The UN Special Envoy for Myanmar continues her work towards engaging with officials in the country nearly two months after the military coup, the global Organization said on Thursday.
The UN Special Envoy for Myanmar continues her work towards engaging with officials in the country nearly two months after the military coup, the global Organization said on Thursday.
21 March 2021
Dear friends,
Each year, Nowruz marks a new beginning.
Last year, the Nowruz celebration coincided with the early days of an unprecedented and devastating global pandemic.
This year, the Nowruz spirit is more vital than ever.
Solidarity between communities...
Underlining that “diversity is a richness, not a threat”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for greater investment in promoting social cohesion and tackling bigotry in a message on Wednesday to mark the International Day to Combat Islamophobia.
The recent “horrific killings” of dozens of civilians in two villages in western Niger have been condemned in the strongest terms by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
An arms embargo imposed on Libya by the Security Council in 2011 remains “totally ineffective” a UN Panel of Experts has said, adding that civilians, including migrants and asylum seekers, continue to suffer widespread rights violations and abuses.
The UN’s top official in Yemen has warned of a “dramatic” deterioration in the country’s ongoing conflict, telling the Security Council on Tuesday that fighting has expanded on several fronts amid the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Rising food and fuel prices present a looming threat to the poorest and most vulnerable communities in Myanmar, as supply chains and markets are starting to feel the impact of the ongoing political crisis, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday.
The UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday it is “deeply disturbed” that the crackdown on peaceful protesters in Myanmar “continues to intensify”, with a soaring death toll on the streets, increasingly aggressive use of lethal force, arbitrary arrests, and reports of torture in custody.
As the Syrian war reaches its grim decade-long milestone, the UN envoy for the country told the Security Council on Monday that it will “go down as one of the darkest chapters in recent history” referring to the Syrian people as among “the greatest victims of this century”.
The UN chief on Monday issued a statement saying he was "appalled" by the reported killing over the weekend of dozens of protesters calling for the restoration of democracy, at the hands of the country's military.
The pain and deprivation of individual Syrians and the widespread destruction, a decade of conflict has wrought on Syria, has been documented in a series of images taken by 17 photographers working in the country.
A young Syrian woman has told the United Nations how poetry helped her to convey the emotions of all the children who have been caught up in the decade-long civil war in her country.
Deputy Inspector Martina de Maria Sandoval Linares, from El Salvador always wanted to help others. Now, working as a UN Police officer, she has found her vocation, far from home in South Sudan. Ms. Linares, whose eight-year-old daughter and family are back in El Salvador, told UN News why the job is so rewarding, despite the sacrifices she makes.
New York, 13 March, 2021
As we mark the second anniversary of Tropical Cyclone Idai, the United Nations is honoured to continue standing in solidarity with the people and Government of Mozambique.
In the aftermath of the unprecedented back-to-back Cyclone Idai and Cyclone Kenneth, I travelled to the country and saw the devastation and recovery efforts firsthand.
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The UN chief on Friday, has strongly condemned the latest mass kidnapping of students in Nigeria, in the country’s northwestern region.
Ten numbers for each year of Syria’s seemingly interminable conflict: the UN’s Humanitarian agency (OCHA) has marked this tragic milestone by highlighting in figures the country’s miserable decade of suffering and loss.
The grim ten-year anniversary of the war in Syria has left 90 percent of the country’s children in need of help, as a triple crisis of violence, economic misery and the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed families to the brink of despair, UNICEF reported on Friday.
The United Nations entity dedicated to protection of women’s rights has voiced deep concerns over “targeted and disproportionate” violence against women being recorded during the crackdown against peaceful protesters in Myanmar.
The Myanmar junta’s brutal response to peaceful protests likely meets the legal threshold for crimes against humanity, a UN-appointed independent rights expert told the Human Rights Council on Thursday.
Conflict drives hunger, and when that turns to famine, that then drives conflict, the UN chief told the Security Council on Thursday, adding that “if you don’t feed people, you feed conflict”.
The United Nations Security Council has strongly condemned the violence against peaceful protesters in Myanmar and voiced “deep concern” at restrictions on medical personnel, civil society, labour unions and journalists, as demonstrations continue across the south-east Asian nation against the military takeover last month.
The United Nations Security Council has strongly condemned the violence against peaceful protesters in Myanmar and voiced “deep concern” at restrictions on medical personnel, civil society, labour unions and journalists, as demonstrations continue across the south-east Asian nation against the military takeover last month.
Secretary-General António Guterres has underlined the UN’s determination to continue pursuing a negotiated political settlement to the Syrian civil war, a “living nightmare” that has endured for 10 years now.
Over half the Yemen population is facing acute food shortages “with millions knocking on the door of famine”, the UN food relief agency chief said on Wednesday, wrapping up a two-day visit to the country with an urgent plea for peace and funding to help feed vulnerable families.
Disturbing reports have emerged from North Korea - officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) - that people have starved or been executed because of COVID-19 restrictions, a leading rights expert said on Wednesday.
The political transition in Sudan is moving forward, though formation of the legislative council and other important milestones have yet to be achieved, the head of the new UN mission in the country told a virtual meeting of the Security Council on Tuesday.
The United Nations Secretary-General on Monday called for the safe release of hundreds of peaceful protesters trapped by security forces for several hours in residential buildings in the Yangon neighbourhood of Sanchaung.
USG DiCarlo Remarks at the Security Council Arria Formula Meeting “Leading by Example: Ensuring the Full, Equal and Meaningful Participation of Women in UN-led Peace Processes”
Thank you, Ambassador Nason. I am pleased to be here on International Women’s Day to discuss an issue so fundamental to women’s rights.
Let me begin by congratulating Ireland and Mexico on assuming your roles as chairs of the Security Council’s Informal Experts Group on Women, Peace and Security. Your efforts to bring attention today to the issue of women’s participation in peace processes reflect both the seriousness of the challenges we face and the urgency of action required.
Last year, as we marked the 20th anniversary of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000), the resounding message from women’s activists across the world was clear – far more remains to be done to realise the promise of the women, peace and security agenda.
As the Secretary-General recently reported, women are currently Heads of State or Government in 22 countries, and only 24.9 per cent of national parliamentarians are women. At the current rate of progress, gender equality of Heads of Government level will take another 130 years.
We are, therefore, pleased that this year’s session of the Commission on the Status of Women is devoted to increasing the participation of women in public life – and that includes participation in peace and political processes.
We know that women are essential to identifying durable and inclusive political solutions that can lead to sustainable peace. Yet overcoming the obstacles to their participation – entrenched power politics, patriarchal attitudes and unequal social structures – has no quick fixes.
Comprehensive, long-term efforts are needed from all stakeholders. The United Nations is committed to playing its part.
So you may ask, “What efforts are we making?”
First, we know that we must lead by example.
The Secretary-General is committed to achieving gender parity among UN staff. He has appointed women to serve in over 57 per cent of senior leadership posts in Special Political Missions, including the heads of mission in Afghanistan and Iraq that are the two largest missions.
We have ensured that UN-led and co-led processes consistently include women in mediation support teams. In 2020, 40 per cent of staff working in these teams were women.
And we are committed to meaningful women’s participation in peace processes led by the United Nations. We have made a progress but much more needs to be done.
Second, we are pursuing innovative participation models. In Libya, the UN has facilitated consultations with women’s groups that has led to the inclusion of more women in intra-Libyan dialogues. The UN also ensured 22 percent women’s participation in the 75-person Libyan Political Dialogue Forum meeting last November. The Forum agreed to a new political roadmap with a 30 percent quota for ministers and deputy ministers in governmental agencies. In Yemen, our envoy has held focus groups with over 500 Yemenis, over a third of them women and nearly half youth regarding potential peace negotiations.
There is no substitute for having women at the table, but we have encountered obstacles even in the processes that the UN leads.
To overcome them, we have created women’s advisory boards in Iraq, Syria and Yemen to ensure that women’s voices are taken into account. Members of the Syria advisory group are now sitting at the table in Syria’s Constitutional Committee, which includes 30 percent female membership.
We have strengthened our cooperation with regional women mediator networks. In 2020, this included supporting FemWise deployments to Cote D’Ivoire, Libya, Mali, and South Sudan.
We are also working with international mediators on practical ways to expand women’s participation in peace processes. Since 2013, more than 250 senior envoys, negotiators and experts, from all regions of the world, have participated in the UN High-Level Seminar on Gender-Inclusive Mediation Strategies.
Women’s participation also continues to be a matter of acute concern in peace processes not led by the United Nations.
The Afghanistan peace negotiations that began in September represent a significant step towards peace. Regrettably, women remain underrepresented in both negotiating teams.
The UN has supported the convening of hundreds of Afghan women, over several months, on their priorities for peace negotiations. I travelled to Afghanistan in July 2019 with the Deputy Secretary-General to hear the views of Afghan women on the future of their country.
They were determined to maintain the rights they have gained and eager to lead. They deserve our full support.
And my third and final point - we need sustained funding for our efforts. Every project funded by the UN’s Peacebuilding Fund includes dedicated funding towards women’s empowerment. Since 2018, the Peacebuilding Fund has allocated 40 per cent of its annual total investments towards gender equality initiatives, which in 2020 amounted to $69 million.
Young, marginalized and rural women face additional barriers to their political participation. This is why we have scaled up the Peacebuilding Fund’s Gender and Youth Promotion Initiative from $2.7 million in 2016 to $36.6 million in 2020. In Sudan, these funds will be used to build a diverse, intergenerational group of women leaders from remote, conflict-affected areas to meaningfully engage in peace efforts.
In all these efforts, the UN works closely with partners in pursuit of our common objective of securing women’s participation.
After all, it is clear, that more than 20 years since the adoption of resolution 1325, the hard work of influencing decision-makers, expanding community support for women’s participation, and overcoming structural obstacles, can only be done with the sustained political will, commitment and investment of us all.
Thank you.
