Archive for August 31st, 2023

31/08/2023

UN Summits and High-Level Meetings: More Promises, Less Deliveries

Human Wrongs Watch

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 30 2023 (IPS)* – The United Nations will host six “high-level” meetings, including two summits of world leaders– over a short span of five consecutive days, beginning September 18.
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The 2023 SDG Summit will take place on 18-19 September 2023 in New York. It will mark the beginning of a new phase of accelerated progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals with high-level political guidance on transformative and accelerated actions leading up to 2030. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

The back-to-back meetings, described as unprecedented, includes the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit on September 18-19; a high-level dialogue on Financing for Development (FfD) on September 20; and a ministerial meeting of the Summit of the Future on September 21 (with the summit itself scheduled to take place September 2024).

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31/08/2023

Digging Africa Deeper into Hunger: Annual Green Revolution Forum Ignores Widespread Failure of Its Push for Industrialized Agriculture

Human Wrongs Watch

CAMBRIDGE, MA., Aug 29 2023 (IPS)* – As the adage goes, when you find yourself stuck in a hole, stop digging. As African leaders and their philanthropic and bilateral sponsors prepare for another glitzy African Green Revolution Forum, convening September 5-8 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, they are instead handing out new shovels to dig the continent deeper into a hunger crisis caused in part by their failing obsession with corporate-led industrialized agriculture.

Women share nutritious diverse local crop varieties at 2022 Djimini seed fair in Senegal. The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa is helping rewrite African laws and policies to favor conversion to hybrid and GMO maize seeds. Credit: AFSA or Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA)

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31/08/2023

United Nations’ Chief Calls for End to ‘Atrocious Crime’ of Enforced Disappearances

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — UN Secretary-General António Guterres marked Wednesday’s [] International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance by condemning the “atrocious crime” and urging all Member States to hold those who perpetrate it accountable. 

A protest rally in Mexico City on the case of Ayoitzinapa rural school attended by the 43 disappeared students..
UNIC/Mexico | A protest rally in Mexico City on the case of Ayoitzinapa rural school attended by the 43 disappeared students.

Enforced disappearance has regularly been used as a tool for instilling fear and exert control over a population. The feeling of insecurity it generates is not limited to close relatives of the disappeared, but also their communities and society as a whole.

In a post on social media platform X, The UN chief said enforced disappearance was “a serious human rights violation that has frequently been used to spread terror…I call on countries to help put an end to this atrocious crime”.

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31/08/2023

‘Not the Time to Forget’ Central African Republic: 1 in 3 Suffer Acute Hunger; Children’s Acute Malnutrition the Highest in the World

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — Attacks by armed groups against security forces in the Central African Republic (CAR), combined with increased food and fuel prices and an influx of refugees from Sudan, have aggravated an already fragile humanitarian situation there UN officials said on Tuesday [].
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Poor infrastructure and insecurity remain a major challenge for humanitarians in the Central African Republic. Pictured here is a UN convoy travelling through the Haute-Kotto Prefecture.
© UNOCHA/Enzo Senga | Poor infrastructure and insecurity remain a major challenge for humanitarians in the Central African Republic. Pictured here is a UN convoy travelling through the Haute-Kotto Prefecture.

In a country of some six million people, over two million suffer from acute hunger, and the prevalence of chronic malnutrition in children under five of around 40 per cent is one of the highest in the world, according to the UN famine prevention and response coordination office (OFPRC).

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