.
Mr. Türk said at least three other schools hosting displaced Palestinians have also been attacked.
“This must stop,” he said. “Humanity must come first. A ceasefire – on humanitarian and human rights grounds – is desperately needed. Now.”
Philippe Lazzarini, who heads UNRWA, said in a statement on Sunday that the attacks are “just cruel”.
“I watched with sheer horror reports from an attack on the Al-Fakhoura UNRWA school-turned-shelter in northern Gaza,” he said.
Classrooms sheltering displaced families were hit and at least 24 people were reported killed in the strike. Up to 7,000 people were in the school at the time, the UNRWA chief said. On Friday, following strikes on the UNRWA Al-Falah/Zeitoun school in Gaza City, ambulances could not reach the school, where 4,000 people were sheltering.
Beyond ‘collateral damage’
Since 7 October, at least 176 people sheltering in the agency’s schools were reported killed and 800 wounded during Israeli bombardments, Mr. Lazzarini said.
“The large number of UNRWA facilities hit and the number of civilians killed cannot just be ‘collateral damage’,” he said, adding that the UN agency routinely shares the buildings’ coordinates with parties to the conflict.
“This vicious war is reaching a point of no return when all rules are disrespected, in overt disregard for civilian lives,” he said, calling and appealing “once again for humanity to prevail and for a humanitarian ceasefire right now.”
WHO
Palestinian civil defence responders search the rubble of a building in the aftermath of an air strike in the Gaza Strip. (file)
Al-Shifa Hospital
Israeli military operations have been continuing inside and around Al-Shifa Hospital, with UN colleagues that visited the site on Saturday describing it as a “death zone”.
On Sunday, WHO and humanitarian partners helped to evacuate infants in critical condition.
Medical personnel, patients and civilians had fled the hospital over the weekend, ordered to do so by the Israeli military, UNRWA’s chief said, adding that hundreds were seen making their way south on foot, at great risk to their lives, health and safety.
WHO reported on Sunday that six Palestine Red Crescent ambulances transported the babies to Al-Helal Al-Emirati Maternity Hospital, where there are receiving urgent care.
“Further missions are being planned to urgently transport remaining patients and health staff out of Al-Shifa Hospital,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a social media post on Sunday.
WHO
A joint humanitarian team, led by WHO, accessed Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza to assess the situation on the ground.
Southern Gaza
In the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the Israeli Defense Forces are dropping leaflets demanding residents go to unspecified “recognized shelters”, even as strikes take place across Gaza, according to OHCHR.
“Already displaced Palestinians, deprived by extreme restrictions on lifesaving assistance, are struggling to meet their basic needs, forced into ever-diminishing, overcrowded, unsanitary unsafe spaces,” Mr. Türk said.
“Irrespective of warnings, Israel is obliged to protect civilians wherever they are,” the UN human rights chief said. “The pain, dread and fear etched on the faces of children, women and men is too much to bear. How much more violence, bloodshed and misery will it take before people come to their senses? How many more civilians will be killed?”
UNRWA schools are sheltering more than 800,000 displaced people in Gaza during the Israel-Palestine crisis.
Critical needs
Meanwhile, needs are rising, UN agencies said.
The entry of fuel critical for the overall humanitarian operations across the enclave has been largely banned since 7 October when the war began. Limited fuel deliveries began on Wednesday, and UNRWA has been informed that, as of Saturday, 120,000 litres of fuel will be delivered every two days going forward.
UN agencies have said this is not enough for all humanitarian activities, and that at least 200,000 litres per day are required to, among other things, power generators to provide electricity to hospitals and to operate water facilities. Both services have been cut since the start of the conflict.
Fuel is also critical for telecommunications networks, UNRWA said, noting that Gaza’s fourth communications blackout on Friday meant the agency was unable to transport trucks of humanitarian assistance arriving via Egypt.
Rising death toll
As of 10 November, over 11,078 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since 7 October; two thirds of them are reportedly children and women, the UNRWA report said. Due to the collapse in the Gaza’s Ministry of Health services and communications in the north, casualty data has not been updated for the last five days.
Media reports indicate the number of Palestinian deaths is nearly 12,000.
Israel reported that around 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed in Israel, the vast majority on 7 October, according to the UN humanitarian agency (OCHA).
On Saturday, one UNRWA colleague was killed in the northern area due to strikes. In total, 104 colleagues have been killed since the beginning of the war, the highest number of UN aid workers killed in a conflict in the Organization’s history, according to UN Palestine refugee agency.
West Bank
Violent incidents, deaths and injuries struck several areas of the West Bank, including the Fara’a and Jenin refugee camps, according to UNRWA’s situation report.
OCHA reported that since 7 October, 198 Palestinians, including 52 children, have been killed by Israeli security forces and eight, including one child, by Israeli settlers.
In the Balata refugee camp in Nablus on Saturday, Israeli security forces launched an operation, entering with an armoured bulldozer and mobilizing a drone that fired missiles towards the Fatah office, killing five, injuring two others and damaging homes and shops, according to UNRWA.
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