In progress at UNHQ

Cameroon


The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) launched the Food Coalition, a multi-stakeholder, multi-sectoral alliance that aims to ensure global food access and increase the resilience of agri-food systems.  The pandemic could add 132 million more people to the world's undernourished in 2020, FAO says, on top of the 690 million hungry people in 2019.

Honduras deposited the fiftieth instrument of ratification to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, resulting in it being entered into force in January 2021.  The Secretary-General said the Treaty is a commitment towards the elimination of nuclear weapons, which is the Organization’s highest disarmament priority.

The World Food Programme in South Sudan strongly condemned an attack on its boat convoy near Shambe carrying food assistance intended for people displaced after losing their homes and crops to floods.  One of the 13-person crew is missing and presumed killed, and three others are suffering from gunshot wounds.

A record 13.4 million people in Burkina Faso, Mali and western Niger need humanitarian assistance and protection, as fast-growing crises spread across the Central Sahel region.  The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that the number of internally displaced people has grown 20-fold to 1.4 million in less than two years.

In Yemen, the United Nations and its aid partners report they have distributed emergency food, hygiene kits and other essential items to over 7,600 families impacted by deadly floods and torrential rains that destroyed homes, crops and livestock in July and August. An estimated 62,000 families have been affected.

Following explosions in Beirut on 4 August, the United Nations is requesting $565 million to help Lebanon move towards recovery and reconstruction.  Peacekeepers with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are also donating blood and have joined the “#UN4Beirut” initiative to clean up devastated city streets.

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan reported today that its engineering troops, together with local youth, are repairing flood-damaged levees in Jonglei state, already saving Bor’s main market and hospital from being submerged by flooding, which has so far displaced an estimated 135,000 people in the area.

The United Nations and the Government of Bangladesh are making preparations as Super Cyclone Storm Amphan approaches landfall tomorrow, potentially impacting more than 14 million people in the country.  The Humanitarian Coordination Task Team and the Government are working on preparedness and response activities.