Category: UN INSIDER

By Santo D. Banerjee

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – While normative frameworks to empower and protect women in conflict situations have made steady advancement in the last 17 years since the adoption of a landmark resolution by the Security Council, real progress in women’s meaningful engagement in all phases of peacebuilding and their protection from abuse and exploitation are seriously lagging.

The representatives of UN member states at the ministerial and diplomatic levels agreed during a 10-hour Security Council debate on October 27 on ‘Women, Peace and Security’ that progress on the ground must be accelerated by way of more funding for gender expertise in peacebuilding.

Viewpoint by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

The writer is UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women. Following are extensive excerpts from her statement at the Security Council Open Debate on Women, Peace and Security on October 27, 2017, commenting the Report of the Secretary-General on women and peace and security. – The Editor

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – Although women’s absence from peace tables is no longer easily brushed off as normal, it is still commonplace. Every year, we track women’s overall participation in peace processes that are led by the UN. We track the inclusion of gender expertise and gender-sensitive provisions in peace agreements, and the requirement to consult with women’s civil society organizations. In all of these indicators, we performed slightly worse than a year ago. 

By Achim Steiner, Patricia Espinosa and Robert Glasser*

BONN (IDN) – From Miami and Puerto Rico to Barbuda and Havana, the devastation of this year’s hurricane season across Latin America and the Caribbean serves as a reminder that the impacts of climate change know no borders.

In recent weeks, Category 5 hurricanes have brought normal life to a standstill for millions in the Caribbean and on the American mainland. Harvey, Irma and Maria have been particularly damaging. The 3.4 million inhabitants of Puerto Rico have been scrambling for basic necessities including food and water, the island of Barbuda has been rendered uninhabitable, and dozens of people are missing or dead on the UNESCO world heritage island of Dominica.

By Ronald Joshua

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – Despite instability and security challenges, ranging from human and drug trafficking to terrorism and the illicit flow of resources away from the continent, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development – now fully embedded in the development paradigms of both the United Nations and the African Union – remains the “rallying point” in Africa’s pursuit of growth.

The partnership, known as NEPAD, is particularly critical in the areas of social and economic development. The recent finalization of the Tripartite Free Trade Area agreement is an important step that would harmonize three sub‑regional blocs, which previously had their own rules and models for trade.

By Kanaga Raja

The author is the editor of the South North Development Monitor (SUNS). This article was published in the SUNS #8540 dated 27 September 2017.

GENEVA (IDN) – More than 30 years after the adoption of the Declaration on the Right to Development, business-as-usual will not be sufficient to achieve progress, a United Nations human rights expert has said.

In his first report to the Human Rights Council since being appointed to the new mandate of Special Rapporteur on the right to development, Saad Alfarargi (of Egypt) said that in order to ensure the implementation of the Declaration, there is need to re-invigorate the advocacy process.

In a landmark resolution adopted at its thirty-third session in September 2016, the Council decided to establish the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the right to development for a period of three years.

Viewpoint by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

The writer is UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women.

UNITED NATIONS (IDN | UN Women) – The pain and anger of more than a million people who tweeted #MeToo in the last week have crowded social media with personal stories of sexual harassment or assault. This virtual march of solidarity marks both the urgency of finding a shared voice and the hidden scale of assault that did not previously have a register. When women are almost invisible, when they are not really seen, it seems that people do not have to care what happens to them. 

This online outcry is important because it is giving voice to acts that are public, but that are silenced and neutralized by convention. It is a cruel privilege to be able to harass a girl or a woman with impunity, but in so many cases this is the norm.

By Santo D. Banerjee

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – As Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East, enters the third year of a cruel military conflict with no end in sight to the suffering of the people caused by a humanitarian catastrophe, a senior UN official has urged the Security Council members to use their political and economic powers to pressure warring sides to commit to a path of peace.

7,600 people have been killed and 42,000 injured since March 2015. According to the UN, more than 60% of civilian deaths have been the result of air strikes by a Saudi-led multinational coalition that backs President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi against the Houthi rebel movement.

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Geneva-based UN Watch, a non-governmental human rights organization, has called for the removal of the Sudanese diplomat Hassan Salih, who in May was elected vice-chair of the UN committee that oversees the work of 4,500 human rights NGOs.

Salih grabbed a 23-year-old woman’s buttocks and breast while dancing at Third Avenue’s Bar None around 2:25 a.m., the New York Post reported. While police were interviewing him and the woman, he tried to escape. The police chased and handcuffed Salih and put him in a police cruiser, according to media reports. But Salih invoked diplomatic immunity, and was allowed to go free after police confirmed his credentials as a diplomat at the United Nations.

By Shanta Roy

NEW YORK (IDN) – Faced with an increasing number of unresolved political and military crises – including in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Cyprus, Kashmir, Palestine, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – UN Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed a High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation to guide him on the road ahead.

The primary mandate of the Board will be preventive diplomacy – based on the age-old axiom that prevention (diplomacy) is far better than the cure (post-conflict peacekeeping).

The creation of the new Board has been prompted mostly by the paralysis of the 15-member Security Council – the UN”s most influential body with power to declare war and peace – which remains deadlocked even as the five veto-wielding permanent members, namely the U.S., UK, France, Russia and China, are more pre-occupied protecting their own political, economic and military interests than saving the world at large.

By Joan Erakit

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – During a country music festival outside of the Mandalay Bay hotel and casino in Las Vegas, a gunman opened fire on concertgoers killing 50 and wounding over 200. Hours later, some 2230 miles away, the United Nations commemorated the International Day of Non-Violence at its headquarters on October 2, remembering Mahatma Gandhi, leader of the Indian independence movement and pioneer of the philosophy and strategy of non-violence, born 148 years ago.

According to General Assembly resolution A/RES/61/271 of June 15, 2007, which established the commemoration, the International Day is an occasion to “disseminate the message of non-violence, including through education and public awareness”. The resolution reaffirms “the universal relevance of the principle of non-violence” and the desire “to secure a culture of peace, tolerance, understanding and non-violence”.