Press Conference

The world became less peaceful for the third year in a row, chiefly due to a surge in the risk of terrorism and fallout from the wave of civil unrest sweeping North Africa and the Middle East, according to the 2011 Global Peace Index, which also notes that violence cost the world economy more than $8 trillion in 2010.

As output growth remained feeble in the developed world, robustly growing emerging economies in Asia and Latin America would continue to drive global economic recovery for the rest of the year and during 2012, United Nations economists said this afternoon during a Headquarters news conference.

At a Headquarters press conference today, human rights activists urged the United Nations to play a greater role in pushing for implementation of the 1997 Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord in Bangladesh, which was intended to protect the rights of the area’s indigenous peoples.

Bedouin Palestinian refugees living in the West Bank were in dire need of access to their traditional natural resources — rangeland and water — as well as basic health and education services, denied to them since their forcible displacement from the Negev Desert in 1948, community representative Mohamed Al Korshan said at a Headquarters press conference today.

An easing of the Gaza blockade and restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank would lead to greater economic activity, which in turn could greatly reduce the need for humanitarian assistance in the occupied territories, the top United Nations humanitarian official said at Headquarters today.

Indigenous peoples must be consulted — and their right to free, prior and informed consent respected — if the target of halving the proportion of people lacking access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation was to be reached by 2015, in line with the Millennium Development Goals, members of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues said at a Headquarters press conference today.

Using $1.5 million in start-up funds supplied by the Government of Denmark, the United Nations Indigenous Partnership (UNIPP) would work at the country level to promote dialogue and build partnerships, Raja Devashish Roy, a member of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, said at Headquarters today.

With more than 47 million people around the globe falling under the mandate of the United Nations refugee agency, the upcoming anniversaries of two landmark conventions would be an opportunity to get States to recommit to their responsibilities and to adapt the treaties to new circumstances, an agency official said at Headquarters today.

Four indigenous Latin American leaders hailed the region’s progress today, applauding, in particular, the personal interest shown by President Evo Morales in advancing the rights of Bolivia’s indigenous peoples.

While some strides had been made by the international community in protecting the basic human rights of indigenous peoples, significant breaches of those rights still existed around the world, said prominent indigenous representatives at a Headquarters press conference today.