World Food Programme calls for more than $130m to reach displaced people and host communities on the brink
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People who’ve fled Cabo Delgado wait for humanitarian assistance in Palma, Mozambique. Photo: WFP/Sean Rajman
Escalating violence in northern Mozambique is pushing hundreds of thousands of people into food insecurity, according to Lola Castro, the World Food Programme (WFP)‘s Regional Director for Southern Africa.
“The situation is dire,” she says. “The food assistance WFP is providing every month is not enough for people to survive. ”
Without a cash injection of US$132.4 million to sustain operations for a year, rations may be cut and food distribution may stop altogether — the operation needs US$10.5 million for the next month.
World Food Programme and UNICEF call on governments to act on nutrition crisis as Covid-19 school closures reduce the diets of 370 million of the most vulnerable children by 40 percent
Mozambique: Schoolgirls in Beira receive rations before schools close in April. Photo: Karel Prinsloo/Arete/UN Mozambique
(UN News)* — The European Union’s failure to lift 20 million people out of poverty by 2020, is “a defeat for social rights”, an independent UN human rights expert said on Friday [29 January 2021], urging the bloc to boldly rethink its whole socio-economic approach.
World Bank/Mano Strauch | Some 20 million children in the EU are at risk of poverty according to the Special Rapporteur’s report.
“Since the EU has experienced steady economic and employment growth until very recently, the only explanation for this failure is that the benefits have not been evenly distributed”, he said.
30 January 2021 (UN News)* — Reducing inequality is one of the UN’s flagship goals, but the gulf between rich and poor worldwide, remains persistently high. In the first of a special two-part series on the financial sector this weekend, Hiro Mizuno, the newly-appointed UN Special Envoy on Innovative Finance and Sustainable Investments, explains how the industry can help to create a fairer, more equitable world.
Before his appointment as Special Envoy, on 30 December 2020, Mr. Mizuno, of Japan, served as Chief Investment Officer of the Japan Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF). He serves on the board of the Principles for Responsible Investment Association (PRI, an UN-backed body that aims to create sustainable markets that contribute to a more prosperous world for all), and has taken part in UN discussions on promoting the Sustainable Development Goals.
The majority of Americans, and the vast majority of people in other countries throughout the world, heaved a sigh of relief when Joe Biden won the 2020 US presidential election. Hopes for the future soared, as the world seemed to be rid of Trump at last!
There is so much wrong with Donald Trump that one hardly knows where to start. He is a bully, braggart, narcissist, racist, misogynist, habitual liar, and tax evader, in addition to being demonstrably ignorant.
The country’s Environment Ministry is defending the January 29 auction as a conservation strategy, but conservationits say the move is based on false population statistics, disputed claims of human-elephant conflict and puts 3% of Namibia’s last elephants up for sale
Namibian elephants in Etosha. Conservationists estimate that between 73 to 84 percent of the government’s quoted elephant population figure consists of ‘trans-boundary’ elephants, those moving between Namibia, Angola Zambia and Botswana. They put the resident elephant population in Namibia at 5,688. They are worried that with 170 heading to the auction block, Namibia is losing 3 percent of its elephant population. Courtesy: Stephan Scholvin
Ten New Insights into Climate Science, published by the WMO co-sponsored World Climate Research Programme, Future Earth and the Earth League, provided a synthesis of the latest findings for policy and society.
A University of Oxford/UNDP initiative, the survey results span 50 countries, which cover more than half of the world’s population.
Forest on the island of Dominica. With 54% support, the conservation of forests was the most popular climate action policy selected by participants in the Peoples’ Climate Vote. It was the world’s largest climate change public poll. Credit: IPS/Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 27 2021 (IPS)* – Between October and December 2020, something was different for people playing popular video games like Words with Friends, Angry Birds and Subway Surfers. Instead of a traditional 30-second ad, gamers across the world were invited to participate in a climate change survey.
28 January 2021 (UNHCR)* — Alarmed at the increasing frequency of expulsions and pushbacks of refugees and asylum-seekers at Europe’s land and sea borders, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is calling for states to investigate and halt these practices. |Français
“UNHCR has received a continuous stream of reports of some European states restricting access to asylum, returning people after they have reached territory or territorial waters, and using violence against them at borders,” said UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Gillian Triggs.
“The pushbacks are carried out in a violent and apparently systematic way. Boats carrying refugees are being towed back. People are being rounded-up after they land and then pushed back to sea. Many have reported violence and abuse by state forces.”
27 January 2021 (UN News)* — Heavy rains and floods in north-west Syria has worsened the plight of tens of thousands of internally displaced persons, destroying their tents, food and belongings in the midst of winter, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Tuesday [26 January 2021].
UNICEF/Khaled Akacha | A woman tries to rescue her belongings after floods inundated her camp in north-west Syria in January 2021.
At least 196 IDP sites in Idlib and Aleppo reportedly sustained damage, with many roads leading to the camps cut off by heavy rains between 14 and 20 January, the Office said in a humanitarian bulletin. At least 67,600 have reportedly been affected, and more than 3,760 tents destroyed,with over 7,720 damaged.
“Thousands of people have been temporarily relocated, many requiring shelter, food, and non-food item support immediately, and in the long term”, OCHA said.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 