Africa

Almost 300,000 people in Burkina Faso have been forced to flee their homes since last December and nearly 766,000 in total are displaced as of today.  More than half the internally displaced have inadequate shelter or none at all, and $10 million has been allocated from the Central Emergency Fund to help them.

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, to the special session of the Regional Coordination Mechanism for Africa, in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, today:

The Secretary-General visited the World Health Organization (WHO) crisis centre, praising the agency’s efforts to contain the COVID-19 outbreak, urging countries to do their utmost to be prepared, and calling on donors to support WHO.  “If there is truly something stupid to do, it is to not fully fund WHO appeals,” he said.

The Security Council today expressed deep concern about deteriorating security and humanitarian conditions in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin — fuelled by terrorism, transnational organized crime committed at sea, conflict between pastoralists and farmers, trafficking in persons, arms and drugs, and illegal natural resource exploitation — and called for continued national, regional and international engagement.

The World Health Organization (WHO) will convene a global research and innovation forum in Geneva tomorrow to mobilize international action on coronavirus, the agency announced today.  WHO has sent diagnostic kits to 14 countries and identified more than 160 laboratories with the technology to diagnose coronavirus.

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa today:

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks at the high-level meeting on gender equality and women’s empowerment in Africa, in Addis Ababa today:

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks at the African Union Peace and Security Council session on Libya and the Sahel, in Addis Ababa today:

The following Security Council press statement was issued today by Council President Dang Dinh Quy (Viet Nam):

The United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock, has released $10 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to help bolster the response to East Africa’s worst desert locust outbreak in decades, which is destroying crops in communities already facing food shortages.