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.
In progress at UNHQ
Noon Briefings
The United Nations, jointly with the Government of Somalia and humanitarian partners, launched the 2020 Humanitarian Response Plan in Mogadishu, calling for $1 billion to provide life-saving assistance and livelihood support for 3 million people, nearly half of whom are internally displaced.
Today, the World Food Programme unveiled the “HungerMap LIVE”, a new tool that monitors food security in more than 90 countries and issues predictions for areas from which data is limited. The HungerMap presents data collected on a continuous basis, as well as metrics on conflict, climate shocks, population and weather.
While the number of journalists killed worldwide dropped by nearly half in 2019 to the lowest annual toll in more than a decade, they continue to face risks and perpetrators enjoy almost total impunity for these crimes, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization reported today.
The United Nations Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) today called for the immediate release of Siham Sergewa, an elected member of the House of Representatives, who was seized at night from her home in Benghazi six months ago. Since her violent abduction, her fate remains unknown.
The Humanitarian Coordinator for the United Nations in Iraq expressed her strong concern today over the suspension in granting access letters to humanitarian actors carrying out critical missions in support of the country’s vulnerable people.
Peacekeepers are now patrolling the Central African Republic city of Alindao to protect civilians displaced by violence, including some 400 people who have sought shelter at the United Nations base after deadly clashes last week between the country’s armed forces and an armed group associated with the ex-Seleka coalition.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees launched a Refugee Response Plan for Sudan today in Khartoum, calling for $477 million to help more than 900,000 refugees and nearly a quarter million of their Sudanese hosts.
The United Nations is in touch with the Government of the Philippines, which is leading the response to the Taal volcano eruption in the Calabarzon region, some 70 kilometres south of Manila. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that 18,000 people have taken shelter in evacuation centres.
The United Nations refugee agency today welcomed El Salvador’s new law that will help protect internally displaced people. The legislation opens the doors for tens of thousands of victims of forced displacement in the country to gain access to life-saving humanitarian assistance and to have their basic rights restored.