Category: UN INSIDER

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK | CAPE TOWN (IDN) – The unprecedented scope of the UN’s 2030 Agenda, with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), calls for reliable data without which progress in implementing those goals cannot be tracked. “We cannot achieve what we cannot measure,” said Dr Pali Lehohla, South Africa’s Statistician-General and head of Statistics South Africa (STATS SA).

STATS SA hosted the first ever United Nations World Data Forum in Cape Town from January 15 to 18, with support from the Statistics Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), under the guidance of the United Nations Statistical Commission and the High-level Group for Partnership, Coordination and Capacity-Building for Statistics for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN | BONN (IDN) – The UN SDG Action Campaign, an Initiative of the United Nations Secretary-General, is launching the first Global Festival of Ideas March 1-3 in Bonn with a view to ensuring the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

Bonn, former West German capital in divided post-World War II Germany, hosts 22 UN secretariats, including those of the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC), UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and UN Volunteers (UNV).

NEW YORK (IDN) – A photo exhibit launched at United Nations Headquarters in New York on January 16 by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations TOGETHER initiative seeks to draw attention to the plight of migrants in vulnerable situations around the world.

“The photo exhibit serves to highlight how crisis-related migration flows are growing in scale and complexity and inducing new forms of migration-related humanitarian challenges both internally and across borders,” said Ashraf El Nour, Director of IOM’s Office to the UN in New York. “Migrants need protection as their vulnerability to exploitation, trafficking, and violence heightens during crises,” he added.

By Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin

Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin is India’s Permanent Representative to the UN in New York. Following are excerpts from his statement to the Security Council in an open debate on January 10 on ‘Conflict Prevention and Sustaining Peace’ in connection with the agenda item ‘Maintenance of International Peace and Security’- an agenda that relates to one of the first purposes of the UN’s charter and one which is listed in the first article.

UNITED NATIONS (IDN-INPS) – The wisdom of the age-old adage, “Prevention is better than Cure” is self-evident . . . Dag Hammarskjöld is said to have first introduced the term “preventive diplomacy” more than 50 years ago into the lexicon. Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s “Agenda for Peace” unveiled in the 1990s comes to mind as another milestone in this saga.

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Kazakhstan has made a strong plea for a close and proactive working relationship between the United Nations Secretary-General and the Security Council. In doing so, Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov of Kazakhstan – which began its two-year term as non-permanent member of the Security Council on January 1 – concurred among others with Sweden’s Foreign Minister and Security Council President for January, Margot Wallström.

She said such a relationship “is the cornerstone of this Organization’s ability to deliver lasting peace and security” – “not least to improve the UN’s capacity to take early action to prevent violent conflict”. Though conflict prevention had been discussed “many times before . . . progress is meager”.

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – UN Member States will engage in broad consultations throughout 2017 to inform negotiations on a global compact on safe, regular, and orderly migration in 2018. In this, the Global Migration Group (GMG), headed by United Nations University (UNU) Rector and UN Under-Secretary-General Dr David M. Malone since January 1 will play a crucial role.

GMG, a forum of 21 agencies and entities from the United Nations system, promotes norms relating to international migration so as to work towards improved global governance of this issue. UNU formally joined the GMG in 2014, placing UNU’s expertise on migration at its service.

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | NEW YORK (IDN) – Within days of taking up the post of the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres has urged the influential Security Council to undertake new, strengthened efforts to build and sustain peace ranging from prevention, conflict resolution and peacekeeping to peacebuilding and sustainable development.

Supporting Guterres, Sweden’s Foreign Minister and Security Council President for January, Margot Wallström emphasized that a close and proactive working relationship between the Council and the Secretary-General was the cornerstone of the Organization’s ability to deliver lasting peace and security.

By Rodney Reynolds

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – When former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stepped down on December 31 after a 10-year tenure at the United Nations, he said his “deepest regret” was to leave office with “the continuing nightmare in Syria” where a six-year-old civil war has virtually devastated a country beyond physical recognition.

As Ambassador Marc-Andre Blanchard told a General Assembly December meeting that without action, Syria would soon become “a giant graveyard, as food supplies have been exhausted and families were eating grass and the little garbage left,” in order to survive.

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | NEW YORK (IDN) – Ahead of the inauguration of Donald Trump as 45th President of the United States on January 20, analysts are far from certain whether he would take to policies that reduce nuclear dangers or resort to actions resulting in a suicidal arms race.

The guessing game is taking place against the backdrop of the United Nations General Assembly having confirmed that beginning March 2017, it would hold a conference open to all member states, to negotiate a “legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination”. The conference to be held at UN headquarters in New York will be divided into two sessions: from March 27 to 31 and from June 15 to July 7.

By Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA (IDN) – In the face of humanitarian crisis plaguing Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory – including East Jerusalem – and those who have fled the conflict in Syria, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has launched an $813 million emergency aid appeal.

Speaking to UN News, Pierre Krähenbühl, the Commissioner General for UNRWA said: “Palestine refugees are among the worst affected by the conflict. Over 95 per cent of those who have remained in Syria – 430,000 – are in critical need of sustained humanitarian assistance.”