11 April 2017 – In 2012, Malala Yousafzai made headlines all over the world when she was shot by the Taliban for speaking out on the right of education for girls. But instead of silencing her, the brutal attack only served to embolden the Pakistani teenager, who has used her voice to promote the right of every child to safe, free and quality primary and secondary education.

Malala has received numerous accolades in recent years, including the United Nations Human Rights Prize and the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. In 2014, at the age of 17, she became the youngest person ever to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The student activist is taking on a new role, with Secretary-General António Guterres having designated her as the UN’s youngest Messenger of Peace, with a focus on girls’ education. She sat down for an interview with UN News following her designation at UN Headquarters on 10 April to discuss what her new role means to her, what her advocacy efforts have taught her and what she thinks are some of the misconceptions people have about her.

UN News: UN Messenger of Peace is an impressive title. How do you see yourself in this role?

Malala Yousafzai: I’m really honoured to be given this title of Messenger of Peace, and to me it is more responsibility, which I have already had, which I was already taking, for girls’ education ­­– raising awareness, asking world leaders to invest more in education. And I will continue to do that. But UN Messenger of Peace, this has given me even more strength and it will keep me strong and also will give me a bigger platform with which I can spread my voice for education.

UN News: And speaking of being an advocate for girls’ education, what has been the biggest lesson that you’ve learnt in the years you’ve been advocating and been a role model for this issue?

If we want to make our lives better, we have to invest in girls’ education.

Malala Yousafzai: I’ve been fighting for girls’ education since I was 10 or 11, when in Swat Valley, in Pakistan, terrorism started and girls couldn’t go to school. And I have learnt so much in my 20 years of life – from seeing terrorism, extremism, to then being attacked at the age of 15 and now at the global stage fighting for girls’ education.  And what I have learned is that the future generation, they need education, they need quality education. And if we want to see our future bright, developed, if we want to make our lives better, we have to invest in girls’ education. That is crucial. We cannot ignore it. And I just sometimes wonder, why have our world leaders ignored it for so long? The thing that I have realised from my experience in 19 years, they haven’t learnt yet in their 50, 60+ years. So that is my message, to make sure that they realise that their investment in education can change the whole world.

UN News: Your father is here with you today and he was very instrumental in seeing that you went to school. What can men and boys do to ensure that girls and women get an education?

Malala Yousafzai: I started speaking out but I wouldn’t have been able to go forward and speak out without my father, without my parents. There were so many other girls who also wanted to speak out but their parents, their brothers, did not allow them. So that is the role of men that is crucial at this stage because if men stop women from speaking out, women aren’t able to go forward. So it is important for men to allow women to follow their dreams, to achieve their dreams. As my father said, you don’t need to do something extra for women – just don’t clip their wings, and let them fly. Let them go forward. So men need to come forward, be proud feminists, stand up for women, and when you empower women, when you help women, you empower the whole society. There are economic benefits, there are social benefits…the benefits you see are countless.

UN News: You’ve been advocating for years about girls’ education and your accomplishments are incredible: Nobel Laureate and now UN Messenger of Peace.  Everybody knows your story and I think people feel like they ‘know’ you. But as you mentioned, you’re still 19. What do you think is one of the misconceptions that people have about you?

Malala Yousafzai: Often people think that I’m quite big but I’m actually very, very short and I’m very small, like only five-foot something, and then I wear high heels to make myself taller but it still doesn’t work. So I’m very short. And the second thing is that people often think that I would be, I don’t know, very good at studies and things like that but they don’t know that I also go through difficult times in my school. I have exams; I also get C’s and D’s; I also have to work hard for my college. I’m not given admission free of any tests or anything. I had to go through tests. I had to get three A’s in my final exams to go into university. So, I’m going through the same things that all students go through. So, I’m quite normal. Nobel Peace Prize and Messenger of Peace – these things don’t really help you much.

In 2010, at the age of 13, Malala chairs a session of the UNICEF-supported Child Assembly, that was held at the Khpal Kor Model School and Orphanage, in the city of Mingora, Pakistan. Photo: UNICEF/Ahmed

Two years later, the courageous campaigner for girls’ education was shot by the Taliban while on a bus heading home after school. UNICEF reported that Malala kept a diary for the BBC, documenting how the Taliban took over her town and closed all girls’ schools three years prior. Photo: Facebook /UNICEF Pakistan

A month after Malala was shot UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova co-hosted a high-level advocacy event in Paris called “Stand up for Malala – Stand up for girls’ right to education.” The event, which coincided with Human Rights Day, was designed to generate political will and accelerate action in favour of every girl’s right to go to school. UNESCO/Landry Rukingamubiri

While still recovering from the attack on her life, Malala told then Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “I can walk. I can talk. I can do anything!” In return he said that she is “a symbol of hope, a daughter of the United Nations. The UN will always be with you and the many people like you.” Photo: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

On 12 July, 2013, her sixteenth birthday, Malala addressed hundreds of young people at the UN, urging them to use education to fight extremism. “Let us pick up our books and our pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One teacher, one book, one pen, can change the world,” she said. Also pictured are her father and younger brother. Photo: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

During a visit to School No. 2 in the Za’atari camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan, Malala speaks with Mozoun, a peer educator and student. Mozoun advocates for education in the camp, going from household to household to encourage families to send their children to school. Photo: UNICEF/ El Ouerchefani

Malala addressed the 2015 Global Citizen Festival in New York City, which took place on the margins of the UN Sustainable Development Summit at which world leaders adopted an ambitious new plan to end poverty and promote prosperity by 2030. Malala is pictured here with then Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (right) and musician and activist Bono (second from left) of the band U2. Photo: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

Following her designation on 10 April 2017 as the UN’s youngest Messenger of Peace, Malala and Secretary-General António Guterres engaged in a conversation with hundreds of youth representatives from around the world on the theme of girls’ education. Photo: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

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UN News: Speaking of education, you mention that you have to study just like everybody else.  What’s next with regard to your own education?

Malala Yousafzai: At university level, or as you call it ‘college’ in America, I want to study PPE which is Philosophy, Politics and Economics. And I have applied to a few universities but it all depends on my final grades which will come in August which university I will go to. And I’m just working hard on that. And then after that, I’m not sure what kind of career I want to go for. One thing I’m very sure about is that I will stay focused on girls’ education. Through the Malala Fund, I will continue to focus on girls’ secondary education and inspire more young girls like me to speak out and stand with me so we can amplify the voices of young girls.

UN News: As you travel the world in your new role as UN Messenger of Peace, how will you go about inspiring young people, particularly those in areas where they feel they have no hope, that there’s no point in going to school?

Your voice is important; your voice can change the world

Malala Yousafzai: I visited many countries like Lebanon and Jordan. I have met Syrian refugee girls; I met girls in Nigeria. I will continue to do that through this role of Messenger of Peace and I will visit different countries, meet amazing and inspiring girls throughout the world, and make sure that I tell them that your voice is important; your voice can change the world. And I spoke out in Swat Valley and you can see how a child’s voice was more powerful than the terrorists’ guns. And that is what they need to realize, all children, that your voice is important for our world. And you don’t need to grow up to bring change; you can bring change now.

UN News: Any final message?

Malala Yousafzai: I will just say that believe in yourself, stay confident, stay hopeful about the future. There will be bad things happening but if we are united, if we stay together, we will be stronger, we can make our world better, we can bring change, so let’s stay positive and hopeful.

11 April 2017 – Critical investments in agriculture and climate change relief are needed to address the crisis in Africa’s strife-torn Lake Chad Basin, where hunger, poverty and a lack of rural development prevail, the United Nations food security agency said today.

“This is not only a humanitarian crisis, but it is also an ecological one,” José Graziano da Silva, Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said at a media briefing in Rome following his visit last week to some of the worst affected areas in Chad and north-eastern Nigeria.

He underscored that the crisis is rooted in decades of neglect, lack of rural development and the impact of climate change, and the only way to ensure a lasting solution is to address these including through investments in sustainable agriculture.

“This conflict cannot be solved only with arms. This is a war against hunger and poverty in the rural areas of the Lake Chad Basin,” stressed the FAO Director-General.

“Peace is a prerequisite” to resolve the crisis in the region, but this is not enough, Mr. Graziano da Silva said. “Agriculture, including livestock and fisheries, can no longer be an afterthought. It is what produces food and what sustains the livelihoods of about 90 per cent of the region’s population.”

Some seven million people risk suffering from severe hunger in the Lake Chad Basin, which incorporates parts of Cameroon, Chad, Niger and north-eastern Nigeria. In the latter, some 50,000 people are facing famine.

FAO has developed a three-year strategy for the Lake Chad Basin crisis to improve food security and nutrition, focusing on women and youth. Photo: FAO/Pius Utomi Ekpei

While fighting and violence have caused much of the suffering, the impact of environmental degradation and climate change – including repeated droughts – is exacerbating the situation, continued the FAO Director-General.

He noted that since 1963, Lake Chad has lost some 90 per cent of its water mass with devastating consequences on food security and the livelihoods of people depending on fishing and irrigation-based agricultural activities. Furthermore, while Lake Chad has been shrinking, the population has been growing, including millions displaced from conflict areas.

Food assistance and long-term investment production

FAO and its partners, including other UN agencies, are calling on the international community for urgent support – a combination of immediate food assistance and food production support – to make assuage hunger in the region.

Mr. Graziano da Silva reiterated that should farmers miss the coming May/June planting season, no substantial harvests will be seen until 2018, leading to more widespread, severe hunger and prolonged dependency on external assistance.

He recalled FAO’s Response Strategy (2017-2019) for the crisis, which includes distributing cereal seeds and animal feed and providing cash transfers and veterinary care to enable displaced farmers and voluntary returnees to get a substantial harvest, replenish their food stocks and prevent animal losses among vulnerable herders.

The FAO Director-General warned that the situation reflects the threats facing other African countries where a combination of ethnic or religious tensions fuelled by rural poverty and unemployment could escalate to full-scale crises.

In the Lake Chad Basin region, FAO is working with farmers and displaced people to assist with producing food and selling surplus in the markets, which includes distributing cash vouchers that help stimulate markets for agricultural products.

Additionally, the agency, together with its partners, is exploring the possibility of introducing irrigation techniques to save water, and then helping to train farmers in using them.

11 April 2017 – Highlighting improvements in Haiti’s political situation, including the recent elections and opportunities to address longstanding disputes, the senior United Nations official in the island nation has urged the international community to continue its partnership with Haiti and its people to help consolidate the gains achieved.

“The elections provided for the installation of all directly-elected officials at all levels of Haiti’s governance structure for the first time since 2006, including the peaceful transfer of power to the third democratically-elected President since 2004” the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Sandra Honoré, told the UN Security Council today.

“Haiti’s return to Constitutional order and the full functioning of the Executive, the Legislature and local government has now set the stage to address the many pressing challenges facing the country,” she added.

In her briefing, Ms. Honoré, also the head of the UN Stabilization Mission (MINUSTAH), noted that the security situation in Haiti remains largely stable and that while the island’s police force continues to show increased capacity in planning and executing complex operations as well as in combating crime and maintaining public order, its further development, including in the areas of internal management and oversight, police-to-population ratio and the geographic coverage were needed.

She went on to cite political challenges as a major impediment to consistent progress in the administration of justice and human rights to truly anchor the rule of law and render police work more effective while creating conditions conducive for foreign and domestic investment and job creation.

Sandra Honoré, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of MINUSTAH, briefs the Security Council. UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

Ambassador Denis Regis of Haiti, addresses the Security Council meeting on the question concerning his country. UN Photo/Manuel Elias

Ambassador Nikki Haley of the United States and President of the Security Council for April, chairs the Council meeting on the question concerning Haiti. UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

Secretary-General António Guterres meets with Sandra Honoré, his Special Representative and Head of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). UN Photo/Evan Schneider

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Further, noting that some deficiencies continued to undermine the effectiveness of the justice and human rights system, the senior UN official also urged the Government to assign a ministerial-level focal point for human rights as well as to expedite the transparent and merit-based appointment of the National Ombudsperson.

“The progress achieved during the past 13 years in Haiti’s stabilization process is notable,” she said, adding that reshaping the partnership among the international community, the UN system and Haiti is important to ensure such progress remains sustainable.

Also, recalling the recommendation of the Secretary-General on the closure of MINUSTAH in six months and the establishment of a smaller operation with focus on the rule of law, with strong good offices and human rights monitoring roles, Ms. Honoré said:

“With your support, the transition to a new and smaller Mission would be guided by a Joint Transition Plan that underpins the gradual transfer of tasks to the Government, international partners and the UN Country Team.”

11 April 2017 – Hundreds of migrants along North African migrant routes are being bought and sold openly in modern day ‘slave markets’ in Libya, survivors have told the United Nations migration agency, which warned that these reports “can be added to a long list of outrages” in the country.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is sounding the alarm today after its staff in Niger and Libya documented over the past weekend shocking testimonies of trafficking victims from several African nations, including Nigeria, Ghana and the Gambia. They described ‘slave markets’ tormenting hundreds of young African men bound for Libya.

Operations Officers with IOM’s office in Niger reported on the rescue of a Senegalese migrant who this week was returning to his home after being held captive for months. According to the young man’s testimony, while trying to travel north through the Sahara, he arrived in Agadez, Niger, where he was told he would have to pay about $320 to continue north, towards Libya. A trafficker provided him with accommodation until the day of his departure, which was to be by pick-up truck.

When his pick-up reached Sabha in southwestern Libya, the driver insisted that he hadn’t been paid by the trafficker, and that he was transporting the migrants to a parking area where the young man witnessed a slave market taking place. “Sub-Saharan migrants were being sold and bought by Libyans, with the support of Ghanaians and Nigerians who work for them,” IOM Niger staff reported.

Reports of slave markets can be added to a ‘long list of outrages’ in Libya

“The latest reports of ‘slave markets’ for migrants can be added to a long list of outrages [in Libya],” said Mohammed Abdiker, IOM’s head of operation and emergencies. “The situation is dire. The more IOM engages inside Libya, the more we learn that it is a vale of tears for all too many migrants.”

Mr. Abdiker added that in recent months IOM staff in Libya had gained access to several detention centres, where they are trying to improve conditions. “What we know is that migrants who fall into the hands of smugglers face systematic malnutrition, sexual abuse and even murder. Last year we learned 14 migrants died in a single month in one of those locations, just from disease and malnutrition. We are hearing about mass graves in the desert.”

He said so far this year, the Libyan Coast Guard and others have found 171 bodies washed up on Mediterranean shores, from migrant voyages that foundered off shore. The Coast Guard has also rescued thousands more, he added.

“Migrants who go to Libya while trying to get to Europe, have no idea of the torture archipelago that awaits them just over the border,” said Leonard Doyle, chief IOM spokesman in Geneva. “There they become commodities to be bought, sold and discarded when they have no more value.

Many describe being sold “in squares or garages” by locals in the south-western Libyan town of Sabha, or by the drivers who trafficked them across the Sahara desert.

Mr. Doyle added: “To get the message out across Africa about the dangers, we are recording the testimonies of migrants who have suffered and are spreading them across social media and on local FM radio. Tragically, the most credible messengers are migrants returning home with IOM help. Too often they are broken, brutalized and have been abused, often sexually. Their voices carry more weight than anyone else’s.”

11 April 2017 – Warning of increasing risk of mass deaths from starvation in many countries in Africa and in Yemen due to worsening drought and conflict, the United Nations refugee agency has called for international support to prevent the repeat of the 2011 tragedy in the Horn of Africa that claimed more than 260,000 lives.

&#8220An avoidable humanitarian crisis in the region, possibly worse than that of 2011, is fast becoming an inevitability,&#8221 Adrian Edwards, a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told journalists at the regular bi-weekly media briefing in Geneva.

&#8220A repeat must be avoided at all costs.&#8221

According to estimates, some 20 million people are living in areas hit hard by drought. About 4.2 million among them are refugees and the number of the displaced is rising as a result of consecutive harvest failures, famine and insecurity.

Worst affected are children and lactating mothers.

In southeast Ethiopia, for example, acute malnutrition rates among newly arriving Somali refugee children aged between 6 months and five years is reported in the range of 50-79 per cent. Similarly, in South Sudan, children account for the majority of the refugees (about 62 per cent).

An avoidable humanitarian crisis in the region, possibly worse than that of 2011, is fast becoming an inevitability

Nearly all refugees, including these children, are dependent on food assistance, such as those provided by the World Food Programme &#8211 the UN’s emergency food relief agency &#8211 but with lack of funds to buy food rations are being cut. Worst hit are those in Uganda where rations have been cut by up to 75 per cent. Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Rwanda (by between 20 and 50 per cent) and Djibouti (by 12 per cent) are also witnessing this decrease.

&#8220Many refugees are without full access to livelihoods and agriculture or food production and their ability to take matters into their own hands and help themselves is limited,&#8221 noted Mr. Edwards.

Almost five million children could be out of school

The severe food insecurity is also causing many students, such as those in Kenya, to drop out of school. Some 175,000 students in drought areas in the country have stopped attending school and almost 600 schools have closed in Ethiopia.

In all, some five million children could see their educations being disrupted over coming weeks and months.

Drastic situation turning worse in countries

The daunting humanitarian scenario has been further complicated by a range of challenges including new displacement, economic hardships, crop failure and conflict.

In Somalia, of the half a million people displaced since November, 278,000 were displaced in the first quarter of this year and the country continues to see a complex situation of both outflows and returns, mainly from Yemen.

Furthermore, in famine hit parts of South Sudan, increase in fighting, insecurity, lack of access to aid and a collapsing economy have left 100,000 people facing starvation and a further one million people are now on the brink of famine.

The humanitarian situation in Yemen, too continues to decline. Already the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, food needs are being cited as the lead factor in displacement at three quarters of all locations across the war-torn country where there are internally displaced people.

UN efforts scaled up but resources extremely scarce

Responding to the growing crisis, the UN refugee agency and its partners have been scaling up their efforts.

However, with its South Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen operations funded only between 3 and 11 per cent the challenges are immense.

&#8220It is now urgent that the shortfalls be addressed,&#8221 underscored the UNHCR spokesperson.