United Nations

Photo: UN Secretary-General António Guterres addresses audience at New York University Stern School of Business. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

UN Chief Urges World To Rally Behind Paris Agreement

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – “Climate action is not just a necessity but an opportunity to forge a peaceful and sustainable future on a healthy planet,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told a gathering of students, business leaders and academics at the New York University Stern School of Business on May 30.

Amidst reports that President Donald Trump was poised to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Guterres called for sustained action to meet the global challenge and to ensure a peaceful and sustainable future for all.

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 31 May 2017

Photo: The 2017 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction conference was held in Cancun, Mexico, from May 22 to 26. Credit: UNISDR

People Must Not Be Ignored in Disaster Risk Reduction Planning

This is the first of two reports from the 2017 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction conference held in Cancun, Mexico, from May 22 to 26.

By Ek Soria

MEXICO CITY (IDN) – The 2017 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction conference, held in Cancun from May 22 to 26, brought together disaster risk managers, policy makers and leaders from the private, scientific and civil society sectors to discuss the commitments of States to absorb, adapt to and recover from disasters in a timely and efficient manner.

High on the agenda was assessment of global progress in implementing the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction adopted in Sendai, Japan, in 2015 as a 15-year, voluntary, non-binding agreement which recognises that the State has the primary role to reduce disaster risk but that responsibility should be shared with other stakeholders including local government, the private sector and other stakeholders.

: Phil Harris; UN INSIDER; 30 May 2017

Photo: New WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Credit: PAHO

A Change of Guard at the WHO

By Laurie Garrett

Since 2004, Laurie Garrett has been a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Garrett is the only writer ever to have been awarded all three of the Big "Ps" of journalism: the Peabody, the Polk, and the Pulitzer. Her expertise includes global health systems, chronic and infectious diseases, and bioterrorism. (Full Bio and Contact). This article first appeared on 25 May 2017.

GENEVA - For the first time in its seventy-year history, the World Health Organization (WHO) will, effective July 1, be led by a nonphysician, an African, and a person from the global South. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia campaigned in an unprecedented election that gave 186 nations equal voice and saw three globetrotting candidates plead their cases.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; UN INSIDER; 26 May 2017

Photo: The eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly, which convened on 15 September 1953 at UN Headquarters, elected Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit of India as its President. She is photographed here with UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld. She was the first woman president ever elected by a UN General Assembly. Credit: UN Photo # 372908/AF

UN Positions Pose a Dilemma for 'Rising Power' India

By Shastri Ramachandaran*

NEW DELHI (IDN) - The Government of India has no clear-cut stand and approach when it comes to campaigning for positions in the United Nations including specialized agencies of the world body and formations such as the Group of 77 (G77). The reason, according to informed sources and diplomats who have had a ringside view of past campaigns, is that the “calculated ambivalence” has served India’s interests “up to expectations and beyond”.

What importance does New Delhi attach to the G77? How much is India interested in G77 comprising 134 developing countries including China? When posed these two questions, all officials -- both serving and retired diplomats -- agreed to respond on condition of anonymity. The only exception was India’s former UN Under-Secretary General Shashi Tharoor, currently Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram, capital of the southern state of Kerala.

: Shastri Ramachandran; UN INSIDER; 13 May 2017

Photo: Fourth Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development. Credit: ESCAP.

Exercising Power Fairly More Important SDG Yardstick than Democratic Accountability

By Kalinga Seneviratne

BANGKOK (IDN) – In its 2017 Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific, the Bangkok-based UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) makes an interesting argument in regards to achieving the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in seemingly downplaying the importance of democratic accountability and emphasising that how power is exercised is more important.

“In the Survey for 2017 political dimensions, such as democratic accountability, are avoided, and governance is framed in terms of how power is exercised instead of how it is acquired,” the report says in its executive summary.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; UN INSIDER; 03 May 2017

Photo: UN Secretary-General António Guterres (left) swears in Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations. 12 April 2017. United Nations, New York. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas.

UN Peacekeeping Missions Face Threats of Cuts – and Extinction

By Shanta Rao

NEW YORK (IDN) – The UN’s 16 peacekeeping operations (PKOs), funded by a hefty $7.9 billion budget for the current 2016-2017 biennium, are in jeopardy facing threats of drastic cuts – and in some cases, even extinction.

The United States, the largest single contributor accounting for about 28% of that budget, has not only threatened to reduce funding, possibly down to 25%, but is also calling for a downgrading – or even the total elimination-- of some of the ongoing missions.

Addressing the Council on Foreign Relations in March, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley gave an advance warning when she challenged the current state of peacekeeping operations.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; UN INSIDER; 28 April 2017

Photo: UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova (second from left), participated in the first ever G7 Culture Ministers’ meeting held on 30 and 31 of March 2017 in Florence, Italy. Credit: UNESCO.

G7 Takes Unprecedented Move to Protect Cultural Heritage

By A.D. McKenzie

PARIS (IDN) – For the first time, leaders of the world’s seven major industrialised countries have adopted a common declaration for the protection of cultural heritage, recognising the “distinctive role” that culture plays in promoting dialogue and reconciliation.

Culture ministers and other cultural representatives from the G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and the European Union, adopted the “Florence Declaration” at an unprecedented meeting in Florence, Italy, at the end of March.

: A.D. McKenzie; UN INSIDER; 24 April 2017

Photo: Nikki Haley (front, centre right), U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN and President of the Security Council for the month of April, chairs the Council's meeting on the maintenance of international peace and security: human rights and prevention of armed conflict. Secretary-General António Guterres sits to her right. (18 April 2017). Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

Cutbacks May Reduce U.S. Weight in UN, Trigger New Thinking

By Ramesh Jaura

This is the third in a series of reports analysing U.S. policy towards multilateralism in general and the UN in particular. The first was published on 16 March 2017, and the second on 4 April 2017. – The Editor

BERLIN | NEW YORK (IDN) – Will the 'Axis of Adults' that has reportedly emerged as the new power centre guiding national security encourage President Donald Trump to disavow his plans to slash U.S. contributions to the United Nations?

The answer is simply 'No'. The Axis of Adults, as reported by the Daily Beast and the Washington Post, comprises Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Homeland Secretary John Kelly. Republicans who had been apprehensive about President Trump are celebrating the trio’s influence.

: Ramesh Jaura; UN INSIDER; 23 April 2017

Photo: Families displaced by drought in Baidoa, Somalia, gather around Secretary-General António Guterres (white cap), who was in the region urging action to help them. Photo: UNSOM

Invest More in Averting and Resolving Conflicts, Chair of the Security Council Committee Says

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – The UN Security Council is concerned about the situation in the Horn of Africa and in light of the threat posed by Al-Shabaab terrorist group, drought and the on-going humanitarian crisis, "the region demands a high proportion of UN peacekeeping resource."

Reporting on the activities of the Security Council Committee and on the assessment of recent developments based on the latest reports of the Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group, the Chair of the Committee – pursuant to resolutions 751 (1992) and 1907 (2009) concerning Somalia and Eritrea – urged the UN's influential body to "invest more in preventing and resolving conflicts".

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 22 April 2017

Photo: UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner. Credit: UNEP

Steiner's Choice as UNDP Chief Is a Big Deal for Germany

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | NEW YORK (IDN) – The appointment of Achim Steiner as head of the prestigious United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is of profound significance for the German government, which declared its candidacy in 2016 for a non-permanent seat on the Security Council for the 2019‑2020 two-year term.

The announcement of Steiner's selection came amid unconfirmed reports that UN Secretary-General António Guterres wishes to appoint former German President Horst Köhler, a vocal advocate of Europe-Africa relations, as his personal envoy on Western Sahara. a disputed and partially Moroccan-occupied territory in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has been on the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories since 1963.