The Sahel is awash with challenges — from food insecurity and terrorist-related security threats to the negative impacts of climate change — but it has the potential to change for the better through an ongoing focus on sustainable development, speakers in the Security Council agreed today.
The General Assembly endorsed the recently adopted Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration today, the first-ever international cooperation framework for effectively addressing issues that concern the world’s 258 million people on the move and countries of origin, transit and destination.
Confirming the existence of tunnels dug under the “Blue Line” separating Lebanon and Israel, the head of United Nations peacekeeping told the Security Council today that they represent a violation of Council resolution 1701 (2006).
Once limited to transiting cocaine, heroin and other illicit drugs to destinations abroad, West and Central African countries have now become both users and producers of those substances, the United Nations anti-crime chief told the Security Council today, noting that the region accounted for 87 per cent of all pharmaceutical opioids seizures identified in his office’s latest report.
The Security Council today encouraged the Peacebuilding Commission to present it with concise and targeted recommendations on efforts to sustain peace in specific situations, ahead of reviews of mandates of United Nations operations.
A window for peace has finally opened in South Sudan, with more political progress made in the last four months than over the last four years, the head of United Nations peacekeeping said today, telling the Security Council that the fragile situation in the country will continue to require international support.
The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process expressed deep concern today over the weakening of the international consensus around a two-State resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, as he briefed the Security Council on continuing violence, provocation and settlement activity on the ground.
The General Assembly today commemorated anniversaries of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action and the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, with high-level plenary meetings that included a dedicated award ceremony honouring the 2018 recipients of the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights.
The General Assembly endorsed the Global Compact on Refugees today — an historic agreement aiming to forge a stronger and fairer response to refugee movements — as it adopted 53 resolutions and 6 decisions recommended by its Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural).
Against the backdrop of increasingly complex and evolving threats to global peace and security, divisions within the Security Council – including between its five permanent and 10 elected members – continue to hamstring the work of the committees and working groups tasked with tackling them, said the Chairs of the 15-member organ’s subsidiary bodies in their annual briefing.
