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 attended by spokespersons and representatives of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Food Programme, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the International Organization for Migration, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Meteorological Organization, the World Health Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Secretary-General’s Activities

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier announced that, staring on 31 March, the United Nations Secretary-General would be visiting Central Asia, where he would discuss issues of regional cooperation, disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation, energy, climate change, the environment and continuing efforts to attain the Millennium Development Goals. More details of the Secretary-General’s itinerary in Central Asia were available on request.

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that, after visiting Central Asia, Mr. Ban would travel to Vienna, where he would chair the Central Executives Board, which gathered together the heads of the 27 agencies, funds and programmes within the United Nations system. He would also have meetings with Austrian President Heinz Fischer and Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger, and would address the Permanent Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Jean Rodriguez of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) added that the Executive Secretary of UNECE, Ján Kubiš, would accompany the Secretary-General on his trip to Central Asia. It was a region in which UNECE was very present, with five States members. Among the focal themes of the Secretary-General’s visit, just outlined, were a number that were key for UNECE, including water, environment and energy policy – with a huge issue of sustainable energy management in the Central Asian region.

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that available in the press room was the statement of the Secretary-General on the twin suicide bombings in the Moscow Metro.

Geneva Activities

Turning to activities in Geneva, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier noted that, the tenth series of the International Geneva Discussions had begun this morning at the Palais des Nations. There would be the traditional press conference by the three co-Chairs at the end of the meeting, at around 5 p.m., to be confirmed. Following that briefing there would be press briefings by the Russian Federation and by Georgia, all in Room III.

Mr. Rodriguez announced the appointment of Andrey Vasilyev as Deputy Executive Secretary for UNECE, starting on 1 April 2010. Prior to his appointment, since 2006, Mr. Vasilyev had been serving as Director of UNECE’s Economic Cooperation and Integration Division. Press releases with biographic details of the new Deputy Executive Secretary were available at the back of the room in English and Russian.

Haiti

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that, a few days, before the Donors Conference on Haiti was to open in New York, the Secretary-General had called on Monday to “make hope a reality”, noting that the country would need an estimated $11.5 billion over the next 10 years in order to recover from the 12 January earthquake. “That is our challenge in New York – not to rebuild but to ‘build back better’, to create a new Haiti”, the Secretary-General had underscored. Together, President Préval and his Government had elaborated a national strategic plan of action to restore and develop the country. “This assistance must be well spent and well coordinated”, Mr. Ban had added, noting that, to date, the United Nations had provided tents and tarpaulins to 1 million people, and would distribute some 300,000 more in the coming weeks. He noted that they now had several major sites around Port-au-Prince where they could relocate people from campsites vulnerable to flooding to more secure ground, hopefully ahead of the full thrust of the rainy season.

While working to put in place long-term reconstruction assistance, the Secretary-General had recognized that they could not proceed as usual. Their ambition, he had said, was to rebuild the country from top to bottom. In addition to basic services, Mr. Ban had said reconstructing Haiti would include a new social contract between Haiti and its people: “This new partnership requires a commitment to good governance, transparency and mutual accountability – between the Government and the governed, between the public and private sectors, between Haiti and the international community.”

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the International Donors Conference, “Towards a New Future for Haiti”, would be held at United Nations Headquarters in New York on Wednesday. The meeting, which would be led by Haitian President René Préval, with the Secretary-General and Hillary Clinton, United States Secretary of State, as co-hosts, as well as the United Nations Special Envoy for Haiti, former President Bill Clinton, would be co-chaired by Brazil, Canada, the European Union, France and Spain, as the leading donors to Haiti.

Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that, while the Donors Conference was being organized, the United Nations and its partners were continuing to provide emergency humanitarian assistance, as the rainy season was just beginning and many were still lodged in temporary shelters. The United Nations appeal for $1.4 billion was 48 per cent funded to date – in other words, the appeal had stagnated and, following an initial rush by donors, had not received new funds and contributions. The revised appeal was the first step in the process of building Haiti back better. She stressed that humanitarian assistance had to continue alongside reconstruction efforts – the subject of the upcoming Donors Conference, where countries would be asked to contribute $3.8 billion.

There were key sectors of the humanitarian appeal that were insufficiently funded, including agriculture (25 per cent funded), camp management (23 per cent), education (37 per cent), emergency shelter (39 per cent) and food aid (44 per cent). Protection of persons, which was urgent at present, was only 32 per cent funded. The generosity that had been shown in the first months had to continue, because the situation in Haiti remained a humanitarian emergency, Ms. Byrs stressed.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme (WFP) said available at the back of the room was a press release. WFP was now moving from an emergency phase to a longer-term food security strategy that focused on Haiti’s human capital. The new strategy included safety nets for the most vulnerable people in the country, boosting local agriculture and supporting local markets. The target population was about 2 million people. It would include blanket supplementary feeding starting in April for children under five in the affected communities. WFP had been feeding children in schools, but as many of the schools had been closed it would now be ramping up that programme. In April WFP would also be launching a cash and food-for-work project to support agricultural rehabilitation, and it had also launched a new tender to purchase 400 metric tons of locally produced rice, to help stimulate the market.

In addition, together with the Haitian Authorities, WFP was putting in place hurricane preparedness measures, including pre-positioning food, trucks and other supplies for the whole humanitarian community in each district of the country, Ms. Casella reported. The WFP had received generous contributions from donors up to now – $260 million – but to implement the cash and food-for-work projects that were planned to start in April, WFP would need some $100 million. Also, WFP was still lacking $55 million in funds to be able to maintain the delivery of humanitarian supplies, as it managed the logistics and telecommunications clusters for the whole humanitarian effort.

Marc Vergara of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said at the back of the room was a press release UNICEF was issuing with some of its partners, including Save the Children, SOS Children’s Villages International and Oxfam, on the role of children in the reconstructions process. He recalled that 40 per cent of Haiti’s population was under 15 years old. The release was available in English, French and Spanish.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that IOM was launching a new comprehensive environmental health and sanitation strategy in Haiti, financed by the Swedish Agency for International Development Cooperation. The programme sought to improve access to clean drinking water, as well as concentrating on sanitation and hygiene issues, notably by increasing the number of latrines available to the affected populations. In a first phase, they would carry out awareness-raising campaigns in the spontaneous settlements. The teams would also focus on vector control - fighting mosquitoes in order to prevent malaria and dengue fever - as well as environmental hazards, especially flood risks, ahead of the rainy season. A news note was available.

Catherine Sibut-Pinote of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said a four-page UNCTAD policy brief on reconstruction for Haiti would be available later today. It said that, to ensure the future development of Haiti, a new approach was needed to international cooperation. A macroeconomic approach to investment was needed to reconstruct and develop production capacities and to improve agricultural production. The brief also spelled out the responsibilities of Haiti and donor countries with regard to Haiti’s development. Copies of the policy brief would be put in press room 1.

Rupert Colville of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said at the back of the room was a press release by the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Haiti, in connection with the upcoming Donors Conference. The Independent Expert would be going to Haiti for over a week, starting this Thursday.

Afghanistan: Poverty and Human Rights

Mr. Colville announced that today the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was releasing a new report both here and in Kabul on the human rights dimensions of poverty in Afghanistan. It painted a pretty bleak picture of patronage, corruption, impunity and overemphasis on short-term security issues rather than long-term development, and found that those were exacerbating the already dire poverty affecting more than two thirds of all Afghans. The report showed a population in deep economic distress, eight years after the 2002 Bonn Agreement had promised a new beginning after decades of conflict. Despite an estimated injection of some $35 billion during the period 2002-2009, some 9 million Afghans (36 per cent of the population) were believed to live in absolute poverty and a further 37 per cent lived only slightly above the poverty line. That made them extremely vulnerable to any adverse event, such as drought, floods, earthquakes or even micro-events – such as a nearby health facility running out of medication.

Among others, the report noted that Afghanistan had the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world and the third highest rate of child mortality, Mr. Colville said. Only 23 per cent of the population had access to safe drinking water, and only 24 per cent above the age of 15 could read and write. However, poverty was neither accidental nor inevitable in Afghanistan. While the continuing conflict and insecurity were contributing factors, the report attributed much of the blame to “a massive human rights deficit including widespread impunity and inadequate investment in, and attention to, human rights”. The report had drawn partly on a survey carried out among some of the poorest communities in 14 provinces, as well a separate series of interviews of experts at the local and national level. The main conclusion was that the abuse of power was a key driver of poverty in Afghanistan. Vested interests frequently shaped the public agenda and, as a result, the Government was often unable to deliver basic services, such as security, food, or shelter. Widespread corruption further limited access to services for a large proportion of the population. The report also found that many Afghans perceived international actors as primarily interested in short-term objectives rather than challenging entrenched and abusive power structures, which had reinforced a strong sense of disillusionment and growing scepticism about the future of the democratization process among a wide swathe of Afghan society. Hard copies of the report were available at the back of the room and electronic copies would be posted on the OHCHR website soon at http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/AsiaRegion/Pages/HRReports.aspx.

Responding to questions on the survey and the specificity of the report, Mr. Colville acknowledged that the survey was basically a snapshot, as it was a extremely difficult to navigate the country for both logistical and security reasons. The report assimilated a lot of different data and information carried out by other entities. That, however, was the report’s main purpose, to provide an overall view of what was driving poverty and why it had gotten worse over the past couple of years.

Humanitarian Situation in Northern Yemen

Dorothea Krimistas of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in an update on the situation in northern Yemen and ICRC’s efforts to help the population there, recalled that, since the latest round of fighting, which started on 12 August 2009, ICRC had been present in the north of Yemen, assisting at least 150,000 displaced persons and residents by providing water, food and other essential items. ICRC was beginning now to get a clearer picture of the extent of the destruction and the needs on the ground, in particular in areas that had not been accessible before. As might be remembered, at the end of September some ICRC staff had to leave Saada and had been transferred to Sanaa for the rest of the conflict. They had now been able to return to Saada; on 25 March four expatriate ICRC staff – including a water engineer and a health specialist – had been able to return. Apparently, there had been widespread destruction in the old city of Saada and ICRC’s primary concern was now providing shelter to internally displaced persons and returnees, as well as adequate water provisions, given that the water system had been heavily affected by the fighting.

El Niño/La Niña Update

Rupa Kumar Kolli, Chief of the World Climate Applications and Services Division at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), presenting the latest El Niño/La Niña update, began by noting that, in the previous, December 2009 update, it had been reported that an El Niño event had been well established across the tropical Pacific and had been expected to continue into the first quarter of 2010. The new update concluded that the ongoing El Niño event continued and that it had significant and widespread impacts. The most likely scenario for mid-year 2010 was for the El Niño event to have decayed and for a return to near-normal conditions over the tropical Pacific. However, that did not rule out the persistence of El Niño or the possible early stages of La Niña by mid-year. Even during the decaying phase of El Niño, over the next few months, the conditions associated with it would continue to influence climate patterns at least through the second quarter of the year.

Asked what the consequences of the El Niño phenomenon were, Mr. Kolli explained that, around the tropical Pacific, the most frequently observed impact was dry conditions over the western tropical Pacific – South East Asia and some parts of Southern Australia – and slightly wetter conditions over the eastern part. However, such information should be read in conjunction with other relevant regional systems, which were important to take into consideration in assessing the impacts. Regarding the human impact, that was mostly seen by its effects on the Monsoon systems in certain parts of the world, with the South Asian subcontinent experiencing a bigger than normal Monsoon last summer. On the positive side, El Niño was generally associated with a weaker than normal hurricane season in the North Atlantic.

Gaëlle Sévenier of WMO noted that the press release on this topic at the back of the room was under embargo until 2 p.m. today.

World Health Day

Fadéla Chaib of the World Health Organization (WHO) observed that 7 April was World Health Day. The theme this year was urbanization and public health, noting that, currently, over 50 per cent of the world’s population lived in cities. A media advisory would be sent out before Thursday detailing activities planned for Geneva. A press conference would be held on Wednesday, 7 April at 12 p.m. at the WHO Bookstore with WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, who would officially launch the celebrations for the day.

Other

Ms. Sévenier noted that there would be a WMO press conference next Tuesday, 6 April, at 2 p.m. in room 1 on the subject of the African Ministerial Conference on Meteorology. At the press conference there would be a media kit and two African Experts would be available to talk about the needs of Africa with regard to meteorological services.

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier announced that, owing to the Easter Holidays, the United Nations Office at Geneva would be closed on Friday, 2 April and Monday, 5 April. The next UNIS press briefing would therefore be held on Tuesday, 6 April.