Category: UN INSIDER

By Ramesh Jaura

NEW YORK (IDN) – The outgoing United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson has urged world leaders to stop dividing humanity into “us and them”, and said that it is important “to realize that there is an element of spirituality needed in what we do”.

In an extensive and in-depth interview with UN News, he described the “Syria tragedy” as his “greatest disappointment” and obliquely criticised the Security Council for having missed an opportunity to adopt a binding resolution four years ago.

By Jaya Ramachandran

NEW YORK (IDN) – The then United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Alpha Konare, Chairperson of the African Union Commission at that time, signed the Ten-Year Capacity Building Programme (TYCBP) for the African Union in 2006 as recommended by the UN General Assembly the previous year.

With that programme due to expire end of the year, the General Assembly has adopted on December 23 a new joint United Nations-African Union (UN-AU) proposal for a successor programme enshrined in the draft resolution titled Framework for a Renewed United Nations‑African Union Partnership on Africa’s Integration and Development Agenda 2017-2027 (document A/71/L.50).

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – The world’s 48 most impoverished and vulnerable countries have reason to rejoice. The United Nations General Assembly in New York finally established a Technology Bank for Least Developed Countries.

The Technology Bank is intended to help least developed countries strengthen their science, technology and innovation capacities, foster the development of national and regional innovation ecosystems that can attract outside technology and generate home-grown research and take these advancements to market.

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Within days of the outgoing UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly criticising Israel’s settlement activities beyond the 1967 line, the UN Security Council has adopted a landmark resolution by a vote of 14 in favour and with the United States abstaining, instead of exercising a veto.

Since the resolution 2234 was adopted on December 23, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pouring anger not only on the current U.S. Administration but also on outgoing President Barack Obama: “Friends don’t take friends to the Security Council.”

“Israel will re-assess its ties with the United Nations following the adoption by the Security Council of a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building,” Reuters quoted Prime Minister Netanyahu warning on December 24.

By Jaya Ramachandran

BERLIN | VIENNA (IDN) – Almost a third of all humans traded around the world for the purpose of sexual slavery, forced labour, or commercial sexual exploitation are children, and women and girls comprise 71 per cent of the victims of “human trafficking”, according to a new report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

The 2016 UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons is the third of its kind mandated by the General Assembly through the 2010 United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons.

NAIROBI (IDN) – The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Brussels-based ACP Secretariat have agreed on a more coherent and integrated approach towards the implementation of the sustainable development goals in 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific states.

UNEP Deputy Executive Director Ibrahim Thiaw and the ACP Secretary-General Patrick I. Gomes signed on December 20 a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the margins of the 32nd session of the joint ACP-EU Parliamentary Assembly from December 19 to 21 in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. The MoU aims to reinforce collaboration between the two international organizations in the field of environment and climate change.

By Santo D Banerjee

NEW YORK | VIENNA (IDN) – Human trafficking is a global problem particularly affecting people fleeing armed conflict, including women, children, internally displaced persons and refugees who are forced into modern slavery that fetches its perpetrators some $150 billion.

The UN Security Council is determined to put an end to this serious crime and violation of human rights, and has passed a resolution, which the Executive Director of the Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Yury Fedotov, describes as “historic”.

“The resolution offers a powerful recognition by the international community that persons desperately fleeing armed conflict are especially vulnerable to trafficking in persons and to other forms of exploitation,” said the UNODC Chief, according to UN Information Service (UNIS) in Vienna.

By Global Information Network

NEW YORK | KINSHASA (IDN) – Considering that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the world’s largest producer of cobalt ore, and a major producer of copper and diamonds, has never had a peaceful transfer of power since independence from Belgium in 1960, the current political crisis does not come as a surprise.

But the killing of a peacekeeper from South Africa deployed with the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) in North Kivu on December 19 has precipitated the situation.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the killing and called on the country’s “authorities to ensure that this attack is investigated and its perpetrators are brought to justice”. Attacks against UN peacekeepers are unacceptable,” according to a statement issued by Ban’s spokesperson.

By Kalinga Seneviratne

BANGKOK (IDN) – Early December three UN agencies UNDP, UNESCO and UNFPA organized a three-day youth mobilizing program at the UNESCAP building here called ‘Case for Space’ (C4S) touted as a campaign led by over 60 partners in the region to raise awareness and advocate for the promotion of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Asia-Pacific region.

Yet, it was dominated by mainly European and American speakers and consultants, with the project being led by a UK-based activist group Restless Development, which made many participants from the region to wonder whether the SDG agenda is being hijacked by westerner activists.

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Among several unresolved issues the outgoing UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon leaves behind is the Middle East, including the Palestinian question. In his final report to the Security Council on December 16, he said it saddened him that his last such briefing brought no sense of optimism for the future.

While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was not the cause of the wars in the Middle East, resolving it could help to create momentum for peace throughout the region. He recalled that in 1947, acting on the basis of General Assembly resolution 181, the world had recognized the need for a two-State solution and had called for the emergence of “independent Arab and Jewish States”.