REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Marie Heuzé, The Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which also heard from Spokespersons for and representatives of the World Food Programme, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Population Fund, the International Organization for Migration and the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Economic and Social Council

Ms. Heuzé said yesterday morning Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had addressed the opening meeting of ECOSOC's 2007 substantive session, and launched the MDG Report. All ECOSOC meetings, panel discussions and round tables were accessible by webcast (www.un.org/ecosoc/webcast/). Yesterday, ECOSOC had held two parallel round tables: one on growth, poverty reduction and equity, and the other on emerging challenges to efforts to eradicate poverty and hunger. This morning there had been two Ministerial roundtable breakfasts on the roles entrepreneurship and productive employment played in poverty reduction. As usual, press releases were available in English and French in the press room.

Ms. Heuzé recalled that yesterday afternoon, the report of Secretary-General on "Strengthening efforts at all levels to promote pro-poor sustained economic growth, including through equitable macroeconomic policies" had been presented. This morning, ECOSOC would conclude its thematic discussion on that topic, before taking up the report of the Secretary-General on strengthening efforts to eradicate poverty and hunger, including through the global partnership for development. It would then begin its first ever Annual Ministerial Review – an interactive forum for debate on economic and social issues – hearing presentations at the ministerial level from Bangladesh and Barbados in a panel discussion format. This afternoon, within the same framework, Ethiopia, Ghana, Cambodia and Cape Verde would make presentations. Available in the press room were copies of the Journal, setting out the schedule for today's ECOSOC meetings and the list of speakers.

Further to yesterday's round table on emerging challenges to efforts to eradicate poverty and hunger, a press briefing would be held by the two main panellists: Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of the Global Fund, and Rajendra Pachauri, Chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The conference would be held in the late afternoon in Press Room 1 [it was later announced that the press briefing would take place on 5 July at 9 a.m.].

Secretary-General

The Secretary-General had left Geneva for Rome today, to participate in a two-day conference on the rule of law in Afghanistan, Ms. Heuzé said. In Rome, the Secretary-General would meet with the Italian Prime Minister, Romani Prodi, the Secretary-General of NATO, President Karzai of Afghanistan, and others, and would hold a press conference at the end of the conference. Tomorrow, the Secretary-General would be in Turin to visit the UN Staff College, and then return to Geneva late afternoon for the reception organized by the Swiss Confederation for ECOSOC and the Global Compact.

Ms. Heuzé said that available was a statement by the Secretary-General strongly condemning the suicide car-bombing in Yemen yesterday.

Ms. Heuzé also drew attention to the appointment by the Secretary-General yesterday of Sergio de Queiroz Duarte of Brazil as the High Representative for Disarmament at the Under-Secretary-General level. A biographical note was available, which contained details of Mr. Duarte's career.

Global Compact Leaders Summit

As previously announced, the Secretary-General would be inaugurating the Global Compact Leaders Summit between 9 and 10 a.m. on 5 July, Ms. Heuzé recalled. He would give a press conference at 10:30 a.m. in Room III. Mr. Ban would be joined in the press conference by a number of other speakers. More details would be provided later.

Responding to a query about coverage of the Summit, Ms. Heuzé confirmed that only the plenary meetings on Thursday morning, and Thursday afternoon, as well as the public closing on Friday morning were open to journalists. The goal of the meeting was to facilitate exchanges between Global Compact partners in workshops and working groups, which were closed. However, summaries of those meetings would be provided. There was also a series of press conferences and briefings that would be held, almost hourly, to update journalists. Details of those press conferences had already been sent to journalists.

Kenya Refugee Camps: Malnutrition Emergency

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme (WFP) said that WFP, the UN Refugee Agency, and the United Nations Children’s Fund were launching an emergency joint appeal today for refugees in Kenya. The three agencies had decided to join forces owing to their concerns about the abnormally high levels of malnutrition in refugee camps in Kenya. The three agencies were asking for $32 million, some two thirds of which was slated for food enriched with nutritional supplements for children.

There were 237,000 Somali and Sudanese refugees living in Kenyan refugee camps in Dadaab and Kakuma. The malnutrition suffered by refugees in the camps was not just owing to a lack of food, Ms. Berthiaume said, but was due to a number of factors, including a lack of clean drinking water and unsanitary conditions. For that reason, it was important that three agencies worked together to combat the situation. A press release for the Emergency Joint Appeal for Kenyan Refugees would be sent out later today.

Miranda Eeles of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that, according to a recent survey, the acute malnutrition rate among children under five years old stood at around 22 per cent for children in the Dadaab Camp, and at around 16 per cent for children in the Kakuma Camp – figures well above the World Health Organization's emergency threshold of 15 per cent. There was an acute need for complementary foods, such as groundnuts, that provided extra nutrients; supplementary feeding for more children; and therapeutic feeding to treat dangerously malnourished children. Over the past year, cholera, measles, meningitis and Kenya's first case of polio in 20 years had been recorded in the camps – worsening the fragile nutritional status of young children. UNICEF needed just under $600,000 to support the management of high acute malnutrition and to tackle the underlying causes, that included poor infant feeding and breastfeeding practices.

Responding to a question as to how the situation had been allowed to reach such an emergency state before the joint appeal was launched, Ms. Berthiaume of WFP said, first, that more Somali refugees had been flooding into the camps and, also, Dadaab and Kakuma were very remote locations. Kakuma was located in the far north–western part of Kenya – virtually in the middle of nowhere. The camps were also big places, and it took time to see the full magnitude of problems growing there. It took a survey to do that, which UNHCR had done. The survey had revealed the situation was serious.

Jennifer Pagonis of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that it was UNHCR's survey that had provided the figures on the extremely high levels of malnutrition. One problem was that UNHCR was chronically underfunded, which had had a negative impact on the provision of essential nutrition services, complementary foods and non-food supplies to the Kenyan refugees. A complete package of assistance was needed to overcome chronic shortages in essential commodities such as firewood, energy saving stoves and soap to keep refugees from selling their food to meet the need for those items, as they had been doing. Of the joint appeal funds, UNHCR was asking for $7.17 million to meet those needs. A briefing note was available.

Pakistan Floods

Ms. Eeles for UNICEF said some 1.5 million people had now been affected by the flooding in the wake of the cyclone that had hit Sindh and Baluchistan Provinces last week. Official statistics still confirmed around 100 deaths, with around 200 missing. But at least 250,000 people had lost their homes in 14 of Baluchistan's 29 districts. UNICEF had a number of reasons for concern. First, many of the affected areas were very difficult to reach, as they had been cut off by floods. Roads and bridges had been badly damaged and some areas were still under water. There had also been massive damage to infrastructure, including lines of communication. So far, only army helicopters and planes had been able to access the affected areas. UNICEF was particularly concerned as more than half of those affected were children, and as Baluchistan was Pakistan's poorest province, children and women there were particularly vulnerable. In Baluchistan one child in ten died before their first birthday.

So far, Ms. Eeles said, UNICEF had delivered some 740,000 water purification tablets, blankets, jerry cans, tents, emergency health kits to provide for the needs of 20,000 people, water bladders, soap and 12 bales of cloth for water filtration.

Elisabeth Byrs of Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the situation was worse than they had thought, in particular in the villages that had been under water since 23 June. The rain continued, and in the two regions that were most affected – Baluchistan and Sindh Provinces – strong rains accompanied by gusty winds were expected over the next four days.

OCHA was deploying a five person United Nations Disaster and Coordination Assessment (UNDAC) Team to assist the Government of Pakistan. The Government of Pakistan had not requested any international assistance, but had welcomed the assistance when offered, Ms. Byrs said. The most urgent needs were for additional helicopters to help increase sorties of supplies to affected areas. The Pakistani Army was leading a massive relief effort, but they only had 12 helicopters and the weather remained an impediment to relief operations.

OCHA had also allocated $100,000 emergency cash grant for local procurement of emergency relief goods and a Flash Appeal was under preparation, Ms. Byrs said. A situation report from OCHA on the Pakistan floods was available at the back of the room.

In terms of UNCHR efforts to help those affected by the cyclone, Ms. Pagonis observed that UNHCR was part of a joint UN inter-agency effort to help the Pakistan Government with flood relief, particularly by providing shelter materials. UNHCR was rushing 15 tons of emergency supplies to thousands of Afghan refugees and surrounding communities affected by the heavy rains and floods in south-western Baluchistan province. Relief items were currently being airlifted from UNHCR stocks in Peshawar to Baluchistan's capital Quetta, where UNCHR was basing its emergency operations for the refugee-hosting areas.

Initial reports also suggested that some Afghan camps in the Chagai district of Baluchistan had been hit by the floods, Ms. Pagonis said. That district was home to more than 33,000 Afghans living in Chagai, Girdi Jungle, and Lejay Karez and Posti camps. Despite continuing bad weather, UNHCR and its partners had been able to travel to parts of Chagai district on Sunday. In one area, they had found over 2,000 people - Afghans and local Pakistanis - in need of help. It was very difficult to get an overall view of the situation, however, as the affected area was quite scattered and most villages could only be reached on foot. Many mud houses in the refugee-hosting areas had collapsed and those that were still standing had huge cracks in the structure and were unsafe. Some families had moved their belongings out and were living in tents.

So far, UNHCR had distributed some 300 tents, 1,600 plastic mats and sheets, 1,000 blankets, 100 quilts and 150 kitchen sets in the Chagai area. UNCHR had also handed over some 600 tents and other supplies to the American Refugee Committee for distribution in the refugee-hosting areas. Bad weather and damage to roads had hampered UNHCR and its partners from getting a full picture of the situation. Assessment teams would be sent out as soon as conditions permitted.

World Population Day

Leyla Alyanak of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) announced that next Wednesday, 11 July was World Population Day. The theme this year was the role of men in maternal health. Men had a huge role to play in maternal health. Often men were the ones who decided when women got emergency help when they were pregnant and if they were having a difficult childbirth. Also, data showed that in natural disasters women died more often than men. That was perhaps owing to the fact that many women might not have the ability to leave their homes without their husbands' permission.

A message by the Secretary-General on the occasion of World Population Day, urging the creation of a better world by men supporting safer motherhood, was available.

WIPO: Eleventh Session of IGC Opens

Samar Shamoon of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) drew attention to the opening of the Eleventh Session of the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) today in Geneva. The IGC session would be held in Geneva from 3 to 12 July 2007. It was expected that there would be a substantive concentration on the fundamental policy challenges that were at the core of the quest for more effective protection for traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, also known as folklore. The meeting was being transmitted in an adjacent room so that journalists could come and listen to plenary sessions. The meeting opened this morning with a panel discussion by indigenous people.

Other

Ms. Berthiaume of WFP announced that this afternoon there would be a joint UNICEF/WFP press briefing on the situation of children in Mozambique, following the floods there, at 2.30 p.m. in press room I. Leila Pakkala of UNICEF and Ken Davis of WFP, the two agencies' representatives in Mozambique, would speak.

Tomorrow, 4 July, a joint press conference on the theme "Food, Nutrition and Agriculture: Working Together to End Hunger", would be held by WFP's Deputy Executive Director, Sheila Sisulu; Deputy Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), José Maria Sumpsi; and Kanayo Nwanze, Vice-President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, would be held at 10.30 a.m. in Room III.

Ms. Pagonis of UNHCR said UNHCR was grateful for a generous offer by the Government of Brazil to resettle an estimated 100 Palestinian refugees formerly living in Iraq. Most of the Palestinians had been living in Ruwayshed inside Jordan – 60 kilometres from the Iraq border – for the past four years where they faced extremely harsh conditions in a dusty and scorpion-infested desert camp with nowhere to go. In recent years UNHCR had repeatedly appealed for a humane solution for this group.

The Palestinians were the first group of refugees from outside Latin America to benefit from the "solidarity resettlement programmes" which had been proposed as one of the durable solutions for refugees in the 2004 Mexico Plan of Action. The plan, which had been adopted by 20 Latin American countries, had so far only benefited refugees from the region – mainly Colombians, Ms. Pagonis said.

Meanwhile, regarding last week's appeal by UNHCR for the medical evacuation of at least 12 Palestinians – mostly young children – with serious medical problems from the Iraqi-Syria border and from Baghdad, UNHCR had now received positive indications from two European countries. Responding to a query, Ms. Pagonis said it was not yet known if the countries were merely contemplating provision of medical care, or were prepared to offer a full resettlement package. Those issues were still under discussion.

International migration

Frank Laczko, Head of Research at the International Organization for Migration (IOM), presented a new report, "Migration, Development and Natural Disasters: Insights from the Indian Ocean Tsunami", that looked at the impact of natural disasters on migration and development issues. While there was no consensus either on how to label "climate change migrants" or on what the extent of such migrations in coming years, there did appear to be a consensus that climate change had had a role in the substantial increase in the number of natural disasters over recent years. That issue was one of development, as it was the poorest countries in the developing world which were least able to cope with the consequences of natural disasters.

The report had tried to highlight two aspects of the linkage between migration and development and natural disasters that tended to be overlooked: first, the impact on migrants – who could lose their documentation and had more precarious access to humanitarian assistance when a disaster occurred. The reports secondary focus was migrants as a resource, and looked at what they could contribute, and had contributed, to reconstruction and recovery after natural disasters. The report highlighted the potential of migrant diasporas in different parts of the world. In terms of the December 2004 tsunami, the report noted that, without Government intervention, migrant groups around the world quickly mobilized to provide financial resources and human resources to provide assistance to vulnerable groups.

The main conclusion of the report was a policy oriented one, Mr. Laczko said: that there was a need to ensure coherence between the three policy areas of migration, development and disaster response to ensure the many needs of migrants were fully taken into account when disaster strikes.

Responding to a question as to the possible extent and make-up of such future natural disaster migrations, Mr. Laczko observed that there were really no definitive studies. Most figures cited in the press were "guesstimates". For example, a frequently cited figure was that by 2050 there would be 200 million environmental refugees. However, that did was not accepted by IOM, as it was believed that most environmental population displacements would occur internally, within countries. Also, such refugees would not fit the terms of the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of IOM, responding to a question about Libya's refusal to take in 55 illegal Malian immigrants, said, in that particular case, as far as he knew, the Government had agreed to accept the refugees.

Turning back to the theme of migration and development, Mr. Chauzy noted that the seventh South American Conference on Migration was wrapping up today in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. The two-day Conference, hosted by the Venezuelan Government in cooperation with IOM, had brought together officials from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Interior, and Justice and representatives responsible for migration affairs from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Surinam, Uruguay and Venezuela, as well as representatives from international and civil society organizations. This year's Conference was focusing on migration and development with heads of delegations discussing the input of South American countries to the upcoming International Forum on Migration and Development that would be held in Brussels from 9 to 11 July.