The Security Council decided this morning to extend until 15 April 2018 the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force for Abyei (UNISFA), and to limit support for the disputed territory’s border monitoring mechanism to a further five months, while awaiting implementation of measures agreed by Sudan and South Sudan.
Today is World Diabetes Day, and the World Health Organization (WHO) is highlighting women’s right to a healthy future. The agency says there are some 422 million people living with diabetes, 205 million of whom are women. More than half are in the Western Pacific and South-east Asia regions.
An innovative debt-swap between the Russian Federation and Mozambique has unlocked $40 million, which will be used by World Food Programme (WFP) to provide school meals for 150,000 children in Mozambique over the next five years. The largest in WFP history, the debt-swap will free up new resources for development, as well as provide debt relief.
A joint study on food security released by the Government of South Sudan and humanitarian partners such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Food Programme, warns that the current harvest season will not end the hunger crisis in the country.
The Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, welcomed the full return of the Gaza crossings to the control of the Palestinian Authority. He said the return was a landmark development in the implementation of the intra-Palestinian agreement, signed in Cairo on 12 October.
Briefing the Security Council on the situation between Sudan and South Sudan today, a senior peacekeeping official recommended that it extend the mandate of the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) for another six months.
It will take more than 100 years to end child marriage in West and Central Africa at current rates of reduction, UNICEF reported today. The new projections, released during a high-level meeting on ending child marriage in Dakar, Senegal, this week, aim to bring the spotlight on the region where girls face the highest risk of marrying in childhood.
On 6 October 2017, members of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 2206 (2015) concerning South Sudan were briefed by the Coordinator of the Panel of Experts on South Sudan in connection with the Panel’s 120-day report (document S/2017/789).
Irina Bokova, Executive Director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, condemned today the killing of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta yesterday. She welcomed the Prime Minister’s pledge to ensure justice in the crime against the right of free expression.
With regional forces being deployed in South Sudan to strengthen civilian protection, that country’s leaders still bore direct responsibility to end the bloodshed through efforts to reinvigorate the political process, the United Nations peacekeeping chief stressed to the Security Council today.
