REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also addressed by Spokespersons for the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Food Programme, the United Nations Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration.

Secretary-General’s Statements to UNCTAD XII

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Secretary-General has ended a three-day visit to Accra, Ghana, where he addressed the twelfth UN Conference on Trade and Development, warning about the problems caused by the sky-rocketing price of food. The reasons for the crisis were many and could not be solely ascribed, as some did, to a simple trade-off between biofuels and agriculture, the Secretary-General said. He said that the United Nations must take a lead in coordinating a global response, working with the World Bank and the IMF. The Secretary-General announced that he would immediately establish a high-powered Task Force, comprised of eminent experts and leading policy authorities to address this issue. The Secretary-General also addressed the High-Level Segment of the Conference on Trade and Development, warning about problems that could keep countries from implementing the Millennium Development Goals, including the rise in food prices, which, he said, threatened to undo the gains made so far in the fight against hunger and malnutrition.

On the sidelines of the meeting, the Secretary-General met with a number of leaders, including the Presidents of Brazil, Finland and Ghana and the Vice President of El Salvador, and discussed the issue of rising food costs with all of them. He then traveled to Liberia, where he would meet the President and see the work of the UN Mission in that country.

Committee on Rights of Migrant Workers

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier reminded journalists that the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families was meeting in private this week. On Friday, 25 April, it would issue its concluding observations and recommendations on the reports of Bolivia and Syria, which it considered last week. Last Friday, the Committee held a roundtable on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the entry into force of the International Convention on the Protection of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. The press release was available in English and in French.

First Ever World Malaria Day

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said the first ever World Malaria Day would be commemorated on Friday, 25 April. There would be a number of events around the world to commemorate the event, including round tables and discussions, which would culminate in a meeting led by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at New York Headquarters on 25 April, along with the Deputy Secretary-General and leadership from Roll Back Malaria partners including the World Health Organization, the Global Fund, the World Bank, UNICEF, Roll back Malaria and others. At the meeting, the Secretary-General would make a bold call to action on malaria. Between 350 and 500 million people contracted malaria every year, with one million dying annually. Malaria not only affected the health sector but also economic sectors, as victims had difficulty going to school and working.

Cathy Gates of Roll Back Malaria said last year, the World Health Assembly decided to commemorate World Malaria Day on 25 April starting 2008. The UN Secretary-General would make an announcement at the commemoration event in New York. There was now also a Special Envoy for malaria. With this world attention, they hoped that they would see more engagement on the issue of malaria to make it a world problem and not just a problem affecting Africa. The Secretary-General was expected to make a call to action and to leadership which was more engaged. There had been a huge increase in funding for malaria in the last three or four years, and Roll Back Malaria expected it to increase further following the Secretary-General’s announcement.

Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund said UNICEF was one of the partners of Roll Back Malaria. UNICEF would issue a press release on 25 April on the occasion of World Malaria Day, with background figures and information on malaria.

Rising Food Prices

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme (WFP) said Josette Sheeran, the Executive Director of WFP, was in London today to speak before a parliamentary committee and to meet with Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Shortly, she would be addressing the international development committee parliamentary inquiry on the global food security problem. The spiralling food prices represented the biggest challenge to WFP since it was created 45 years ago. It was a silent tsunami threatening to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger. Ms. Sheeran would underscore the importance of a short-term global response to the emergency, as well as a longer-term response.

Refugees

Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR last week organised an emergency humanitarian mission to bring assistance to several indigenous communities along the Guaviare River in Colombia. In Yemen, UNHCR was launching an appeal for nearly $ 3 million to provide protection and assistance to an estimated 77,000 people affected by a local conflict in northern Yemen. In conclusion, Mr. Redmond said UNHCR was rebuilding two refugee camps which were burnt down in Nepal and Chad. The fire last month at Goldhap camp in eastern Nepal left nearly 8,000 refugees from Bhutan homeless. UNHCR was now rebuilding the camp and it would have fire retardant thatched roofs and wider spacing between huts to minimize fire hazards. UNHCR was also rebuilding eastern Chad’s Goz Amer refugee camp after a fire on 11 April left over 2,100 Sudanese refugees from the Darfur region homeless.

Somalia

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said she wanted to highlight the situation in Somalia once again. The UN Secretary-General yesterday had urged parties to the conflict in Mogadishu to refrain from the indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force that was endangering the lives of civilians. Hundreds of families had fled their homes in Mogadishu over the weekend as intense fighting raged. This escalation in the fighting came as the worst drought in more than a decade gripped most of the country. Some 2.5 million Somalis were in urgent need of assistance and if things did not improve within the coming weeks, they would be confronted with the images of 1991-1992 when drought and civil strife claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Somalis. A note with more details was available as well as a map of Somalia.

Other

Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund said available at the back of the room were press releases in English and in French on a technical partnership between UNICEF and Veolia Environment to be signed in Paris on Wednesday, 23 April. It did not involve money, but rather involved cooperation and technical aid in the case of humanitarian emergencies or natural disasters. Veolia was a private group and it would make available to UNICEF, in emergencies, experts, technicians and volunteers who could be mobilized on the ground immediately.


Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said policy makers and senior government officials from Southern Africa were today meeting in Durban to address the urgent need to set up adequate protection mechanisms for victims of trafficking in Southern Africa. In Guatemala, the second evaluation of an IOM temporary labour migration programme carried out in that country had highlighted how such an approach could work to benefit migrants, their families and the countries of origin and destination. In Argentina, IOM and the Ministry of Social Development of the Province of Buenos Aires would draft a joint work plan to fight human trafficking after signing a cooperation agreement.