Category: UN INSIDER

By Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA (IDN) – The United Nations General Assembly will consider during the period October 24 to November 2 a resolution to launch formal, multilateral negotiations in 2017 on a “legally-binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination”.

Sponsored by Austria, Brazil, Ireland, Mexico, Nigeria, and South Africa, the resolution has been submitted on September 28. “It will likely be approved with more than 120 states in support”, said Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association (ACA). “The proposal may allow for consideration of several options and proposals, including a ban treaty,” he added.

By Ramesh Jaura

NEW YORK (IDN) – Former Portuguese Prime Minister Antόnio Guterres looks set to succeed Ban Ki-moon as the United Nations Secretary-General in January 2017 if the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council do not decide to select in the coming weeks a woman or an East European for the world’s topmost post.

By tradition, the job of secretary-general has rotated among regions. Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe have all held the post. East European nations, including Russia, argue that they have never had a Secretary-General and it is their turn.

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Ahead of joining the Security Council in January 2017 as its non-permanent member for two years, the Kazakh delegation has availed of the 71st session of the UN General Assembly to highlight in general debate as well as in multilateral and bilateral events the Central Asian country’s plans and perspectives.

Addressing the General Assembly on September 24, Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov said: “We take our election to the Security Council as an international recognition of the soundness and maturity of our foreign policy and a deserved achievement of our independence.”

By Barbara Crossette* | Reproduced courtesy of PassBlue

NEW YORK (IDN | Passblue) – With a cease-fire in Syria collapsing around him and bombs destroying precious relief supplies intended for the hungry, traumatized survivors of relentless government attacks on the once grand city of Aleppo, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon used his last speech to open a UN General Assembly debating season to lash out at the government of Syria and its supporters.

“Many groups have killed many innocents, but none more so than the government of Syria, which continues to barrel bomb neighborhoods and systematically torture thousands of detainees,” Ban said on Sept. 20, in a rare outburst of anguish and anger from a secretary-general aimed at a member country in this most public of places, as the world watches. “Powerful patrons that keep feeding the war machine also have blood on their hands.”

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Two among a spate of events accompanying the 71st session of the UN General Assembly have underlined that the Zero Hunger Challenge, launched in 2012 by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and the Decade of Action on Nutrition, announced in July 2016, are critical to implementing Sustainable Development Goals.

According to the UN, almost 800 million people go to bed hungry every night and one in three people worldwide – nearly 2.5 billion – suffer from at least one form of malnutrition, ranging from hunger to obesity to a lack of critical nutrients.

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.