28 November 2017 – While their numbers have dropped in recent weeks, hundreds of Rohingya refugees are still crossing the border into Bangladesh from Myanmar every day, the United Nations migration agency said Tuesday.

&#8220People are still arriving in the settlements with horrifying accounts of physical and sexual abuse, harassment and murder. All of them fear for family members left behind in Myanmar,&#8221 said Andrew Lind, the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Emergency Coordinator in Cox’s Bazar.

Over the past three months, more than 600,000 Rohingya refugees have crossed into Cox’s Bazar, fleeing violence and oppression in Myanmar’s Northern Rakhine state. The most recent influx of some 1,800 in the past week, brings the total population of Rohingya seeking safety in the district to more than 836,000.

One 30-year-old woman who arrived in the Balukhali settlement on Monday with her five children told IOM that she fled seven days ago when her village was burned to ground, saying that while one group of attackers kidnapped people another set houses on fire.

The family hid for two days in a nearby village before making their way to the border. She explained that with no access to healthcare in Rakhine state, her husband died several months ago.

Like the other refugees, the family arrived with almost nothing to the congested settlement, where the humanitarian response tries to catch up with the vast needs of a desperate population.

Concerns raised over water safety, security and fear-mongering on the ground

Meanwhile, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) found that over 60 per cent of water sources tested in the settlements were contaminated with E.coli. Shallow wells located less than 30 feet away from latrines are culpable, with full latrines and a lack of space to drain them contributing to the potentially life-threatening problem.

To date, IOM has drilled a total of 374 deep tube wells and installed 4,973 permanent and emergency latrines in the Cox’s Bazar settlements and host communities.

Security concerns are also growing as the settlements have become a target for human traffickers. IOM is seeking funding to help better protect the refugees and offer support to survivors of exploitation and human trafficking.

In other news, Pope Francis, who is currently in Myanmar, has condemned politicians who propagate alarm over immigration, arguing that fear-mongering engenders violence and racism.

In a message about migrants and refugees that the Vatican sent to heads of State and Government before the Pontiff’s trip, he said: &#8220Those who, for what may be political reasons, foment fear of migrants instead of building peace are sowing violence, racial discrimination and xenophobia, which are matters of great worry for all those concerned about the safety of every human being.&#8221

After Myanmar, Pope Francis will travel to Bangladesh, where he is expected to meet a small group of Rohingya refugees.

28 November 2017 – The head of the United Nations agency defending press freedom on Tuesday denounced the killing of a Nigerian photographer, calling for an investigation into the incident.

&#8220I condemn the killing of Ikechukwu Onubogu,&#8221 said Audrey Azoulay, the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in a press release.

The photographer’s body was found in Obosi town in the state of Anambras on 15 November. Neither his family nor his colleagues at Anambra Broadcasting Service (ABS) had seen or heard from Ikechukwu Onubogu since he had left home in the afternoon of 12 November.

&#8220The perpetrators of this crime must be brought to justice in order to preserve freedom of expression, enshrined in both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights,&#8221 Ms. Azoulay said.

&#8220Governments must also protect journalists so as to prevent bloodshed from depriving the public of its right to access information,&#8221 she added.

UNESCO Director-General issues statements on violations of press freedoms and condemning the killing of media workers.

27 November 2017 – Three countries at the forefront of South-South cooperation and some $33 million in contributions are helping 15 of the world’s least developed countries advance towards achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

India, Brazil, and South Africa – three nations from different economies and different continents, but working together to drive the exchange of resources, technology, and ideas between countries of the Global South – launched today the A HREF=”https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-buqyoV0jpSMDZsNEhNR2YxS2s/view”>latest report of the India, Brazil and South Africa Facility for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation, known as the IBSA Fund, after the three lead partners, and which is a remarkable example of cooperation among developing countries for the benefit of other southern States in partnership with the UN system.

“We have quite innovative projects in Africa in Latin America in the Middle East, and so far, the Fund has been doing quite well, and we hope that in the near future we are able to double the support that we are providing,” said Pule Isaac Malefane, Ambassador of South Africa to Turkey, on the sidelines of the Global South-South Development Expo 2017, hosted by Turkey, which opened today and will take running in Antalya through 30 November.

The IBSA Fund, which is managed by the UN Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), was established in 2004 and has since supported projects through partnerships with local governments and institutions. Its objectives range from promoting food security and addressing HIV/AIDS, to extending access to safe drinking water.

“On the 11th of December, we will announce the inauguration of the cardiological wing of the Cultural and Hospital Centre for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society and the Atta-Habib Medical Center in the Gaza Strip. These two projects will illustrate the way we work. A little bit with money but also with technological capacity, communication and other fields of the South-South Cooperation,” said Miguel Griesbach de Pereira Franco, Minister Counsellor, Embassy of Brazil in Ankara.

The Atta-Habib Medical Center, destroyed in the 2014 Gaza conflict, serves around 30,000 people and is the only health institute at the eastern side of Gaza City. The Fund hopes that its reconstruction will help in Gaza’s recovery plans and will aid restoring a sense of normalcy among the population.

The Fund, according to its representatives, looks not only to help out financially, but to share capacities, experiences, and knowledge.

Among other examples of the Fund’s activities, in Sudan, a project piloted a labor-intensive working model to rapidly create employment opportunities for 2,000 unskilled and semi-skilled young laborers; in Fiji, the Fund is teaching women to manufacture and maintain their own rocket cookstoves so that they can switch from open fire cooking and increase their knowledge about climate change adaption and mitigation; and in Haiti, teenagers are being trained in entrepreneurial capacities so that they can start their own business and have a wider access to the labour market.

“The South-South Cooperation based on what we have, we favor a broader view, a border scope of this interpretation. We don’t look for monetary accountability, for us it is important the threshold of knowledge and the threshold of capacity in order to make the local population more independent to develop their own way to make their own region better,” concluded the Brazilian Minister Counsellor.

IBSA called for greater efforts to combat poverty and hunger across the global South during the South-South Development Expo 2017.

27 November 2017 – The Director General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization’s (UNIDO) was reappointed for a second term on Monday as the 17th UNIDO General Conference opened in Vienna, Austria.

In his opening speech to the General Conference, Director General LI Yong said he was humbled by the trust placed in him to lead UNIDO for another four years, adding that he felt “a sense of profound responsibility.”

“The global community is still facing a number of unresolved and urgent challenges,” added Mr. Li. “Poverty, unemployment, and hunger remain the most persistent and daunting tasks for our world. Climate change, resource-depletion and environmental degradation, as well as the potential impact of the latest technological revolution, add another dimension,” he said.

Mr. Li stressed that “the only way to solve the challenges ahead of us is in partnership…in partnership with governments, UN sister agencies, the private sector, and civil society.”

In a video message, UN Secretary-General António Guterres congratulated the Director General on his re-appointment, calling UNIDO “a key voice on technology transfer, investment flows and skills development.”

“Your efforts can help support economic transformation in Africa and in other regions, and, as we combat climate change, your work can facilitate the transition to low-carbon growth,” underscored the Secretary-General.

The UN General Assembly president also congratulated Mr. Li, saying that he looked forward to working with him.

Speaking to the General Conference, President Miroslav Lajčák said: “Industrialization of the past may have earned a bad name. It may have made us think of pollution, wastewater or labour exploitation. But when industrialization is inclusive and sustainable, the results are positive.”

He pointed out that it leads to decent jobs and improved livelihoods; fosters youth employment; and enable resource preservation and environmental protection, “these outcomes propel us towards eliminating poverty and hunger and reducing inequalities,” he asserted.

Under the theme ‘Partnering for impact – achieving the Sustainable Development Goals,’ hundreds of participants, including UN senior representatives; Heads of State, ministers and other high-level government officials; and prominent leaders from the private sector, civil society and academia gathered to showcase UNIDO’s initiatives, achievements and partnerships.

As its highest policymaking organ, the General Conference assembles UNIDO’s member States and approves the programme and budgets for the forthcoming biennium.

It will also use interactive discussions to explore issues, such as gender, circular economy, and industry 4.0 and will spotlight UNIDO’s leading role in the Third Industrial Development Decade for Africa.

The Conference will offer a fully immersive experience for participants, including innovative formats for the events, integrated exhibitions and networking spaces.

27 November 2017 – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Monday warned that more than 11 million Yemeni children – almost every single Yemeni boy and girl – are in acute need of humanitarian assistance, despite the successful delivery of 1.9 million doses of vaccines to Sana’a airport on Sunday.

“Yesterday’s success cannot be a one-off,” Geert Cappalaere, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa said Sunday at a press briefing in Amman, Jordan, welcoming the reopening of Sana’a airport, which enabled the agency’s first humanitarian delivery in three weeks.

Vaccines are urgently needed for a planned campaign to vaccinate 600,000 children across Yemen against diphtheria, meningitis, whooping cough, pneumonia and tuberculosis.

“Today, it is fair to say that Yemen is one of the worst places on earth to be a child,” he said. “The reason behind this is very straightforward: decades of conflict, decades also of chronic underdevelopment.”

Today it is estimated that every 10 minutes a child in Yemen is dying from preventable diseases, he added, noting that the outbreak of acute watery diarrhea and cholera this year is not a surprise, because the water and sanitation system throughout the country is almost entirely devastated and the health system is on its knees.

“The war in Yemen is sadly a war on children,” he said, calling on all parties to the conflict to stop fighting.

Nearly 5,000 children have been killed or seriously injured over the last two and a half years alone, thousands of schools and health facilities have been damaged or completely destroyed, and two million children suffer acute malnutrition.

Unfortunately, the vaccines stocks, despite the 1.9 million that UNICEF delivered on Sunday, are running out, Mr. Cappalaere said, calling for more vaccines to be delivered.

He also stressed the urgent need for affordable fuel, as pumping water requires using generators in the absence of a national power grid.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that following the announcement on 22 November by the Saudi-led coalition that Sana’a airport and Al Hudaydah seaport will be reopened for humanitarian and relief efforts, the UN submitted notification of humanitarian movements and static locations to the coalition to resume the transport of aid personnel and humanitarian cargo to northern parts of Yemen.

Almost three weeks after the blockade was imposed, essential commodities like food, fuel, safe water and medical supplies have started running low in the country or have seen their prices skyrocket.

There continues to be a grave risk of further death, disease and starvation. On 20 November, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FewsNet) warned that should the blockade continue, many areas of Yemen are likely to experience famine within three to four months, said OCHA.