Category: UN INSIDER

By Jaya Ramachandran

NEW YORK (IDN) – While migration has throughout history been a driver for development, the cost becomes too high when people find that leaving their homes is their only alternative, according to FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva.

“Migration should be an act of choice, and not a desperate last resort,” Graziano da Silva said during the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants on September 19.

Bolstering the opportunities that allow rural people in developing countries to remain at home is a critical component of any plan to tackle the contemporary migration crisis,

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – An unprecedented 65 million people worldwide have been affected by the current global crisis of forced displacement, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). More than one-third of the displaced – or 22.2 million – are in the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region.

With this in view, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has announced the establishment of a new financing facility amounting to $110 million to assist refugees, displaced people and their host communities to address the increased pressure put on rural areas by the influx of millions of people.

by Jaya Ramachandran

NEW YORK (IDN) – Refugee education is in crisis, the UN refugee agency has warned, stressing that more than some six million school-age children under mandate of the United Nations refugee agency have no school to go, and refugees are five times more likely to be out of school than the world average.

“This represents a crisis for millions of refugee children,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a news release issued by his Office (UNHCR).

“Refugee education is sorely neglected, when it is one of the few opportunities we have to transform and build the next generation so they can change the fortunes of the tens of millions of forcibly displaced people globally,” he added.

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – A large number of refugees view access to a mobile phone and the Internet as being as critical to their safety and security as food, water and shelter, according to a new report based on research undertaken in 44 countries on four continents.

The finding come at a moment when wars and persecution have driven more people from their homes than at any time since the UN refugee agency UNHCR began keeping records. At end of 2015, 65.3 million people are displaced worldwide, of whom 21.3 million are refugees.

By Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA (IDN) – India has surpassed the United States to become the world’s second largest Internet market, with 333 million users, trailing China’s 721 million. But a new United Nations report says that six nations – including China and India – together account for 55% of the total global population still offline, because of the sheer size of their populations.

While Internet access is approaching saturation in richer nations, connectivity is still not advancing fast enough to help bridge development gaps in areas like education and health care for those in poorer parts of the world, according to the 2016 edition of The State of Broadband report.

By IDN-INPS UN Bureau

NEW YORK (IDN) – Ahead of the first-ever high-level summit for refugees on September 19 at the UN Headquarters in New York, UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, has drawn attention to the fact that women represent almost half of the 244 million migrants and half of the 19.6 million refugees worldwide.

The remittances sent by women migrant workers improve the livelihood and health of their families and strengthen economies, says UN Women. In 2015, international migrants sent $432.6 billion in remittances to developing countries – nearly three times the amount of Official Development Assistance, which totalled at $131.6 billion.

Interview by Ramesh Jaura with UNCCD Executive Secretary Monique Barbut

NEW YORK | BONN (IDN) – “Migration associated with natural resource depletion and climate change is much wider in scale than previously appreciated,” Monique Barbut, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), has warned in an interview.

“Close to 100% of the irregular migrants crossing from the Mediterranean into Europe are from arid regions,” she told IDN, adding: “Climate change will exacerbate land degradation in many regions, with both direct and indirect effects on rural household incomes, increased risks of crop losses and fluctuating commodity market prices. Under these conditions, we can expect an increase in the flow of migrants from drought-prone and degraded areas,” she cautioned.

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – South-South cooperation has come to stay as an important element of international cooperation for development – not as a substitute for, but rather as a complement to North-South cooperation.

According to the UN, it offers viable opportunities for developing countries and countries with economies in transition in their individual and collective pursuit of sustained economic growth and sustainable development.

To mark the importance of South-South Cooperation, the General Assembly decided to observe this Day on September 12 every year, commemorating the adoption in 1978 of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries.

By Rodney Reynolds

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) – Despite five nuclear tests by a defiant North Korea, the United States continues to maintain it will not recognize the belligerent and reclusive nation as a legitimate “nuclear power”.

Elizabeth Trudeau, U.S. State Department spokesperson and Director of the Press Office, reiterated the U.S. stance when she told reporters September 9: “We’ve been consistently clear we will not accept North Korea as a nuclear state, nor will we accept North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons.”

By Lowana Veal

BERGEN (IDN) – Norway is a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), enjoying the Alliance’s protection as a nuclear umbrella state and yet widely known for its association with peace issues: not only for hosting the first international Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in Oslo in March 2013.

“Norway (also) took the lead in the Oslo Process which culminated in the signing of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in 2008,” said Hitotsugu Terasaki, director general of peace and global issues at the Soka Gakkai International (SGI).