29 November 2017 – With actors from the Global South increasingly among the frontline responders in fragile and protracted crises, fully leveraging the comparative advantage of South-South cooperation has the potential to have great humanitarian and development impact, a senior United National relief official said Wednesday.

This message was delivered by Ursula Mueller, the Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, to the final Leadership Roundtable of the Global South-South Development Expo 2017, which is under way in Antalya, Turkey.

“Southern actors respond as donors, hosts, operational and technical partners. They lend a crucial perspective for oftentimes they have faced similar challenges and know all too well that saving lives is just the first of many steps,” said Ms. Mueller as she co-chaired the discussion, under the theme ‘South-South Cooperation for Peace, Prosperity and Partnership: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need – Advancing the 2030 Agenda in Crisis Contexts.’

Ms. Mueller is participating in the 2017 Global Expo along with other senior UN officials, government ministers, national development agency directors, and civil society representatives, who have gathered to share innovative local solutions and push for scaling up concrete initiatives from the Global South to achieve the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“South-South Cooperation is about saving livelihoods and sustainable solutions. It is about offering a helping hand to nations as equal partners. And it is about sharing experiences and lessons learned, knowledge and technical expertise,” noted Ms. Mueller, who is also the UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator.

This year, the UN global humanitarian appeal reached $24 billion to help 145 million people. “Even though donors contributed $11 billion so far this year, the funding gap remains wide,” warned Ms. Mueller.

Nine UN agencies, with support from the World Bank, adopted the New Way of Working at the Istanbul World Humanitarian Summit in May 2016.

“The New Way of Working aims to transcend the divide between short-term humanitarian action and long-term development by fostering closer collaboration between humanitarian and development actors in fragile contexts – where conditions allow – so that we not only save lives, but also reduce need and build resilience,” emphasized Ms. Mueller.

Following her visit to Antalya, Ms. Mueller will go to Gaziantep, the largest and most populous city in southern Turkey, which has hosted hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled from Syria.

“In Gaziantep, I will have opportunity to see close to the Syrian border how the humanitarian operation is working,” Ms. Mueller told UN News.

“There are still 13 million people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance inside Syria. We as humanitarians have to keep every possibility open for access to Syrians inside Syria. And we are grateful for the support by the Turkish Government to enable cross-border operations,” she said.

In 2016, Turkey was the world’s second largest humanitarian donor and most generous country in terms of ratio to its national income, spending $6 billion on humanitarian assistance. Turkey now hosts 3.2 million refugees from Syria.

Ms. Mueller met Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavusoglu in Antalya on the first day of the Global Expo and said the meeting provided an opportunity to thank the Turkish Government and Turkish people […] I commend them for the services, the protection they provide for the Syrian refuges,” she stated.

“With the Foreign Minister, I also raised the extension of Security Council resolution 2165 (2014) that provides modality to deliver humanitarian assistance into Syria from Turkey. This is a very important way and entry point of humanitarian assistance into Syria. And it depends on the extension of the resolution. And I was requesting the Foreign Minister to use his influence and good efforts that he will do everything that is possible to support the extension of this resolution,” she explained.

On Tuesday, Ms. Mueller also visited Ankara, the capital city of Turkey, to meet with senior officials and Presidents of Turkish Red Crescent and AFAD, both of which have been playing an active role in providing humanitarian assistance in several the world’s humanitarian crises, including in Syria.

29 November 2017 – After unprecedented global success in controlling malaria, progress has stalled, the United Nations health agency reported Wednesday, citing an estimated four million more cases in 2016 than in 2015, and around 445,000 deaths.

The 2017 World Malaria Report presents a comprehensive state of play in global progress in the fight against malaria.

“In recent years, we have made major gains in the fight against malaria,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO).

“We are now at a turning point. Without urgent action, we risk going backwards, and missing the global malaria targets for 2020 and beyond,” he added.

The WHO Global Technical Strategy for Malaria calls for reductions of at least 40 per cent in malaria case incidence and mortality rates by the year 2020. Yet, according to the new report, the world is not on track to reach these critical milestones.

A major problem is insufficient funding, resulting in major coverage gaps for insecticide-treated nets, medicines and other life-saving tools.

In 2016, a $2.7 billion investment in malaria control efforts was well below the global $6.5 billion required annually by 2020 to meet the 2030 targets of the WHO global malaria strategy. Providing $800 million, governments of endemic countries represented 31 per cent of the total funding.

Probing the numbers

The report shows that, in 2016, there were an estimated 216 million cases of malaria in 91 countries – up from 211 million cases in 2015 – with a global malaria death tally estimated at 445,000 compared to 446,000 the previous year.

While the rate of new cases of malaria has fallen overall, since 2014 the trend has levelled off and even reversed in some regions. Malaria mortality rates followed a similar pattern.

The African region continues to bear an estimated 90 per cent of all malaria cases and deaths worldwide, with 15 countries – all but one in sub-Saharan Africa – carrying 80 per cent of the global malaria burden.

“Clearly, if we are to get the global malaria response back on track, supporting the most heavily affected countries in the African region must be the primary focus,” said Mr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

In most malaria-affected countries, sleeping under an insecticide-treated bednet (ITN) is the most common and effective infection-prevention method. Spraying insecticide inside homes is also effective.

While the African region has seen a major increase in diagnostic testing in the public health sector – with 70 per cent of those treated having received artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), the most effective antimalarial medicines – access to the public health system in many areas remains low. National-level surveys there show that only about 34 per cent of children with a fever see a public health medical provider.

The report also outlines additional challenges in the global malaria response, including the risks posed by conflict and crises in malaria endemic zones. WHO is currently supporting malaria responses in Nigeria, South Sudan, Venezuela and Yemen, where ongoing humanitarian crises pose serious health risks.

“We are at a crossroads in the response to malaria,” said Dr. Pedro Alonso, Director of the WHO Global Malaria Programme.

“We hope this report serves as a wake-up call for the global health community. Meeting the global malaria targets will only be possible through greater investment and expanded coverage of core tools that prevent, diagnose and treat malaria. Robust financing for the research and development of new tools is equally critical,” he asserted.

29 November 2017 – United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres “strongly condemns” the launch of yet another ballistic missile by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), his Spokesman has said.

“This is a clear violation of Security Council resolutions and shows complete disregard for the united view of the international community,” said UN Spokesman Stéphane Dujarric in a statement issued overnight, following the DPRK’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile on Tuesday, which according to news reports landed in the Sea of Japan.

“The Secretary-General urges the DPRK to desist from taking any further destabilising steps. The Secretary-General reaffirms his commitment to working with all parties to reduce tensions,” Mr. Dujarric said.

Meanwhile, the Security Council is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting later today to discuss responses to the latest DPRK’s missile launch.

28 November 2017 – The head of the United Nations Office against Terrorism, Vladimir Voronkov, told the Security Council on Tuesday that the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters requires an urgent and concerted response and that UN Member States should strengthen their cooperation to tackle it.

Mr. Voronkov, Under-Secretary-General of the recently-created UN Office of Counter-Terrorism told the Council that at one time, more than 40,000 combatants from over 110 countries had joined terrorist groups fighting in Syria and Iraq.

“The threat stemming from foreign terrorist fighters (FTF) affects all Member States, even those far away from the conflict zones,” he said, laying out the scale of the problem.

Noting that while travel measures implemented by countries and military victories against the so-called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or Daesh) have “significantly decreased” flows to the region, combatants have since tried to relocate to Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan – fuelling existing conflicts in these countries.

Meanwhile, some 5,600 fighters from 33 nations have returned home, many equipped to carry attacks out on their native soil, or drum up new recruits.

“Returning foreign terrorist fighters pose an enormous challenge with no easy solution,” Mr. Voronkov continued.

“A tempting response, and certainly the easiest one, would to be throw all returnees into prison […] But full compliance with international law is vital to combat the threat of foreign terrorist fighters,” he stressed.

Vladimir Voronkov, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Office, addresses the Security Council meeting on threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts and foreign terrorst fighters. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

Michèle Coninsx, Executive Director of the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED). UN Photo/Evan Schneider

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Lone terrorists, an alarming trend

Speaking on behalf of the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), Executive Director Michÿle Coninsx strongly condemned the recent “heinous and cowardly terrorist attack” in Egypt, and expressed her deepest condolences to the families of all victims of terror attacks.

“All acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation,” she told the Council.

Despite recent successes, Ms. Coninsx acknowledged the significant challenges posed by the global terrorist threat. She noted the accelerated rate with which foreign terrorist fighters are returning to their original or a third State, along with an increase in the percentage of terrorist plots resulting in fatalities.

“Of particular concern is the increasing trend towards attacks carried out by lone terrorists, who are often guided by handlers located in other parts of the world,” she underscored.

“Many recent attacks that appear to have been inspired by ISIL, conducted in its name, or claimed by ISIL, were initially reported as ‘lone actor’ attacks. Subsequent investigations have shown however, that those individuals received support or resources from elsewhere, often via the Internet or social media,” Ms. Coninsx added, pointing out that terrorists are also increasingly using new technologies to transfer funds to those individuals.

She cited a number of challenges in combatting foreign terrorist fighters, saying “International cooperation continues to be undermined by practical and political challenges, as well as by inconsistent compliance with human rights obligations.”

The Executive Director espoused the importance of strengthening partnerships between and among Member States, UN agencies and partner organizations, asserting: “It takes networks to beat networks.”

28 November 2017 – United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today reiterated that he would continue to work to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve a two-state solution, and vowed to denounce hate speech aimed at Israelis.

“I will continue to speak out against anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, hate speech and the use of anti-Semitic appeals by violent extremist groups to recruit new followers,” Mr. Guterres said in remarks delivered by his Chef de Cabinet, Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, at the Queens Museum in New York.

The event marked the 70th anniversary of General Assembly Resolution 181, which called for the division of the former British mandate for Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.

Adopted on 29 November 1947, the resolution led to the birth of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948.

“Resolution 181 was subsequently cited in the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel, marking the beginning of a relationship between Israel and the United Nations that has endured and deepened, even during challenging times,” Mr. Guterres said.

He noted that since becoming a UN Member State in 1949, the cooperation between the UN and Israel has grown in peacekeeping, sustainable development and disaster relief, among others.

Having visited Israel three months ago, Mr. Guterres said he saw “remarkable examples of innovation and solutions” that can help all countries fight climate change and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.