Category: UN INSIDER

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – Veterans For Peace (VFP) has strongly criticised the U.S. refusal to take part in negotiations at the United Nations to ban nuclear weapons and accused it of “efforts to derail the ongoing” talks to “reach an agreement on a treaty to ban nuclear weapons.”

VFP believes that it would be “diplomatically more prudent” to use the UN talks “as an opportunity to engage Iran and North Korea in discussions to determine if there is some common ground on which to proceed and lessen tensions in the Middle East and the Far East.”

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Less than 30 dollars spent per person per year can work wonders for adolescent health and education, finds a new study commissioned by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

The report has been published in The Lancet on the eve of the World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington D.C. from April 21 to April 23, 2017, where finance and development leaders from 188 countries were slated to discuss the critical need to invest in adolescents.

The Lancet is an independent, international general medical journal purported to make science widely available so that medicine can serve, and transform society, and positively impact the lives of people.

By Dulcie Leimbach* | Reproduced courtesy of PassBlue

NEW YORK (IDN | Passblue) – Nikki Haley, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, presided over what she was determined to sell as “an historic meeting exclusively on human rights” in the UN Security Council. But her brief speech in the April 18 meeting fell far short of introducing innovations to confront violations of human rights or prevent them in such places as Syria, Burundi and Myanmar.

“If this Council fails to take human rights violations and abuses seriously, they can escalate into real threats to international peace and security,” Haley began. “The Security Council cannot continue to be silent when we see widespread violations of human rights.

By Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA (IDN) – “The lack of nuclear weapons use since Hiroshima and Nagasaki cannot on its own be interpreted as evidence that the likelihood of a detonation event is minimal,” warns the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), an autonomous institute within the United Nations based in Geneva.

The Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on which the United States dropped atomic bombs on August 6 and 9, 1945, embody the abhorrent humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons use, warning of the brutal consequences should such weapons of mass destruction be ever deployed again.

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed new leaders of the world body’s regional outposts in Africa, Europe and Western Asia, but asked the head of Asia and the Pacific to stay on.

Announcing senior appointments on April 13, he said he had asked Dr Shamshad Akhtar of Pakistan to continue in her role as Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). Dr Akhtar, who also serves as the UN Under-Secretary-General (USG), has been in office since December 2013.

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – For the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population of 7.5 billion is living in cities. By 2050, the world’s urban population is expected to nearly double, making urbanization one of the twenty-first century’s most transformative trends. This lends special significance to the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III).

Heads of State and Government adopted at the Conference, held October 17-20, 2016 in Quito, Ecuador, the New Urban Agenda as a collective vision and political commitment to promote and realize sustainable urban development, and a paradigm change, rethinking how cities are planned, managed and inhabited.

By Sergio Duarte, former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs*

NEW YORK (IDN) – In the current stage of evolution of international law and universally accepted norms of civilised behaviour, the use of any weapon of mass destruction by any actor whatsoever affronts the conscience of mankind and cannot be tolerated.

The responsibility for the recent episode of the use of chemical weapons in Syria has not yet been clearly established. But the posturing of the players in this dramatic episode sometimes obscures the appalling reality that a weapon of mass destruction with such cruel and indiscriminate effects still exists in national arsenals of a handful of countries or in clandestine caches.

By Rita Joshi

BONN (IDN) – While a new UN report finds that health risks related to climate change are on the rise worldwide, it avers that coordinated international responses can help prevent some of the worst impacts of climate change on health.

“The report clearly highlights the need for the UN and partners to continuously strengthen their actions to support governments to build climate resilience, including measures to protect human health,” says Youssef Nassef, Director of the Adaptation Programme of the UNFCCC secretariat.

The report, which will be presented to governments during the next round of climate change negotiations to be held in Bonn from May 8-18, 2017, was prepared in collaboration with countries, the World Health Organization and other relevant expert organisations, under the Nairobi work programme − UN Knowledge-for-Action Climate Resilience Network.

By Jaya Ramachandran

This report is based on an unofficial record of the Economic and Social Council 2017 Session, Partnership Forum (ECOSOC/6821) on April 5, 2017. – The Editor.

NEW YORK (IDN) – “The clock is ticking and we have no time to waste” amid climate change, rapid urbanization, mass movements of people and other global trends affecting communities and financing worldwide, said Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations in a video message to the day-long Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Partnership Forum on April 5.

The 2030 Agenda had set the bar high and partnerships were key to supporting the Sustainable Development Goals and ensuring their success. In fostering partnerships, critical elements included delivering results on the ground, providing effective financing and garnering significant private-sector investment, the Deputy Secretary-General added.

By Santo D. Benerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – A new report has expressed dissatisfaction with the current pace of progress on three global energy goals – access to electricity, renewable energy and efficiency, and stressed that more action is needed to meet energy targets by 2030 as envisaged in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

According to the latest Global Tracking Framework (GTF) report, released on April 3 by the World Bank and the International Energy Agency as part of the Sustainable Energy for All Knowledge Hub, the increase of people getting access to electricity is slowing down.