Category: UN INSIDER

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN (IDN) – United Nations experts have strongly criticised Germany for “crimes against Africans and people of African descent” adding that they are “deeply concerned about the human rights situation of people of African descent” in the country.

“Germany’s crimes against Africans and people of African descent are overshadowed by its focus on other parts of its history. Germany’s colonial past, the genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama peoples, and the sterilization, incarceration, and murder of Black people during Nazi Germany, is not adequately addressed in the national narrative,” said the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent in a statement to the media on February 27.

VIENNA (IDN) – Iran’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Vienna has been appointed by consensus as the chairman of the Group of 77 (G-77), for a one-year term.

Reza Najafi, the country’s Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Permanent Representative to the UN in the Austrian capital, took over charge from Namibia’s Permanent Representative Simon Madjumo Maruta at a ceremony on February 24, 2017.

Ambassador Najafi is the second representative of Iran to head the G-77 in Vienna since 2011. In his remarks he stressed the importance of G-77 within and outside the UN as the largest coalition of meanwhile 134 developing nations in the United Nations.

By Phil Harris

ROME (IDN) – As wealth and well-being continue their inexorable course towards increasing concentration in the hands of fewer and fewer, an estimated 795 million people still suffer from hunger, and global food security is threatened by climate change and mounting pressure on natural resources.

With the world’s population expected to rise to almost 10 billion people by 2050, global demand for agricultural products will increase by 50 percent over present levels, posing a serious question mark over the capacity of the world’s agriculture and food systems to sustainably meet the needs of this mushrooming global population.

Interview with Cristina Gallach, UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information

NEW YORK (IDN) – Representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and academia adopted a global education action agenda affirming the importance of Sustainable Development Goal 4 – ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong opportunities for all – at the 66th United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI) / NGO Conference that concluded on June 1, 2016 in Gyeongju, South Korea.

What has happened since? What role are youth groups playing in the second year of implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) endorsed by the international community in September 2015? Will there be a DPI / NGO conference in 2017 despite a new Secretary-General and management team taking office in January? What does it mean serving as Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information at the United Nations?

By Lowana Veal

REYKJAVIK (IDN) – Back in 1907, at a time in which Iceland was already faced with severe land degradation problems caused mainly by overgrazing and logging for firewood, the Soil Conservation Service of Iceland (SCSI) was set up as a governmental agency with the mission of preventing soil erosion and reclaiming eroded land.

Much has been learned in the intervening years and keen to pass on its expertise, SCSI – in collaboration with the Agricultural University of Iceland (AUI) – is now running a United Nations University (UNU) training programme targeting participants from developing countries.

By Phil Harris

ROME (IDN) – The Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has elected its second president from sub-Saharan Africa, after incumbent Kanayo F. Nwanze from Nigeria.

At the just concluded meeting of the body’s Governing Council (February 14-15), Gilbert Fossoun Houngbo from Togo, a former Prime Minister of his country, was appointed the Fund’s sixth President and will take office on April 1.

Houngbo was one of eight candidates, including three women, competing for the top leadership position in the specialised United Nations agency, which is also an international financial institution that invests in eradicating rural poverty in developing countries around the world.

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA (IDN) – The United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent will undertake its first official visit to Germany from February 20 to 27 to study the human rights situation of people of African descent in the country.

The Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent was established on April 25, 2002 by the then Commission on Human Rights, following the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, held in Durban in 2001. It is composed of five independent experts: Ricardo A. Sunga III (the Philippines), current Chair-Rapporteur; Michal Balcerzak (Poland); Mireille Fanon Mendes-France (France), Sabelo Gumedze (South Africa) and Ahmed Reid (Jamaica).

BONN (IDN) – Population declines of 95 percent in Africa and Asia in recent decades, are threatening most vulture species in Africa, Asia and Europe with extinction. With this in view, an overarching international Action Plan applicable throughout the ranges of all species is being developed at an expert meeting convened by the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) from February 16 to 19 in Toledo, Spain.

The plan aims to prevent the further decline of vultures – nature’s primary scavengers – providing indispensable ecological services as carrion feeders and disposers of disease-carrying carcasses.

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – The 15-member Security Council, including the veto-wielding USA, Russia, China, Britain and France, are keen to “reduce tensions in the Korean Peninsula and beyond” and “maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in North-East Asia at large”.

With this in view, they have in a Press Statement on February 13, expressed their “commitment to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution to the situation”. They also welcome “efforts by Council members, as well as other States, to facilitate a peaceful and comprehensive solution through dialogue”.

By Jamshed Baruah

NEW YORK (IDN) – Taking its mandate as non-permanent member of the Security Council for 2017-2018 seriously, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement on February 12 said that it “strongly condemns” the ballistic missile launch conducted by DPRK-Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) the same day.

The launch was “a blatant violation of the relevant UN Security Council resolution”. North Korea is barred under United Nations resolutions from using ballistic missile technology, but six sets of UN sanctions since Pyongyang’s first nuclear test in 2006 have failed to rein in its drive for atomic weapons.