#COVID-19

The World Health Organization today said that more than 1.2 million people urgently need health assistance in Cabo Delgado province in Mozambique, where recent armed attacks sparked further population displacement and deepened a protracted humanitarian crisis.

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the Global Health Summit, held online today:

Despite having suffered some of the COVID-19 pandemic’s worst socioeconomic impacts — including inflated debt burdens, job losses and worsening conflicts — Africa has to date received just 2 per cent of vaccine doses produced globally, the Security Council heard today, as it convened a high-level virtual debate on addressing the root causes of conflict in the continent’s post-COVID-19 recovery process.

Five years after the 2017 influx into Bangladesh of Rohingya refugees, food security in Cox’s Bazar remains a top priority, the World Food Programme (WFP) reports.  A joint response plan calls for $943 million to help the refugees and their host communities; 25 per cent of the funds will go to fight hunger and malnutrition.

The Secretary-General welcomed the beginning of consultations between Papua New Guinea and the Autonomous Bougainville government, following a referendum on Bougainville’s political future held in 2019.  The consultations mark an “important step” in the implementation of the 2001 Bougainville Peace Agreement.

The 2021 Joint Response Plan for the Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis will be launched on 18 May, hosted by Bangladesh, along with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration, targeting 1.4 million people.  “This must not become a forgotten crisis,” UNHCR stated.

Humanitarian officials in Somalia say a “double climate disaster”, marked by drought followed by torrential rains, has killed at least 25 people in two weeks.  Warning that 2.7 million people in the country are already food insecure, they note that the Humanitarian Response Plan is currently only 19 per cent funded.

Secretary-General António Guterres praised the impactful first decade of the “Every Woman Every Child” campaign, which mobilized more than $180 billion in investments.  While maternal and child deaths have declined significantly in that time, he cautioned that COVID-19 has revealed the fragility of those advances.

United Nations officials in the Central African Republic report that 300 peacekeepers have been deployed to Bakouma, one of several places where security concerns prevented the holding of elections in 2020.  They will protect the civilian population and help organize legislative elections later in May.

According to United Nations experts, southern Madagascar is experiencing its worst drought in four decades, with about 75 per cent of the population of Amboasary Atsimo district facing severe hunger and 14,000 people in famine-like conditions.  A humanitarian Flash Appeal launched in January stands funded at only 22 per cent.