Day: May 19, 2022

A record 59.1 million people were displaced within their homelands last year, or four million more than in 2020, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Thursday, citing the latest Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID).

IOM has welcomed the report, produced by its partner the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), calling it a valuable tool for the organization, humanitarians, and governments, in supporting communities affected by disasters and other crises.

“Understanding, managing, and adapting to human mobility trends is crucial to ensure humanitarian assistance and essential services are reaching people where they are most needed,” the UN agency said.

Running from disasters

For the past 15 years, most internal displacement was triggered by disasters, with annual numbers slightly higher than those related to conflict and violence.

Last year was no exception, according to the report. Weather-related events such as floods, storms and cyclones resulted in some 23.7 million internal displacements in 2021, mainly in the Asia-Pacific region.

IOM warned that with the expected impacts of climate change, and without ambitious climate action, numbers are likely to increase in the coming years.

Conflict and violence

Meanwhile, conflict and violence triggered 14.4 million internal displacements in 2021, a nearly 50 per cent increase over the previous year.

The majority took place in Africa, particularly Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, while Afghanistan and Myanmar saw unprecedented numbers of displacement.

Young lives affected

The report also includes a special focus on children and youth, who account for more than 40 per cent of the total number of those internally displaced last year.

It looks at the impacts of displacement on their well-being now and in the future, and fills data and knowledge gaps that are critical to finding durable solutions.

IOM added that gaps remain in understanding and addressing internal displacement in conflict.

Driven by data

The agency has partnered with the IDMC – which is part of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) – to provide reliable and accurate data through its Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM), the world’s largest source of primary data on internal displacement.

The two organizations signed an agreement four years ago to join forces on improving data and to accelerate policymaking and action.

IOM has also co-chaired the International Data Alliance for Children on the Move (IDAC) since 2020.

The coalition brings together governments, international and regional organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), think tanks, academics, and civil society, to improve statistics and data on migrant and forcibly displaced children.

Source: United Nations

Following is the text of UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s video message to the fifth Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban, South Africa, today:

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

My sincere thanks to the Government of South Africa for hosting this landmark event. As a daughter of the African continent, it gives me special pride to address the fifth Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour — the first to take place in Africa.

This Conference is a source of tremendous hope for the 160 million children around the world who are trapped in child labour. Children who work in mines and in fields. On construction sites or hidden behind the walls of private homes in domestic servitude. And those denied the right to fully develop, physically and mentally.

Too often they are denied their right to education. If they attend school at all, their performance suffers due to their extra workload, and they are likely to drop out early. Their right to health is also put at risk and accidents and diseases can mark them for a lifetime. Child labour is — quite simply — wrong. And the only solution to this crisis is a rights-based approach. One that recognizes and upholds the rights that every child has to health, education and protection. A right to a future.

The ILO [International Labour Organization], as a values-driven organization and leader of the worldwide movement against child labour, has a critical role in this work. The universal ratification of Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour marked a historic first for the United Nations. Children everywhere now have essential legal protection, regardless of the level of economic development in their countries and communities.

So the tool exists. Our challenge now is to fully implement it. This means seizing the opportunity to renew our commitment made in Oslo 25 years ago. It means actively convening and listening to our civil society partners on the ground, who remain steadfast champions in the fight against child labour in every corner of the world, as the efforts of Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi in India powerfully demonstrate. And it means gathering more investment and support for all of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals that affect our progress on child labour — from poverty and hunger to social protection, decent work and gender equality.

Education is a clear example of this. A lack of educational access and opportunities fuels child labour. And around the world, education is in turmoil. COVID-19, climate change, and political and economic crises are compounding a pre-existing learning crisis that has left the education-related Sustainable Development Goals badly off-track.

We simply cannot allow children — today and tomorrow — to experience catastrophic losses in learning and well-being. That’s why the Secretary-General decided to convene the Transforming Education Summit this September as part of Our Common Agenda. The Summit will be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to come together to chart a new path for education — including closing the digital divide, so every child, everywhere, can have a chance at accessing a quality education. And the Summit also represents a new path to eliminate child labour. It will urge dramatically expanded financing flows for education and all efforts under Sustainable Development Goal target 8.7, the elimination of all forms of child labour by 2025.

Ladies and gentlemen, our commitment to ending child labour remains strong. It must never waver. One hundred sixty million children are counting on us. We must not let them down. With your steadfast support, we can ensure that future generations of children can enjoy what every child deserves. The simple blessing of a normal, healthy and safe childhood. Let’s make child labour a thing of the past.

Thank you.

Source: United Nations

The number of people in need has risen by around 10 per cent this year so far, the UN’s humanitarian affairs chief said on Thursday.

Martin Griffiths, who is also the Emergency Relief Coordinator, said that around 303 million living in 69 countries, were in need of humanitarian aid and protection, compared with 274 million last December – a statistic which he described to reporters in Geneva, as “a sad record of human suffering.”

“The number of people we aim to reach through our response plans, 202 million, is also more than 10 per cent higher than what we projected last December”, said relief chief Griffiths.

Making ends meet

“And the money we need is up from $41 billion to $46 billion today – five billion dollars more. Donors have so far generously contributed almost $6 billion to our response plans up till now, as recorded by our tracking service.”

But looking at the raw numbers, he said that with the extra funding, humanitarians had “just met the rising costs, but barely made a dent in the requirements that we need to address.

“That’s the growing gap problem we are struggling with across the world. It’s real of course it is not just mathematics, and it has consequences for the people we want to help.”

Help for the Horn

No region was more in need, than the 35 million struggling in the Horn of Africa, said Mr. Griffiths, recapping his own mission to Kenya last week.

“After four failed rainy seasons in the Horn, four in a row, more than 18 million people in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya are affected by drought. Most of them hungry, not knowing whether they’ll eat that day or not.”

He said he was grateful for all the extra pledges, but now, “we are out of time.”

“We need money urgently to save lives, let alone to invest with governments and communities in efforts to provide them with alternative livelihoods for the months to come.”

From Ukraine to the Sahel

In the Sahel region, the situation is similarly dire, he told reporters, with millions driven to “the fringes of survival.”

Up to 18 million people in the Sahel will face severe food insecurity over the next three months, downtrodden by violence, insecurity, deep poverty, failure of basic services and since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, record-high food prices.

“I saw that directly in Lomopus a small village of 600 households, the line between the rising of food prices and the absence of food is direct”, he said, adding that in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Niger, the situation has reached alarming levels.

Almost 1.7 million people will experience emergency levels of food insecurity during the lean season between June and August, creating “large gaps” in food consumption and high levels of acute malnutrition and deaths.

New emergency funding

He previewed the UN Secretary-General’s announcement tomorrow, of a $30 million funding package from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) for Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Niger.

“The need for funding is urgent, and that CERF money is a stop-gap measure, it is a cash flow help. I thank CERF’s donors for their foresight – it is saving lives. And we need all donors to join in with much larger amounts to implement our response plans, in the Sahel, in the Horn of Africa, and elsewhere.”

Source: United Nations

Following is the text of UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s video message to the Africa Dialogue Series webinar on “Social protection’s role in enhancing food security and nutrition for greater resilience in Africa”, today:

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to join you today for the Africa Dialogue Series (ADS) international webinar on “The role of social protection in enhancing food security and nutrition for greater resilience in Africa”.

Throughout this month, the Africa Dialogue Series is focusing on the resilience of food systems in Africa with the objective of addressing a harsh reality: external shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the global impacts of the war in Ukraine, continue to have a disproportionate impact on African countries.

In 2022, over 100 million people across hotspot countries on the continent are projected to be in acute food insecurity, representing a stark 22 per cent increase from just a year ago. This week, the ADS turns towards social protection as a means to strengthen resilience, bearing in mind that, currently, Africa has the lowest social protection coverage in the world — 17 per cent of the total population compared with the global average of 47 per cent.

Social protection programmes are the most effective tool to address both the drivers and the consequences of food insecurity and malnutrition. But if we must maximize the potential of social protection programmes, we need to take four urgent actions.

First, promote universal social protection programmes that lead to income distribution outcomes that ensure the sustainability of economic growth. This requires moving away from an assistance-charity approach to a clear recognition that social protection policies should be designed to generate social, economic and cultural returns. For example, by adopting food-for-assets policies that build or rehabilitate assets that will improve long-term food security and resilience, in addition to cash transfers to address food insecurity.

Second, improve access to healthy diets through school meals especially designed to address malnutrition. Home-grown school-meals programmes are a perfect example of social protection policies that have a wider impact, promoting economic growth and social cohesion in local communities.

Third, strengthen domestic resource-mobilization systems to underpin social protection policies. It is indispensable for Africa’s resilience that essential policies such as social protection are funded through national budgets to ensure their long-term sustainability. Financing social protection must also be linked to overall financing in social sectors, including decent job creation in the green, care, and digital economies.

This integrated approach could yield the dual benefit of mobilizing additional financing for social protection systems through social security contributions while simultaneously preparing populations for the global economy of the future and bolstering their resilience against future shocks.

Fourth, promote the efficiency and re-prioritization of public expenditure in line with these key priorities. Inefficiency of public spending in education, infrastructure and health represent a combined annual loss of 2.87 per cent of Africa’s GDP. Increasing the efficiency of public spending would free enough resources to finance strong social protection systems.

I trust that today’s discussions will assess some of these measures and propose actionable recommendations to advance toward stronger social protection systems in Africa. I wish you fruitful deliberations.

Thank you.

Source: United Nations

“When war is waged, people go hungry,” Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council on Thursday during a debate on conflict and food security chaired by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Some 60 per cent of the world’s undernourished people live in areas affected by conflict he said, adding that “no country is immune”.

Conflict means hunger

Last year, most of the 140 million people suffering acute hunger around the world lived in just ten countries: Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Haiti, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen – eight of which are on the Council’s agenda.

“Let there be no doubt: when this Council debates conflict, you debate hunger. When you make decisions about peacekeeping and political missions, you make decisions about hunger. And when you fail to reach consensus, hungry people pay a high price,” Mr. Guterres spelled out.

Though pleased to announce that the Central Emergency Response Fund is releasing $30 million to meet food security needs in Niger, Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso, he said sadly: “But it is a drop in the ocean”.

Emergency levels of hunger

The UN chief expressed concern over food insecurity in the Horn of Africa, which is suffering its longest drought in four decades, impacting more than 18 million people, while continuous conflict and insecurity plague the people of Ethiopia and Somalia.

Globally, 44 million people in 38 countries are at emergency levels of hunger, known as IPC 4 – just one step away from famine.

More than half a million people in Ethiopia, South Sudan, Yemen and Madagascar are already in IPC level 5: catastrophic or famine conditions.

‘Frightening new dimension’

“The war in Ukraine is now adding a frightening new dimension to this picture of global hunger,” said the UN chief.

Russia’s invasion has meant a huge drop in food exports and triggered price increases of up to 30 per cent for staple foods, threatening people in countries across Africa and the Middle East.

Leaders of Senegal, Niger and Nigeria confirmed to Mr. Guterres that they were on the brink of devastation.

While UN humanitarian operations are gearing up to help, they too are suffering the impact of rising food prices, including in East Africa where the cost of food assistance has increased 65 per cent on average, in the past year.

Feeding the hungry is an investment in global peace and security – UN chief

Breaking ‘deadly dynamic’

The top UN official outlined four actions countries can take to break “the deadly dynamic of conflict and hunger,” beginning with investing in political solutions to end conflicts, prevent new ones and build sustainable peace.

“Most important of all, we need to end the war in Ukraine,” he said, calling on the Council to do everything in its power “to silence the guns and promote peace, in Ukraine and everywhere”.

Secondly, he underscored the importance of protecting humanitarian access and essential goods and supplies for civilians, drawing attention to the members’ “critical role in demanding adherence to international humanitarian law, and pursuing accountability when it is breached”.

Third, he said there needed to be “far greater coordination and leadership” to mitigate the interconnected risks of food insecurity, energy and financing, while reminding that “any meaningful solution to global food insecurity requires reintegrating Ukraine’s agricultural production and the food and fertilizer production of Russia and Belarus into world markets – despite the war”.

Finally, it is “more necessary than ever” for donors must fully fund humanitarian appeals with official development assistance.

“Diverting it to other priorities is not an option while the world is on the brink of mass hunger…Feeding the hungry is an investment in global peace and security,” said the Secretary-General.

In a world of plenty, no one should accept “a single child, woman or man” dying from hunger, including “the members of this Council”, he concluded.

‘Marching to starvation’

The head of the World Food Programme (WFP), David Beasley, spoke extensively of “the perfect storm” driving hunger, namely conflict, climate change and the COVID pandemic.

Act with urgency today – WFP chief

He cited destabilizing dynamics in Mali, Chad, Malawi, and Burkina Faso; riots and protests in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Pakistan and Peru; conflicts in Ethiopia and Afghanistan; drought and famine in Africa, and a “ring of fire around the world” as an escalating number of people continue “marching to starvation”.

“Food security is critical to peace and stability” globally, he underscored.

The WFP chief said 276 million people are struggling to find food, and 49 million in 43 countries are “knocking on famine’s door,” which results not only in death but “unmatched migration,” which destabilizes societies.

And while the “perfect storm” has resulted in a rise in food prices in 2022, he said that food availability would be the big concern in 2023.

Mr. Beasley stressed the importance of increasing production, opening Ukraine’s ports and emptying its silos to stabilize markets and address the global food crisis.

“Act with urgency today,” he told the Council.

Reversing prosperity

The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Director-General, Qu Dongyu, discussed the importance of people, peace, prosperity and the planet.

“Worldwide, prosperity is being reversed,” he said. “There is less food security, health security and income” while inequality becomes greater.

He pointed to a “spike in acute hunger globally,” with 2022 threatening even further deterioration.

While FAO has strengthened agri-food systems to save lives and protect livelihoods for the most vulnerable, “more needs to be done together,” according to its top official, who called conflict “the single greatest driver of hunger”.

Protect thy neighbour

Meanwhile, the Ukraine war is impacting the world with “historically high” food and energy prices, according to Mr. Qu – “putting the global harvest at risk”.

He reminded that we “are neighbours on this small planet village. What happens to one affects us all” and flagged the need to prevent accelerated acute food insecurity in the coming months and years.

“We must protect people, agriculture food system and economics against future shock…increase sustainable productivity, [and] strengthen the capacity to deliver relevant services,” said Mr. Qu.

‘Play our part’

Nobody needs to go hungry “if we all play our part”, he added, describing investing in agri-food systems as “more relevant than ever”.

Ending his remarks with a poem in Chinese, the FAO chief said:

“The mountain is high. People depend on food to survive. We need to stay united, working cohesively to serve millions of people around the world”.

Source: Food And Agricultural Organization of the United Nations