Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message to the 2021 P4G Summit, today:
The Security Council, acting through its written silence procedure today, renewed the arms embargo, travel ban and assets freeze imposed on South Sudan for another year and extended for 13 months the mandate of the panel of experts tasked with helping to oversee those measures, while expressing its readiness to adjust them in light of conditions on the ground.
Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message on World Digestive Health Day, observed on 29 May:
Reducing the cost of remittances is key to helping the world’s poorest countries marshal the resources needed to graduate from their low-income status and reliably finance sustainable development, experts said today as the first session of the Preparatory Committee for the fifth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries concluded.
The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations, suspending the substantive part of its 2021 regular session today, postponed taking action on 6 entities’ request for special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, and took note of more than 600 new quadrennial reports, postponing consideration of another 14 reports.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is calling for more international support for the people of Afghanistan amid continued violence that has internally displaced over 100,000 people so far this year. UNHCR’s $123.5 million humanitarian appeal for 2021 is only 24 per cent funded.
The world’s poorest nations need international support to build their digital infrastructure and reskill their workforce so that they can better integrate into the sprawling global value chain, speakers told the Preparatory Committee for the fifth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries today.
While the 21 May ceasefire is holding, Council members heard today that, following eleven days of the most intense hostilities in years, the 15-member organ must take concrete action to resolve the conflict between Israel and Palestine, breaking the vicious cycle of disregarded resolutions and recurring violence and transcending the hollow peace process that has failed civilians on both sides.
On the heels of early consultations that many delegates described as being rife with challenges, the General Assembly today adopted a resolution laying out next steps for multilateral negotiations to draft a landmark global treaty against the rising threat of cybercrime.
United Nations staff in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo are closely monitoring developments in Goma, where state authorities decided on 26 May to evacuate 10 districts on the heels of the Nyiragongo Volcano eruption. Tens of thousands are leaving the area amid an already challenging humanitarian situation.
