The environment is key component to antimicrobial resistance and according to the World Health Organization, we may be entering a post-antibiotic era when simple and previously treatable, bacterial infections will no longer be possible.
The body – which is designed to ensure that the Principles for Responsible Banking remain relevant and that the signatories are accountable to civil society – is the only instance of a sustainable finance initiative having such significant civil society input.
Mario Lubetkin is Assistant Director General at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
ROME, Nov 27 2020 (IPS)* – Overcoming the digital gap to face food insecurity with the use of artificial intelligence practices in agriculture is part of a growing debate that seeks to simultaneously safeguard natural resources and address the difficulties generated by climate change and the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Digital technologies are changing agriculture and food systems. It is important to bridge the digital gap in this sector so that family farmers in developing countries are not left behind as food security depends on them. Credit: FAO.
United Nations* — This study has been prepared by the Division for Palestinian Rights of the United Nations Secretariat for, and under the guidance of, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, in pursuance of General Assembly resolution 32/40 B of 2 December 1977.
UN Photo
The study was published in keeping with the following guiding principles suggested by the Committee:
“The study should place the problem in its historical perspective, emphasizing the national identity and rights of the Palestinian people. It should survey the course of the problem during the period of the League of Nations Mandate and show how it came before the United Nations. It should also cover the period of United Nations involvement in the problem.”
29 November 2020 (UN News)* — Commemorating the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders to explore every opening to “restore hope” for a two-State solution.
UNRWA/Khalil Adwan | Palestine refugee students in a classroom at an UNRWA elementary co-ed school.
In a message, the UN chief cautioned that prospects for a viable two-State solution are becoming “more distant”.
“A host of factors continue to cause great misery, including: the expansion of illegal settlements, a significant spike in the demolition of Palestinian homes and structures, violence and continued militant activity,” said Mr. Guterres.
18 November 2020 (UNEP)* — Today, when students file into the lunchroom at Mundika High School in western Kenya, they are greeted by a spread of nutritious local vegetables with exotic-sounding names, like spider plant. But that wasn’t always the case. Just a few years ago, that fare had largely disappeared from Kenyan plates, replaced by cheaper foreign-derived foods, like cabbage and maize meal.
Photo: Aurillia Manjella / 18 Nov 2020
“The first time we introduced indigenous African leafy vegetables in a school meal programme, we didn’t know how the students would respond,” said Aurillia Manjella, an agricultural consultant who helped Mundika high, and several other schools, integrate traditional foods into their menus.
27 November 2020 (IWGIA)* — In Peru, the Bagua Massacre prompted the adoption of the ILO Convention 169 in response to local demands and international pressure. However, far from respecting the communities’ decision, this has led to simulations of consultations that prevent the Indigenous Peoples from exercising their right to autonomy and self-determination. The consultation process, as outlined by the State, has become a threat.
Prior consultation for lot 192 in 2015. Photo: PUINAMUDTThe obligation of States to conduct processes of free, prior and informed consultation and to obtain the consent of the Indigenous or original peoples is a right established by Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 1989 and was one of the major vindications enshrined in this global instrument.
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 27 2020 (IPS)* – The numbers are staggering— as reflected in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic which has triggered a new round of food shortages, famine and starvation.
In 2019, Ethiopia experienced the fifth-worst food crisis worldwide. Credit: FAO/IFAD/WFP/Michael Tewelde
According to the Rome-based World Food Programme (WFP) 690 million people do not have enough to eat. while 130 million additional people risk being pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of the year.
“Hunger is an outrage in a world of plenty. An empty stomach is a gaping hole in the heart of a society,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last week pointing out that famine is looming in several countries.
NEW YORK, 25 November 2020 – “UNICEF urges parties to the conflict in Ethiopia to spare children from the impact of hostilities in the Tigray region, now in their third week.
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UNICEF/UN0371489/Hamid/AFPAn Ethiopian refugee child who fled fighting in Tigray province, sleeps in a hut at the Um Raquba camp in Sudan’s eastern Gedaref province, on 16 November 16 2020.
“Some 500,000 people live in Mekelle, half of them are children. UNICEF is deeply alarmed that the two parties’ threat of a further escalation in the fighting would put their lives and well-being at immediate risk.
(UN News)* — As efforts to find safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19 are showing increasing promise, the African continent is “far from ready” to roll out what will be its largest ever immunization drive, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday [26 November 2020].
UNICEF/Nahom Tesfaye | A health worker prepares a vaccine injection for administration. (file photo)
Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa highlighted the importance of strong planning and preparation for successful inoculations against COVID-19.
“The largest immunization drive in Africa’s history is right around the corner, and African governments must urgently ramp up readiness. Planning and preparation will make or break this unprecedented endeavour,” she said.
25 November 2020 (Wall Street International)* — The recent meeting of the G20 – scheduled to take place in Riyadh but held virtually due to the Coronavirus pandemic – has been an eloquent example of how the world is drifting, in a crisis of leadership. It was, in a sense, a showcase.
Everybody had to accept the view that the host of the meeting, the ailing King Salman of Saudi Arabia, was accompanied on TV screens by his apparent heir, Prince Mohamed bin Salman, who is clearly the mastermind of the brutal assassination, dismembering and disappearance of the body of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
26 November 2020 (UNEP)* — Over the last 30 years, more and more tea, coffee and cocoa farmers have embraced towards climate-smart and sustainable practices by adopting “certification standards” that help to maintain soil quality, increase productivity and reduce costs. The standards also assure buyers of agricultural commodities that the products in their supply chains are environmentally sustainable.
Photo by Rainforest Alliance / 26 Nov 2020
In July 2020, a milestone was reached when United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) partner, the Rainforest Alliance, published its new unified standard (certification programme) for production systems that conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services.
The standard applies to over 5 million hectares of tropical farmland, impacting the livelihoods of over 2 million farming families.
ROME, 26 November 2020 (FAO)* — More than three billion people live in agricultural areas with high to very high levels of water shortages and scarcity, and almost half of them face severe constraints. Furthermore, available freshwater resources per person have declined by more than 20 percent over the past two decades globally, underscoring the importance of producing more with less, especially in the agriculture sector, the world’s largest user of water.
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 25 2020 (IPS)* – The construction of a five-star hotel in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh, could lead to the forced eviction of the Mro indigenous community from their ancestral lands and destroy “the social, economic, traditional and cultural fabric of the community”, warns Amnesty International.
25 November 2020 (IWGIA)* — Injustice regarding the validity of ancestral knowledge has been one of the many racist practices established by the colony. For five centuries, a systematic attack has persisted, in a bid to bring an end to the creation, conservation and transmission of the knowledge of native peoples.
The world of the Q’eqchí. Photo: AEPDI – Q’eqchi Ombudsman Office
In recent decades, religious fundamentalism has rebooted this symbolic violence to divide Indigenous communities and benefit from the installation of extractive projects and large-scale agricultural monocultures.
26 November 2020 (UNHCR)* –Over 40,000 Ethiopians have fled the Tigray crisis into eastern Sudan, with no sign of a let-up in new arrivals. Many anxiously hope to be reunited with their families.
Lezabu is frantic with worry. The single mother-of-three has not seen two of her daughters since she fled the crisis in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region and crossed into eastern Sudan.
This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at today’s [24 November 2020] press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.| Español | Français|عربي
24 November 2020 (UNHCR)* –The number of Ethiopian refugees streaming into eastern Sudan has now surpassed 40,000 since the crisis began, with more than 5,000 women, children and men fleeing the ongoing fighting in the Tigray region over the weekend.
On November 4, 2020, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appeared on state television and acknowledged that he ordered the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) to commence operations against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in response to what he described as attacks by TPLF forces on Ethiopian military bases and federal forces in the regional capital of Mekelle, and at other camps in the Tigray region.
(By UN News)* — Israel’s military operations and prolonged closure of Gaza, has caused economic damage of $16.7 billion between 2007 and 2018, driving the poverty rate up almost fourfold compared to what it might have otherwise been, the UN trade and development agency UNCTAD said in a report published on Wednesday [25 November 2020].
UNRWA/Khalil Adwan | Families in Gaza receive food baskets through the UNRWA home delivery programme.
(UN News)* — Lethal cluster munitions are still being used in old and new conflicts around the world, from Syria to Libya, to Nagorno-Karabakh, a UN-backed civil society report said on Wednesday [25 November 2020].
MAG Lebanon | Landmines are cleared in Lebanon.
Over the last decade, the hair-trigger devices have caused more than 4,300 recorded casualties in 20 countries, according to the Cluster Munition Monitor 2020, although it said that the true number is likely much higher.
Between August 2010 and July 2020, cluster munitions were deployed in seven countries that have not signed the global disarmament treaty banning them: Cambodia, Libya, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen.
25 November 2020 (UN News)* — Approximately once every minute and 40 seconds, a child or young person under the age of 20 was infected with HIV last year, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has reported, calling on governments to “protect, sustain and accelerate” efforts to combat childhood HIV.
UNICEF/Frank Dejongh | An HIV-positive woman receives medication for her three-day-old baby at a hospital in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Critical HIV services in many countries have been disrupted due to the coronavirus pandemic.
(London) – Major jewelry companies are improving their sourcing of gold and diamonds, but most cannot assure consumers that their jewelry is untainted by human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on 24 November 2020 in advance of the holiday shopping season.
23 November 2020 (UNEP)* — As satellites from NASA zipped over the planet Earth yesterday, they saw what they have seen every day for months: fires, hundreds of them, tearing through virgin rainforest and other vital ecosystems.
Many of the blazes, which come at the tail end of a devastating fire season, are believed to have been set by farmers eager to clear land and sate the booming global demand for beef and soybeans.
A new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report, jointly produced with the International Resource Panel, says that type of unbridled international trade is having a damaging effect not only on rainforests but the entire planet.
KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, Nov 24 2020 (IPS)* – The World Bank has been leading other multilateral development banks (MDBs) and international financial institutions to press developing country governments to ‘de-risk’ infrastructure and other private, especially foreign investments.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
They promote public-private partnerships (PPPs) supposedly to mobilize more private finance to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
PPP advocacy has been stepped up after developing countries’ pleas for better international tax cooperation were blocked at the third United Nations’ Financing for Development conference (FfD3) in Addis Ababa in mid-2015.
Official support for infrastructure PPPs seems stronger than ever. The Bank’s Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF) was set up to coordinate MDBs, private investors and governments promoting PPPs. Meanwhile, the G20 has been trying to modify the mandates of national and international development banks to enable them to initiate infrastructure PPPs with the private sector. Continue reading →
(UN News)* — The Desert Locust crisis which struck the greater Horn of Africa region earlier this year threatening food supplies for millions, could re-escalate as recent strong winds carried mature swarmlets from southern Somalia into eastern and northeastern Kenya, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Tuesday [24 November 2020].
Although some of the swarmlets that reached Kenya may have already laid eggs before their arrival, there remains a risk of further egg-laying in sandy areas that saw recent rainfalls, according to FAO.
“In this case, hatching and hopper band formation can be expected in early December,” said the agency.
24 November 2020 (FAO)* — Months before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the FAO-led report, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020, had identified Africa as the region with the fastest-growing number of undernourished people.
In the absence of a dramatic change of fortunes, the report said, Africa was on course to overtake Asia and host more than half of the world’s hungry by 2030. And this, with less than a fifth of the global population.
20 November 2020 (IWGIA)* — After resisting the policy of forced assimilation enforced during the decades of military rule, today Indigenous peoples of Myanmar are subjected to land dispossession in the name of boosting economic development and implementation of the country’s climate commitments.
Community, part of the Karen people. Photo: Alejandro Parellada
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is home to 54 million people, including more than 135 ethnic groups and Indigenous Peoples. Myanmar is thus considered to be one of the most ethnically diverse countries in Southeast Asia.
(UN Women)* — “My indigenous community is hardworking, and a place where women have taken leadership roles in the fight to recover ancestral land,” says Luz Angélica Tarapuez, from the municipality of Cumbal, in the department of Nariño, on the Colombian-Ecuadorian border.
Luz Angelica Tarapuez. Photo: UN Women/Hombres en Marcha
She is among 94 indigenous women and farm workers who have attended the training school, ‘Soy Rosita, soy mujer, soy campesina, soy indígena’ [I am Rosita, I am a woman, I am a farmer, I am indigenous].
UN Women’s Generation Equality campaign is amplifying the call for global action to bridge funding gaps, ensure essential services for survivors of violence during the COVID-19 crisis, focus on prevention, and collection of data that can improve life-saving services for women and girls.
The campaign is part of UN Women’s efforts for Beijing+25 and building up to launch bold new actions and commitments to end violence against women at the Generation Equality Forum in Mexico and France in 2021.
The UN System together with UN Women is joining hands with survivors, activists, decision-makers, and people from every walk of life, to shine a light on the need for funding, essential services, prevention and data that shapes better-informed responses. | PHOTO:UN Women
24 November 2020 (United Nations)* — Since the outbreak of COVID-19, emerging data and reports from those on the front lines, have shown that all types of violence against women and girls, particularly domestic violence, has intensified.
This is the Shadow Pandemic growing amidst the COVID-19 crisis and we need a global collective effort to stop it.
(UN News)* — COVID-19 is overshadowing what has become a “pandemic of femicide” and related gender-based violence against women and girls, said independent UN human rights expert Dubravka Šimonović on Monday [23 November 2020], calling for the universal establishment of national initiatives to monitor and prevent such killings.
UN Women/Alfredo Guerrero | Labels with the names of victims of femicide, as well as the ‘unknown’ represent the victims of femicide at an exhibition in Mexico.
Ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, marked on 25 November, Ms. Šimonović said the rise in femicides and violence was “taking the lives of women and girls everywhere” around the world, as the coronavirus continues to rage out of control.
(UN News)* — Levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere hit a new record of 410.5 parts per million in 2019, and are expected to keep rising this year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin on Monday [23 November 2020].
Unsplash/Johannes Plenio | Carbon dioxide levels continue at record levels, despite the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We breached the global threshold of 400 parts per million in 2015. And just four years later, we crossed 410 ppm. Such a rate of increase has never been seen in the history of our records. The lockdown-related fall in emissions is just a tiny blip on the long-term graph. We need a sustained flattening of the curve”, WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement.
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 20 2020(IPS)* – The world’s major military powers exercise their dominance largely because of their massive weapons arsenals, including sophisticated fighter planes, drones, ballistic missiles, warships, battle tanks, heavy artillery—and nuclear weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
Credit: United Nations
But the sudden surge in the coronavirus pandemic last week, particularly in the US and Europe, has resurrected the lingering question that cries out for an answer:
Will overwhelming fire power and WMDs become obsolete if biological weapons, currently banned by a UN convention, are used in wars in a distant future?
According to the latest figures from Cable News Network (CNN), the grim statistics of the coronavirus pandemic include 56.4 million infections and 1.5 million deaths worldwide.
As of last week, the US alone has been setting records: more than 11.5 million pandemic cases and over 250,500 deaths since last March, with more than 193,000 infections every day.
Pneumonia kills more children than any other infectious disease.
UNICEF/UN0198282/Njiokiktjien VII Photo
(UNICEF)* — Many people associate pneumonia with the elderly, but it is actually the biggest infectious killer of children worldwide. It claims the lives of over 800,000 children under five every year, including over 153,000 newborns, who are particularly vulnerable to infection. That means a child dies from pneumonia every 39 seconds and almost all of these deaths are preventable.
(UN News)* — UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is working with more than 350 logistics partners, including major airlines, shipping lines and logistics associations from around the world, to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to over 92 countries, as soon as doses become available, the UN agency said on Monday [23 November 2020].
UNICEF/Fernandez | A UNICEF staff member watches as several tons of supplies to combat COVID-19 are unloaded at Venezuela’s main airport in Caracas. (August 2020)
Etleva Kadilli, Director of UNICEF’s Supply Division, highlighted the importance of the partnership to ensure capacity for the massive undertaking.
“As work continues to develop COVID-19 vaccines, UNICEF is stepping-up efforts with airlines, freight operators, shipping lines and other logistics associations to deliver life-saving vaccines as quickly and safely as possible,” she said.
20 November 2020 (IWGIA)* — The Peace Agreement signed in 2016 between the Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) raised hopes among the Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant populations and peasant communities that they might henceforward be able to live in peace on their territories.
Demonstration of Indigenous Peoples in Colombia. Photo: Archivo Semana
However, Iván Duque’s new government has not fulfilled its side of the agreement and, far from incorporating areas abandoned by the guerrilla into the institutional life of the country, the end result is that these areas have been left to their own devices.
20 November 2020 (IWGIA)* — Despite its function being to fight drug trafficking, the National Commission for Development and Life without Drugs (DEVIDA) has been financing the titling of lands claimed by Indigenous People in favour of individuals who indiscriminately cut down forests and practice illegal agriculture.
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Arbildo Meléndez Grandes was killed while out hunting and fishing to provide for his family. Photo: Aidesep.
Far from providing a response, the public body denies all responsibility, instead of shifting it onto regional governments. Meanwhile, attacks on Indigenous leaders and harassment of Amazonian communities are mounting.
‘Act urgently’ to stave off catastrophic famine in Yemen: UN chief to international community
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YPN for UNOCHA | A family in the Al Dhale’e camp for people displaced by the conflict in Yemen.
(UN News)* — Yemen is in “imminent danger of the worst famine the world has seen for decades”, the UN chief warned in a statement released on Friday [20 November 2020], calling for urgent action on the part of the international community to “stave off catastrophe”.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that without immediate action to protect civilians battered and starved, after more than five years of grinding civil conflict, “millions of lives may be lost.”
(Greenpeace International)* — November 21st marks World Fisheries Day, and whilst there’s plenty to celebrate about small and sustainable fisheries ALL around the world, there is a huge shadow cast by a few greedy, corporate entities which we cannot afford to ignore.
21 November marks World Fisheries Day, celebrating a profession and a way of life that supports the livelihoods of 1 out of every 10 people on the planet
21 November 2020 (FAO)* — To celebrate World Fisheries Day on 21 November, FAO and the Holy See will jointly organize an event aimed at focusing international attention on the need to improve working conditions in the fisheries sector.
19 November 2020 (FAO)* — Wasted food. Polluted seas. Landfill sites full to bursting. After years of using our precious natural resources as if they were limitless, the outcomes of our behaviours are making it clear that it is time to change our ways. And the answer? Well, a no-waste, environmentally and socially considerate bioeconomy is an excellent place to start.
TINDOUF, Algeria, Nov 16 2020 (IPS)* – For my entire life, I have been forgotten. I am a Sahrawi refugee, born and raised in the Algerian desert, where my people have remained displaced for 45 years, awaiting the moment when we can finally return to our homeland, Western Sahara.
Women in Smara camp – the largest of the five refugee camps – collect their monthly distribution of produce from humanitarian agencies. For many families, these are the only fresh vegetables they have access to, resulting in widespread health conditions related to nutritional deficiencies among the refugee population. Credit: Adad Ammi via Oxfam International
French youth music group, Kids United New Generation, has lent their voices to the ILO’s global campaign to end child labour. Their latest song highlights the urgent need to take action and calls on governments and organizations around the world to do more. | español | français | Türkçe
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GENEVA, 20 November 2020 (ILO)* – The French musical group, Kids United New Generation , have joined the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) campaign to end child labour.
20 November 2020 (UN News)* — Engineer, nurse, breakdancer, shepherd, human rights lawyer, journalist, musician and president are just some of the future dreams harboured by young displaced people in the Sahel region of Africa.
One Day, I Will by Vincent Tremeau presented by UNOCHA
One day I will be a: teacher: Sakima from Niger; shepherd: Abdel, Niger; nurse: Maimouna, Central African Republic.
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Children across the region have been asked what they want to be when they grow up as part of a UN photography exhibition entitled “One Day, I will” and while their hopes may match those of other young people around the world, their opportunities, after fleeing their homes, are perhaps more limited.
(UN News)* — The global community is marking World Children’s Day on Friday [20 November 2020], calling for societies to “reimagine a better future” for every child, where each one has the opportunity to thrive.
UNICEF/Dejongh | A girl writes on a blackboard at a school in Fada, eastern Burkina Faso, after returning to her class. Schools in the country had been closed for months due to COVID-19 mitigation measures.
In a joint message, President of the European Parliament David Sassoli and UNICEFExecutive Director Henrietta Fore called for urgent investment to protect children’s futures.
As the world responds to the COVID-19 pandemic, “the rights of every child everywhere, need to come first in any recovery plan”, they stated.
20 November 2020 (UNEP)* — It is a global rallying cry for everyone – from governments to multinational companies, to school children – to get involved in reviving damaged ecosystems.
To mark World Children’s Day, which is 20 November, the United Nations Environment Programme recreated the journey of one young girl as she learns about the value of the natural world and how to protect it.
