Ethiopia

The new Permanent Representative of Ethiopia to the United Nations, Tesfaye Yilma Sabo, presented his credentials to UN Secretary-General António Guterres today.

According to a new report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP), one in three schools in the world still lack access to drinking water and basic sanitation facilities.

United Nations officials in Iraq condemned the abhorrent killing of 22-year-old Tiba al-Ali, whose death is a regretful reminder of the violence and injustice that still exists against women and girls in the country today.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today released a regional refugee and resilience plan, which is seeking $5.7 billion to reach 6.8 million Syrian refugees and 6.1 million people in host communities with assistance in 2023.

In Ethiopia, humanitarian colleagues report some 3,000 truckloads of food, health, shelter, water and other supplies have entered the conflict-affected Tigray region since mid-November following the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement. The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service is also conducting regular flights into Tigray.

Today, two inter-agency convoys, facilitated by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, delivered medicine, emergency shelter kits, blankets, sleeping bags, hygiene kits and solar lamps to 5,000 residents in two towns in the southern Khersonska oblast that had been heavily impacted by fighting.

In Afghanistan, the United Nations team there continues to support women since the Taliban takeover a year and a half ago. In 2022, the International Labour Organization (ILO) created and sustained nearly 1,700 jobs for women and trained almost 470 women on entrepreneurship and decent work practices.

On 29 November, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres travelled to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to take part in the sixth African Union-United Nations annual conference.

A report by the International Labour Organization, United Nations Environment Programme and International Union for Conservation of Nature notes that 20 million jobs could be created by harnessing the power of nature to address challenges such as climate change, disaster risk and food and water insecurity.

The ninth United Nations inter-agency cross-line convoy of 16 trucks, carrying 482 metric tons of food and other humanitarian supplies, crossed from Aleppo into Sarmada in north-west Syria. Supplies included medicines, nutrition items, water, sanitation and hygiene items, reproductive health kits, and education materials.