REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal Vanian, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the Human Rights Council, the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Children’s Fund, The World Health Organization, the United Nations Refugee Agency, and the World Food Programme.

Activities of the Director-General of UNOG

Ms. Momal Vanian said as part of the efforts to engage ‘Intellectual Geneva’ in discussion on key issues facing the United Nations, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, would give a public lecture today addressing “Conflict Prevention: Challenges and Opportunities for the United Nations” at 6:30 p.m. The event would take place at the Auditorium Jacques-Freymond, which was in the Villa Barton by the lake. The presentation was hosted by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and journalists were welcome to attend.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Momal Vanian said the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination was this morning concluding its consideration of the report of Portugal. The Committee would consider the reports of Viet Nam, Canada and Turkmenistan this week, and the reports of Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Qatar, Jordan and Italy next week.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women was today reviewing the report of Zimbabwe. Tomorrow and on Thursday, the Committee would consider the last two reports before it this session, those of Algeria and Jordan.

Ms. Momal Vanian said the Conference on Disarmament was this morning meeting in a public plenary.

As for press conferences this week, there would be a press briefing tomorrow at 11 a.m. with Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, United States Representative to the United Nations Human Rights Council on the upcoming nineteenth session of the Human Rights Council

Ms. Momal Vanian said on Friday, 24 February, at 9 a.m., in Press Room 1, there would be a press briefing with Ambassador Laura Dupuy Lasserre, President of the Human Rights Council, on the upcoming session of the Council which starts on 27 February. Rolando Gomez of the Human Rights Council secretariat (HRC) explained that this would be an informal meeting, and breakfast would be served, but it was also an on the record briefing and he hoped that all could attend.

Human Rights Council Advisory Committee and Human Rights Council

Mr. Gomez said the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee opened yesterday its eighth session. The Committee discussed and adopted its agenda and programme of work for the session. The Advisory Committee served as a think tank for the Human Rights Council. The Committee began deliberations on the draft declaration on the right of peoples to peace, as mandated by the Council, and the draft declaration would be presented to the Council in its June session. The Committee also took up a preliminary study on promoting human rights and fundamental freedoms through a better understanding of traditional values of humankind. In opening remarks to the Committee, the President of the Council, Ms. Dupuy Lasserre, thanked the Committee members for their hard work and valuable contribution to promoting and protecting human rights and encouraged the Committee to maintain its close relationship with all stakeholders, including civil society, human rights actors on the ground and other United Nations agencies in order to promote a solid basis in order to advance human rights around the world.

The Committee also observed a minute of silence in honour of Purificacion V. Quisumbing, one of its members, who passed away in December 2011.

Mr. Gomez said today, the Advisory Committee would continue its discussion on promoting human rights and fundamental freedoms through a better understanding of traditional values of humankind, and would take up a follow-up to its report on discrimination in the context of the right to food that would focus on the right to food of peasants and also on malnutrition and childhood diseases, in particular, noma, which was a debilitating disease resulting from severe malnutrition.

As for the Human Rights Council, which was beginning on Monday, 27 February, Mr. Gomez said he would soon send out additional material for the press.

Responding to questions, Mr. Gomez said that this material would include an update of the list of nearly 90 ministers and other dignitaries who would address the High-level Segment of the Council. Concerning Syria, the Commission of Inquiry on Syria was tentatively scheduled to present its report to the Human Rights Council on 12 March in the afternoon, and the Commission, led by Mr. Pinheiro, would probably brief journalists after that. There was no draft resolution tabled on Syria yet. Usually draft resolutions had to be tabled 72 hours before action was taken on them. He would also send a link to the extranet where journalists could get all the draft resolutions as soon as they were tabled.

UNISDR–Flood warning for Europe

Denis McClean of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction said everyone knew that it had been a terrible winter in central and eastern Europe in terms of snow fall, and the focus now was turning to the expected floods that would come in the next couple of weeks. He had a short statement from the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlstrom, who was particularly concerned about the consequences for those countries bordering the Danube where the ice was now starting to break up in the first signs of a spring thaw. She said that this severe winter in which hundreds of people had died had highlighted several weaknesses in the built environment and the ability to prepare for worst case scenarios. Vulnerable communities across Europe had been cut off from transport, schools, health facilities and electricity in many cases.

Ms. Wahlstrom said the thaw was now setting in along the Danube. While thousands of people remained snowbound from Serbia to Bulgaria, there were warning signs that destructive floods would add to the loss of life and economic assets, particularly in places where there was an absence of flood management infrastructure such as dams and dikes. Ms. Wahlstrom said there was a need to plan better. More focus on winterization planning would be a wise investment in the coming years. A press release with more details was available.

World Meteorological Organization

Claire Nullis of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said she had asked WMO’s counterparts at the German weather service, which was the regional focal point for Europe, to give her a roundup for February of significant temperature lows and significant events and she would let journalists have it when it was ready in early March.

Ms. Nullis said WMO was one of the sponsors of the Regional Climate Outlook Forum for the greater Horn of Africa. This was taking place next week, from 27 to 29 February, in Kigali, Rwanda. It was looking ahead to the March to May rainfall season, which was the main rainy season in this part of the world. The Forum was organized by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development Climate Prediction and Application Centre, which was one of the regional centres which WMO supported. The Forum would bring together national experts from all the countries in the greater Horn of Africa, along with climate prediction experts and users of those climate early warning advisories. The Forum was taking place after the region was ravaged by drought in 2010-2011, and more recently by excessive rain in certain equatorial areas. The greater Horn of Africa was affected by La Niña. WMO in its most recent update on 10 February said that weak to moderate La Niña conditions had prevailed since October 2011, and they were expected to persist until May 2012. The current La Niña was not nearly as strong as the 2010 - 2011 event which was associated with the severe drought over parts of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. One of the focuses of the meeting would be to look at how the current la Niña was likely to impact on the rains. A note with all the details had been put out and a press release would be issued as soon as the meeting ended.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the situation of funding was crucial for the operations against cholera in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. During the last six months, the Central Emergency Response Fund had allocated more than $ 13 million to the fight against cholera. The World Health Organization had confirmed this week that cholera had hit Bas-Congo, meaning that the epidemic had now spread to 9 out of 11 provinces in the country. The appeal for the Democratic Republic of the Congo was $ 718 million, and it was only funded at 4 per cent. The lack of access to potable water remained the single most important cause of the recurrent cholera outbreaks.

In Katanga Province, Ms. Byrs said the preliminary results from a multi-cluster mission indicated that more than 16,000 internally displaced persons had moved to the Mitwaba and Pweto Territories during the last month, fleeing human rights violations. Despite limited time on the ground and tight security restrictions, the mission identified food, water, sanitation and hygiene, as well as non-food items, protection and emergency shelter needs. There were more details in the briefing notes.

State of the World’s Children Report

Marixie Mercado of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said the State of the World’s Children report would be launched on 27 February in Mexico City by the UNICEF Executive Director, together with the Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean and the UNICEF Representative in Mexico. There were embargoed copies of the report at the back of the room and she would send journalists the press materials as soon as they were available. Everything was strictly embargoed until 28 February. She would be happy to set up interviews for anyone interested.

Sahel Nutrition Crisis

Ms. Mercado said the focus was on reaching an estimated 1 million young children in eight countries who would suffer from severe acute malnutrition this year. These children were among the most vulnerable children in the world and the damage inflicted by malnutrition on the very young was permanent when it was not lethal. In 2012, UNICEF estimated that it would need to procure almost 9,000 metric tons of ready to use therapeutic food for the treatment of children with severe acute malnutrition. They estimated that Niger would be able to meet its entire caseload of 330,000 children with locally produced ready to use therapeutic food. So far, UNICEF had received $ 11 million in funding, or 9.2 percent out of a total requirement of $ 120 million for 2012. The funding was needed now so that they could place orders for ready to use therapeutic food about six months in advance so that they could continue to produce the quantities they needed in order to save lives. If the money arrived much later, that would mean that they would have to airfreight supplies to the affected regions instead of shipping them by sea, and the cost difference was enormous. To move 100 metric tons of ready to use therapeutic food by airfreight cost $ 350,000, while moving it by sea cost $ 13,000.

Tarik Jasarevic of the World Health Organization (WHO) stressed how important it was to get funding for all United Nations agencies to prevent crisis in the Sahel and to provide the response. The West African sub-region and the Sahel were prone to recurrent epidemics claiming thousands of lives every year, all of this against the background of weak health systems and worsening health and socio-economic indicators, including low immunization coverage. For example, most of the Sahel countries were reporting cases of cholera and measles and these numbers would probably go up with the lack of access to potable water and vulnerability of children affected by malnutrition and low immunization coverage. WHO was strengthening its regional presence and was working closely with the Ministries of Health of all the Sahel countries to provide response and strengthen and step up the diseases surveillance. WHO was also providing medical supplies and it needed $ 5 million to support health services provided by the Ministries of Health.

Dadaab Refugee Camp/Somalia

Ms. Momal Vanian recalled that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would be attending the London conference on Somalia, which would be held on Thursday, 23 February.

After showing a short documentary on Dadaab, the world’s biggest refugee camp, Andrej Mahecic of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said this year was the twentieth anniversary of the world’s biggest refugee camp, Dadaab, in north-eastern Kenya. It was not an anniversary calling for celebration, however, but rather a tragic reminder of the 20 long years of misery and displacement for Somali people. The original intention was for the Dadaab camp to host up to 90,000 people. However, the camp today held more than 463,000 refugees, including 10,000 third generation refugees born in Dadaab to refugee parents who were also born there. It was very important to recognize the role that was played by the countries of the region, in a sense that they were the ones that had borne the brunt of this displacement crisis for two decades. That Dadaab had been able to provide refuge for so many years and to so many people was mainly thanks to the people and Government of Kenya. UNHCR, together with the Government of Kenya and working with other agencies, had provided protection, shelter and humanitarian assistance, often under difficult and complex circumstances. On the occasion of this anniversary, UNHCR was renewing its appeal to the international community to ensure continued support to the approximately 1 million Somali refugees in the region, and to Kenya and other countries that were hosting them. There were more details in the briefing notes.

Jumbe Omari Jumbe of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that Somalia and the Horn of Africa in general had been suffering from the worst drought in 60 years. None were more desperate for water than the thousands of displaced Somalis and the host communities. IOM had launched a pilot study of water supply, sanitation and hygiene for internally displaced families living on the outskirts of Mogadishu. The study was aimed at providing clean potable water for the internally displaced persons and the host communities around Mogadishu as a start. The Japanese International Cooperation Agency was funding this study. Once the project was running, 50,000 internally displaced persons and members of host communities would benefit. There were more details in the briefing notes.

Other

Mr. Jumbe said the Japanese Government had provided $ 2.4 million for five new immigration and police premises in Tanzania to deal with mainly Ethiopians and Somalis who were smuggled to South Africa through Tanzania. Every year, 17,000 to 20,000 Ethiopians and Somalis were smuggled through Tanzania on route to South Africa. Many were seized by the Tanzanian police, but the Government had no capacity to accommodate these people in special premises pending their deportation, so often they had been locked up in jails. Last year, IOM helped 170,000 to return to their countries. By building these premises, the migrants would be properly housed and screened. They would be offered the option of voluntary return.

Gaëlle Sévenier of the World Food Programme (WFP) said that this was her last briefing for a while as she would be going on maternity leave, and Elizabeth Byrs would be Spokesperson for WFP starting next month.