31 March 2017 – Despite international efforts to address food insecurity, around 108 million people worldwide were severely food insecure in 2016, a dramatic increase compared with 80 million in 2015, according to a United Nations-backed report on food crises that offers benchmark for action needed to avoid catastrophe.

“The cost in human and resource terms only increases if we let situations deteriorate,” said UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General José Graziano da Silva, in a news release on the Global Report on Food Crises 2017.

“We can prevent people dying from famine but if we do not scale up our efforts to save, protect and invest in rural livelihoods, tens of millions will remain severely food insecure,” he added.

Civil conflict is the driving factor in nine of the 10 worst humanitarian crises, underscoring the strong linkage between peace and food security, says the report.

The report represents a new and politically innovative collaboration between the European Union and USAID/FEWSNET, regional food security institutions together with UN agencies including the FAO, the World Food Programme and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

“Hunger exacerbates crisis, creating ever greater instability and insecurity. What is a food security challenge today becomes tomorrow’s security challenge,” said WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin. “It is a race against time – the world must act now to save the lives and livelihoods of the millions at the brink of starvation.”

“This report highlights the critical need for prompt and targeted action to effectively respond to the food crises and to address their root causes,” said Neven Mimica, Commissioner for EU’s International Cooperation and Development, noting that in 2016, the EU allocated €550 million already, followed by another €165 million that we have just mobilized to assist the people affected by famine and drought in the Horn of Africa.

This year, the demand for humanitarian and resilience building assistance will further escalate as four countries are at risk of famine: South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and north-east Nigeria.

Other countries that require massive levels of assistance because of widespread food insecurity are Iraq, Syria (including refugees in neighbouring countries) Malawi and Zimbabwe. In the absence of immediate and substantive action, the food security situation in these countries will continue to worsen in coming months, according to the new report.

AUDIO: There has been a “dramatic increase” in food insecurity around the world the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said, launching a joint agency report showing that some 108 million people were categorized as “severely food insecure” during 2016.

31 March 2017 – United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today reiterated his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, voicing concern about the latest decision to build a new settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

&#8220The Secretary-General took notice with disappointment and alarm of the decision by Israel to build a new settlement,&#8221 according to a statement from his spokesman.

&#8220He condemns all unilateral actions that, like the present one, threaten peace and undermine the two-state solution,&#8221 the spokesman added.

The UN and the international community have for years urged the establishment of a Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security.

Mr. Guterres today reiterated the call adding that &#8220that there is no Plan B.&#8221

The settlement noted also that settlement activities are illegal under international law and present an obstacle to peace.

31 March 2017 – Highlighting the lack of resources for United Nations programmes assisting those displaced by the fighting in Iraq’s Mosul Secretary-General António Guterres urged the international community to do more to help the people who have &#8220suffered enormously and go on suffering.&#8221

&#8220This is a moment in which the Iraqi people [and] the people of Mosul need the solidarity of the international community,&#8221 Mr. Guterres told the press at the Hassan Sham camp, located about 30 kilometres east of Mosul.

&#8220Solidarity with those liberating Mosul [and] with the civilians who are suffering […] to guarantee protection of those civilians and, at the same time, solidarity with the victims and creating the conditions for reconciliation,&#8221 he added.

In his remarks, he also drew attention to the severe lack of funding for UN programmes assisting the displaced. Currently, te funding stands at eight per cent.

&#8220[This] shows how limited our resources are compared to the tragedy these people are facing,&#8221 noted the UN chief.

According to estimates, there are about 11 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in the country. Of this figure, about three million are internally displaced. In Mosul, more than 285,000 individuals have been displaced due to the military operations to retake the city from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh) terrorists, including some 122,000 over the past month. Cumulatively, more than 350,000 individuals have been displaced since the operations began on 17 October 2016.

Mr. Guterres further spoke of efforts by the regional government of Kurdistan as well as by non-governmental organizations and stressed that international solidarity is vital to improve the conditions of those affected as well as to create conditions for reconciliation within the communities and at the national level once Mosul is fully liberated.

Also highlighting that terrorism is a global threat and terrorist groups are interlinked, greater support from the international community was in everyone’s interest.

&#8220Because the terrorist threats we see in Mosul are the same as the terrorist threat we see everywhere in the world,&#8221 he said.

30 March 2017 – The United Nations Mission in Colombia is set to register some 7,000 weapons this weekend, but the search for other caches of weapons hidden by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) continues, the Mission’s chief has said.

Jean Arnault, the head of the Mission, said yesterday: “As for registration, we are at 85 percent of the weapons in the camps. This weekend we will reach a figure of approximately 7,000 registered weapons. On these weapons there are concerns: many are new and are short and long weapons, high calibre. It is a record that covers the range of FARC-EP weapons.”

The weapons hand over has been in place since the beginning of the month and the UN hopes to possess 60 per cent of all FARC-EP arms by April 1. However, in a press conference on the topic yesterday, Mr. Arnault said accessing hidden and hard to reach caches could delay the process.

A further 1,000 weapons are set to be received from FARC-EP members participating in peace promotion or, pedagogia de paz, bringing the number of arms collected by the UN to 8,000.

It was also reported at the press conference that commitments made at the Cartagena meeting of the Follow up, Promotion and Implementation Commission (CSIVI) to make progress on preparation of registration zones and camps, security and legal guarantees and provision of health services would further accelerate the laydown of arms process.

In November last year, the Colombian Government and FARC-EP, the largest rebel group in the South American nation, signed a peace deal, ending a 50 year conflict.

30 March 2017 – The ongoing conflict in South Sudan is affecting food security in some of the country’s more &#8220stable&#8221 states, the head of United Nations peacekeeping operation there has said.

&#8220Dwindling provisions arriving in the town and skyrocketing food prices have meant that places like Aweil, which are generally peaceful, have suffered the effects of the conflict taking part in other parts of the country,&#8221 said David Shearer, the head of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), during a visit to Aweil in the country’s north.

&#8220It is imperative that fighting stops, so the citizens of the world’s newest nation can live in peace and enjoy the benefits of independence,&#8221 he added.

The insecurity has directly affected the cost of goods in greater Aweil. Mr. Shearer heard from UN humanitarian agencies working in the region how many families had migrated north to Sudan because they could either not produce crops or could not afford the high price of staple foods in the market.

Those agencies have stepped in to provide emergency humanitarian aid in a region where the UN Food and Agriculture Agency (FAO) says 52 per cent of people are &#8220food insecure.&#8221

The Governor of Aweil state, Ronald Ruay Deng, told Mr. Shearer that his administration was doing all it could to &#8220move our people from dependency on emergency food aid to a more resilient rural agricultural&#8221 model of production, including the piloting of a new community farming approach to feed the most vulnerable people.

David Shearer, head of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), meeting residents of Kuajok, the capital of Gogrial state. Photo: UNMISS/Isaac Billy

Mr. Shearer also heard about the efforts under way to build peaceful understanding between communities, particularly pastoral communities who arrive on a seasonal basis from Sudan to share water and grazing land with the residents of greater Aweil.

UNMISS is facilitating improved inter-communal understanding through dialogue.

Meanwhile, the World Food Programme (WFP) today began to move food assistance to reach famine-hit and food-insecure people in South Sudan by using a newly opened humanitarian corridor announced by the Government of Sudan earlier this week.

&#8220This new route will allow WFP to regularly reach famine-affected people in South Sudan with food assistance and help to avert the consequences of starvation,&#8221 said WFP Sudan Representative and Country Director Matthew Hollingworth.

Today, the first convoy of 27 trucks carrying an initial 1,200 metric tons of sorghum started moving from El Obeid in central Sudan towards Bentiu in South Sudan. The convoys will take at least five days to complete the 500 kilometre journey.

In the next few weeks, WFP plans to deliver 11,000 metric tons of sorghum &#8211 including 1,000 metric tons donated by the Government of Sudan &#8211 in seven convoys of 30 to 40 trucks. This is enough food to feed 300,000 people for three months.