UN Gazeti

Wednesday 25 April 2007

Issue No. 218

UN Observances

UN IN KENYA

GC GIVES UN-HABITAT NEW TOOLS TO URBAN POVERTY

The twenty-first session of the Governing Council of UN-HABITAT last week approved a resolution proposed by the Government Kenya giving the agency with new policy instruments to fight urban poverty.

The resolution approved by the 58 governments in the Council that meets every two years to set UN-HABITAT’s work Programme and budget is entitled, “Sustainable public-private partnership incentives for attracting large-scale private sector investment in low-income housing”.
“I am convinced that this further strengthens the focus on partnerships and the need to bring the private sector on board in our mission,” said UN-HABITAT’s Executive Director, Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka. “We are all only too aware that governments alone cannot finance the amount of housing need to lift people out of slums. We have to have the private sector with us here.” The resolution emphasizes the importance of public-private partnerships on poverty reduction and states that public-private partnerships have the potential to contribute to reducing urban poverty by catalyzing market activities to create growth and employment on a wider basis.

For more information, visit http://www.unhabitat.org

GC PASSES LANDMARK RESOLUTION ON LOCAL AUTHORITIES

The Governing Council of UN-HABITAT on Friday 20th April passed a landmark resolution providing new guidelines aimed at strengthening local authorities around the world.

“The resolution on Guidelines on decentralization and strengthening of local authorities has been the fruit of 10 years of labour. It has involved extensive consultations with member States, working with our local authority partners and an untold number of experts,” said UN-HABITAT’s Executive Director Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka in a closing address to the plenary of the Governing Council.

“It gives us the means to engage member States in one of the key aspects of the Habitat Agenda – to support efforts in strengthening the front-line role of local authorities in its implementation,” she told members of the council, a body of 58 member States that oversees the agency. It meets every two years to set UN-HABITAT’s work Programme and budget.

For more information, visit http://www.unhabitat.org

UN IN AFRICA

OCHA DECLARES SOMALIA WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS PLACE FOR AID WORKERS

Somalia has become the most dangerous place in the world for relief workers to operate, the United Nations humanitarian chief warned yesterday, with none of the sides in the deadly fighting that has raged across the capital Mogadishu in recent weeks respecting the rules of war or making any allowance for aid operations.

John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, told the Security Council that the fighting in Somalia is probably the worst in 16 years, since the impoverished country stopped having a functioning national government.

More than 320,000 people have fled Mogadishu since the start of February, and hundreds of others are reported to have been killed in the past week alone as the violence escalate, Mr. Holmes told a closed-door briefing, according to the text of his speech.

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

WFP AND AFRICAN UNION RENEW PARTNERSHIP TO FIGHT HUNGER

The African Union (AU) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) yesterday renewed their strategic partnership to fight hunger and enhance food security, education and emergency response across the continent.

Their cooperation agreement was signed in Addis Ababa by African Union Commissioner Rosebud Kurwijila and WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran.

“The African Union is an important ally in our fight to ensure food security in Africa,” said Ms. Sheeran during a two-day visit to Ethiopia, her first overseas mission as chief of WFP. She voiced hope that the partnership would serve as “the wind beneath our wings” in aiming to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving global hunger by 2015.

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

PEACEKEEPING MISSION CONTINUES IN CÔTE D’IVOIRE

Even after the signing of a peace accord in Côte d’Ivoire, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the West African country still has much work ahead of it, an official for the world body has said.

“I found a very tangible, very perceptible relaxation of the situation in the country,” Under-Secretary-General Hédi Annabi said in a UN radio interview on Monday at the end of a 12-day visit to the divided nation to evaluate the situation on the ground.

Referring to a peace deal struck by the sides in neighbouring Burkina Faso, he said there was a “very clear willingness on the part of Ivorian leaders to implement the Ouagadougou agreement and try to stick as much as possible to the timeline outlined in the Accord.”

 For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

WFP EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR PLEDGES MORE HELP FOR POOR FARMERS                                             

The new Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme, Josette Sheeran, on Monday called on farmers, grain traders, and government officials to support WFP in developing “better models with food aid purchases” that can help poor farmers access markets and assist in solving chronic food insecurity.

Sheeran, on her first field trip as WFP Executive Director, spoke to a wide variety of economists, traders and market experts at two roundtable discussions about local food assistance procurement and its potential for making a positive impact on human development.

“I am convinced that strategically directed local purchase can benefit not only the hungry, but also poor farmers producing food,” said Sheeran. “Food security requires access to food and sustainable production of food.”

For more information, please contact Paulette Jones, email address: paulette.jones@wfp.org

DSG SAYS CONGOLESE PARTIES AGREE TO DIALOGUE AND RECONCILIATION

The United Nations Deputy Secretary-General said today in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that all parties there agree on the need for dialogue and reconciliation in order to achieve lasting peace in the country, where recent clashes have forced thousands to flee in the northeast.
“I carry with me a strong feeling of triumph, having seen the efforts of the National Assembly and its president in promoting reconciliation and dialogue in a bid for unity and to strengthen democracy in the DRC,” said Asha Rose Migiro following a series of high-level meetings in the country.

Ms. Migiro, who also met with the Minster of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said all those she had talked to were “proud that the DRC elections were held in a free and fair manner.”

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

DRC: UN RUSHES AID AS VIOLENT CLASHES DISPLACE TENS OF THOUSANDS

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are rushing aid to mitigate the suffering of tens of thousands of people forced to flee their homes after an outbreak of fighting in north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

In North Kivu province alone, close to 65,000 people have been displaced in recent weeks due to intensified fighting between militias and government forces.

Some of the internally displaced people (IDPs) are living in makeshift camps approximately 100 kilometres from the city of Goma in the country’s north-east, while thousands of others are living in the bush – hiding during the day and going to their fields at night.

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

UN AROUND THE WORLD

SG AND SYRIAN LEADER DISCUSS LEBANON

Regional peace and security and the situation in neighbouring Lebanon in the wake of last year’s war topped the agenda during talks yesterday in Damascus between Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Mr. Ban and Mr. Assad had a 75-minute tête-à-tête in which the Syrian President assured the UN leader of cooperation in all matters relating to peace and security in the Middle East, including the Security Council resolution ending the war in Lebanon, UN spokesperson Michele Montas told journalists.

The Secretary-General and his delegation, who are on the final leg of a four-nation tour, also met with Vice President Farouk al-Shara and Foreign Minister Walid el-Muallem.

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

YOUTH DELEGATES AT UN MEETING PLEDGE STEPS TO PROMOTE ROAD SAFETY

A United Nations-sponsored gathering of young people from around the world has issued a global call to arms for governments, schools, universities, the media, the entertainment industry, bartenders and youths themselves to take action to improve road safety for young people – who are more likely to be killed by road accidents than any other cause.

Some 400 participants at the World Youth Assembly, a two-day event concluding yesterday at the UN in Geneva, issued a declaration urging young people to “stand up and participate in local, national and international road safety campaigns and Programmes.”

They pledged to set their own example for others by taking practical steps, from always wearing seat belts and motorcycle helmets to refraining from speeding or drink driving.

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

UN POLITICAL CHIEF CHAIRS MEETING ON BRINGING PEACE TO COLOMBIA

The top United Nations political officer has presided over a meeting bringing together the world body’s senior officials and high-level representatives from the Government of Colombia to discuss efforts to bring peace to the South American country which has seen more than 40 years of fighting between the Government, leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and criminal gangs.

Chaired by Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Lynn B. Pascoe, the meeting on Monday “allowed an open and constructive exchange on the United Nations’ work in Colombia, as well as on the status of peace efforts in Colombia,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters yesterday in New York.

At the discussions, UN officials told the Colombian delegation, led by Vice President Francisco Santos and Foreign Minister Fernando Araújo, that Mr. Ban is willing to utilize his good offices in support of a negotiated solution.

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

NEPAL: A YEAR AFTER ‘PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT’ SPARKED CHANGE, UN ENVOY HAILS PROGRESS

One year after democracy and human rights demonstrators sparked a series of events that led Nepal to embark on a peace process, the senior United Nations envoy there said yesterday that the determination of the country’s people to ensure its success remains a cause for optimism.
“This is a key moment in the peace process in Nepal,” said Ian Martin, Special Representative of the Secretary-General in the south Asian nation of 27 million people. Mr. Martin heads the UN Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), which is mandated to support Nepal’s peace process by monitoring the arms and armed personnel of the former adversaries and by assisting the election for a Constituent Assembly.

A decade-long armed conflict which brought a death toll of 13,000 and paralyzed life in the countryside came to a formal end with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord last November. A year ago this week, a 19-day “people’s movement” which saw hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets in cities and towns across the country culminated in the king relinquishing executive power and reinstating Parliament.

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

2008 BEIJING SUMMER OLYMPICS CAN BOOST DEVELOPMENT AND PEACE

Next summer’s Beijing Olympics provides a unique opportunity for the United Nations to promote development and peace-building activities, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace said yesterday.

Adolf Ogi is scheduled to meet on Thursday with Liu Qi, President of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad to discuss its collaboration with the UN. “The Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics promises to be an historic event for the world of sports and for people worldwide,” Mr. Ogi said.

“The United Nations is increasingly cooperating with the International Olympic Committee on development and peace-building activities, and the Beijing Olympics is a tremendous opportunity as well as a great responsibility.”

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

CYPRUS: UN POLL FINDS MAJORITY BACKING IN BOTH COMMUNITIES FOR FEDERAL SETTLEMENT

A federal settlement is the only proposal to resolve the Cyprus problem that enjoys majority support in both communities on the Mediterranean island, but there is widespread scepticism that any solution is imminent, according to an inter-communal survey conducted by the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP).

The survey of 1,000 Greek Cypriots, 1,000 Turkish Cypriots and 300 people living within the UN Buffer Zone (100 Turkish Cypriots and 250 Greek Cypriots), conducted in February and released yesterday, found that both communities consider the UN has an important role to play and welcomed its continuing presence across the island.

But a majority of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots believed the UN was biased in favour of the other community, and they were also wary of the true intentions and preferences of the other side.

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

SG EXPRESSES SADNESS AT DEATH OF YELTSIN

Voicing sadness yesterday at the death of Boris Yeltsin, the Russian Federation’s first democratically elected president, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recalled the critical role he played in promoting political and economic reforms in his country.

Mr. Ban also remembered the efforts of Mr. Yeltsin – who served as president from 1991 to 1999 – “in fostering rapprochement between East and West,” his spokesperson said in a statement issued at UN Headquarters in New York.

“The Secretary-General extends his heartfelt condolences to Mr. Yeltsin’s family and to the people and Government of the Russian Federation.”

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

For more information on the United Nations and its activities, please visit the main U.N website at www.un.org or the U.N Kenya website at www.un-kenya.org