United Nations

Photo: Stephen O’Brien, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator. Credit: Africa Renewal/Paddy Ilos

Revisiting the Humanitarian Summit and Looking Ahead

Interview with Stephen O’Brien by Africa Renewal’s Franck Kuwonu

Stephen O’Brien is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator. In May 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey, he oversaw the first-ever global humanitarian summit where representatives of 173 countries as well as NGOs, the private sector and civil society, met to chart a new path for global humanitarian assistance.

Question: What is your overall assessment of the humanitarian summit? Did the UN achieve its goals?

Answer: It really was a gathering with high energy and it exceeded all expectations; it delivered concrete outcomes. I am delighted that it has enabled us to secure the political will to move forward.

: Africa Renewal; UN INSIDER; 23 August 2016

Photo: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. UN Photo/Mark Garten (file)

Electing a New UN Chief: A Woman, An East European Or Who?

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) - Ahead of the third straw poll – an upcoming game of musical chairs – on August 29, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has made public his preference for a woman to replace him as the head of the United Nations.

"It's high time now" for a female Secretary-General after eight men at the helm of the world organization in over 70 years, said Ban whose second term comes to an end on December 31, 2016.

"We have many distinguished and eminent women leaders in national governments or other organizations or even business communities, political communities, and cultural and every aspect of our life," he said in an Associated Press interview on August 11. "There's no reason why not in the United Nations."

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 22 August 2016

Photo: Under-Secretary-General Stephen O'Brien pays a visit to a camp in Saint Saveur, Central African Republic. MINUSCA/Nektarios Markogiannis

UN Aid Chief Worried About Shortfall in Emergency Fund

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) - The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which manages the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) on behalf of the UN Secretary-General, estimates that this year, there will be a $50 million shortfall on the annual $450 million funding target.

“I am very concerned that this could force the Fund to significantly reduce allocations for underfunded emergencies in the future,” the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O'Brien, has said, and appealed to all UN Member States, regional organizations and private citizens “to scale up their support to CERF and enable us to save more lives”.

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 18 August 2016

Photo: Security Council votes to authorize a 4,000-strong regional protection force within the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). UN Photo/Manuel Elias

UN Security Council's South Sudan Resolution Faulted

By Jaya Ramachandran

NEW YORK (IDN) - Two of the five veto wielding members of the Security Council, China and Russia, and two from among the ten non-permanent ones, Egypt and Venezuela, abstained from the resolution renewing on August 12 the mandate of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) until June 30, 2017, authorizing the expansion of peacekeeping forces and stressing the priority of civilian protection in its mandate.

The Council adopted a U.S.-drafted resolution that also threatened to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan if the government blocks the deployment of a robust force of 4,000 troops.

: Jaya Ramachandran; UN INSIDER; 14 August 2016

Photo: Young people from a local NGO in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Credit: Ollivier Girard.

UN Turns to World's Youth for Achieving 2030 Agenda

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) - As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's second term comes to an end on December 31, 2016, he has intensified efforts to focus on the concerns and aspirations of world's youth, urging them to lead a global drive to break the patterns of the past and set the world on course to a more sustainable future.

“Young people are directly affected by the tragic contradictions that prevail today: between abject poverty and ostentatious wealth, gnawing hunger and shameful food waste, rich natural resources and polluting industries,” Ban said in his message on International Youth Day, celebrated annually on August 12.

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 12 August 2016

Photo: Werner Faymann in Salzburg am 3 March 2014. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Austria's Ex-Chancellor UN Special Envoy for Youth Employment

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Three months after being constrained to quit as Chancellor of Austria and head of the country's Social Democratic Party, Werner Faymann has been named by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as a new Special Envoy for Youth Employment.

Faymann was Chancellor of Austria and chairman of the country's Social Democratic Party from 2008 to 2016. He resigned both posts on May 9, 2016, after losing confidence from a considerable number of party members, after his party's candidate and the candidate from its coalition partner were both eliminated in the first round of the presidential elections held on April 24, 2016.

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 12 August 2016

Photo: A munitions shell lies on the ground at Sobhi Abu Karsh Basic School in the Sheja’eyya neighbourhood of Gaza City. Credit: UNICEF/Eyad El Baba

Explosive Legacy of 2014 Conflict Continues to Hurt Gaza

By Bernhard Schell

AMMAN (IDN) - Two years after the Gaza conflict, paucity of sufficient funds is hampering a speedy clearance of Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) that pose a serious threat to the life and physical integrity of the population in the tiny self-governing Palestinian territory.

During the 2014 conflict, Israel launched more than 6,000 airstrikes and fired nearly 50,000 tank and artillery shells in the 51-day operation in Gaza, killing 1,462 Palestinian civilians, a third of them children.

The United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry's report on Gaza conflict, published on June 22, 2015, found that Palestinian armed groups fired 4,881 rockets and 1,753 mortars towards Israel in July and August 2014, killing 6 civilians and injuring at least 1,600.

: Bernhard Schell; UN INSIDER; 11 August 2016

Photo: The Hypocenter Monument at Nagasaki Peace Park, Japan. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

The No Nukes Mantra Between Hope and Despair

Analysis by Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN (IDN) – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s mantra “No more Hiroshimas - No more Nagasakis - Never again”, chanted to commemorate the anniversaries of the devastating atomic bombings of two Japanese cities has yet to usher in a nuclear-weapon-free world. Also his ‘five point proposal on nuclear disarmament’, tabled on UN Day October 24, 2008, has been practically consigned to oblivion.

The fault does not lie with the Secretary-General. As the world commemorated the 71st Hiroshima and Nagasaki anniversaries on August 6 and August 9, the question on the minds of proponents of a world free of nuclear weapons was: Is there reason to hope rather than despair?

: Ramesh Jaura; ARMAMENTS; 10 August 2016

World Humanitarian Day to Focus on ‘One Humanity’

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – Under the overarching theme of ‘One Humanity’, the World Humanitarian Day (WHD) to be held – as every year – on August 19, will explain how the world came together in Istanbul around the Agenda for Humanity.

It will also stimulate how the commitments made at the WHD from May 23 to 24 in Istanbul will help the 130 million people around the world who need humanitarian assistance to survive.

One Humanity speaks about shared human experiences bind us across divides, and create a common responsibility to demand action for the most vulnerable and at risk of being left behind.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; UN INSIDER; 08 August 2016

Photo: UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka received the Olympic Flame from Prince Albert of Monaco and carried it through the streets of Rio de Janeiro, celebrating women's and girl's empowerment. Credit: UN Women

One Win Leads to Another in Sports and Gender Equality

UN Women, IOC and Always join to celebrate the community-based sports programme to build leadership skills and confidence of adolescent girls as part of the 2016 Rio Olympic legacy.

Rio de Janeiro (IDN-INPS) - Coinciding with the beginning of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, UN Women, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Always/Whisper celebrated on August 6 the ‘One Win Leads to Another’ initiative, a programme that empowers women and girls through sport.