The Peacebuilding Commission will promote global solidarity to help mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on development and peacebuilding, while continuing to focus on empowering women and youth as critical partners in paving a path to sustainable peace, its newly elected Chair said today at the opening of its sixteenth session.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced today the appointment of Elizabeth Spehar of Canada as Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support in the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs.
Briefing the Security Council today, the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that the situation that now faces women human rights defenders, and prospects for women’s full participation in shaping and building peace, are vastly worse than they were before the pandemic got under way.
Amid the continued humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the World Food Programme (WFP) reports that it provided food to nearly 150,000 people and cash assistance to 6,000 on 14 December. Some 100 food shops and other businesses have closed in Jalalabad city due to currency devaluation and high food and commodity prices.
The World Food Programme (WFP) today warned that the number of people teetering on the edge of famine in 43 countries has risen from 42 to 45 million people, as acute hunger spikes around the world. The agency said needs are vastly surpassing available resources at a time when traditional funding streams are overstretched.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says more children and women were abducted for ransom between January and August 2021 than during the entire 2020. UNICEF estimates based on official sources say 71 women and 30 children were abducted in the first eight months of 2021, and 59 women and 37 children in 2020.
Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the Peacebuilding Commission on “Our Common Agenda and the New Agenda for Peace”, in New York today:
United Nations officials in Mali welcomed the Government’s pledge to reintegrate 13,000 former combatants by the end of 2021 and additional 13,000 within the next three years. They also praised willingness of the Malian parties to proceed with the socioeconomic reintegration of ex-combatants that are already registered.
Warning that the COVID-19 pandemic has reversed peacebuilding gains and enabled intolerance and extremism to take hold, speakers told the Security Council in an open debate today that sustainable peace can only be ensured when the root causes of conflict, such as divides fuelled by inequity and difference, are addressed.
Following are UN Secretary‑General António Guterres’ remarks to the Security Council’s open debate on “Peacebuilding and Sustainable Peace: Diversity, State-building and the Search for Peace”, in New York today:
