On 7 February 2019, the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 2048 (2012) concerning Guinea-Bissau held informal consultations to receive a briefing from a representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on the situation in Guinea-Bissau concerning illicit trafficking and international criminal activities.

A new ILO report finds that women in 2018 were 26 percentage points less likely to be employed than men, despite 70 per cent of women saying they would rather be employed than stay at home.  This marks an improvement of only two percentage points in closing the work-gender gap over nearly three decades.

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s remarks to the fortieth session of the Human Rights Council, in Geneva, 7 March.

Preventing and resolving conflicts is the top priority for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), its Chairperson-in-Office told the Security Council today, as he outlined actions to decrease tensions in Ukraine, Transnistria, Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

The United Nations today released the 2019 Needs and Priority Plan for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which calls for $120 million to urgently provide life-saving aid to 3.8 million people.

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message for International Women’s Day, observed on 8 March:

Helsinki, Finland, hosted the inaugural International Symposium on Youth Participation in Peace Processes today, with the Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth in attendance.  It aims to boost young people ’s participation in efforts to build and sustain peace, even as their contributions remain undervalued.

Humanitarian officials are concerned by reports of civilian casualties in Syria due to both continued hostilities and unexploded ordinance left behind in the country’s north-west.  At least four civilians were reported killed and many more hurt by shelling in Idleb, Hama and Aleppo in the first three days of March.

The following Security Council press statement was issued today by Council President François Delattre (France):

On 1 March 2019, the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 2127 (2013) concerning the Central African Republic enacted the amendments specified with underline and strikethrough in the entries below on its Sanctions List of individuals and entities subject to the assets freeze and travel ban set out in paragraphs 9 and 16 of Security Council resolution 2399 (2018), adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations: