Environmental issues and sustainable development

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message for the Sustainable Energy for All Forum, in Kigali, today:

The Forum on Forests concluded its seventeenth session today, approving its omnibus resolution and a draft decision that its eighteenth session will be held at United Nations Headquarters from 8 to 12 May 2023, sending both texts to the Economic and Social Council for formal adoption.

The United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo reports that 60 community members, including 20 women and 10 ex-combatants, are benefiting from its Community Violence Reduction project in a village in North Kivu’s Masisi Territory, where they are gaining skills in the installation and maintenance of street lighting.

Protais Mpiranya, the last of the major fugitives indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), is confirmed to have died.  Alleged to have been a senior leader of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Mr. Mpiranya was charged with eight counts of genocide and crimes against humanity, as well as the murders of 10 Belgian United Nations peacekeepers.

Jayathma Wickramanayake, the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, and The Body Shop, launched a campaign today that seeks to get young voices into the halls of power.  The campaign, “Be Seen, Be Heard”, seeks to create long-term structural changes that will make decision-making more inclusive of young people and ensure their participation in political life.

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message to the pledging event on the FSO Safer, at The Hague today:

Despite an overall decrease in violence against civilians in South Sudan, cases of conflict-related sexual violence more than doubled between January and March, a new report issued by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).  It documented 63 cases during that period, up from 28 in the corresponding time period last year.

Discussion in the Forum on Forests today was dominated by proposals to support the functioning of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests — a voluntary arrangement among 14 international organizations dedicated to improving the sustainable management, conservation and trade of forest-based products around the world.

Senegal’s armed forces were approved today to receive funding from the Elsie Initiative Fund to assess barriers to the participation of women in United Nations peace operations.  Senegal is the sixteenth largest troop-contributing country and has 987 personnel deployed as of February 2022, of whom 38, or 3.8 per cent, are women.

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message to the high-level virtual meeting of the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative for Accelerated Implementation of the 2030 Agenda, held today: