REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Alessandra Vellucci, Director of the United Nations Information Service, United Nations Office at Geneva, chaired the briefing, which was attended by spokespersons for the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Refugee Agency, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Meteorological Organization, the International Organization for Migration, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization.

School children caught up in conflict in Ukraine

Giovanna Barberis, Ukraine Representative for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), read the following statement:

“Over the last four years as UNICEF Representative in Ukraine, I have had the privilege to meet children and families from across the country. I have also seen first-hand the rapid deterioration of all aspects of life for children caught in the ongoing, volatile conflict that too often goes unnoticed by the rest of the world.

Last month the conflict entered its fifth year. Today I will speak about the impact fighting has had on eastern Ukraine’s education system and the 200,000 school aged children who live within 15 kilometres on either side of the contact line. These children confront unimaginable danger every day to access their basic right to an education.

The conflict has taken a devastating toll. Hundreds of schools have been damaged and destroyed. Children whose schools still function learn in classrooms with bullet holes and sandbags in the windows, bomb shelters in the basements, and shrapnel and unexploded ordinance in school yards.

Children face dangers due to the proximity of military sites - such as bases, storage facilities and security checkpoints - to kindergartens and schools on both sides of the contact line. UNICEF with our education partners have monitored at least eight instances where these sites are located within 500 meters of a school or kindergarten. In two locations schools and military/armed groups’ sites are only a few meters apart.

Since the beginning of this school year, UNICEF and partners have monitored at least six former school buildings that have been occupied or are being used by military or armed groups. Since January 2017, 45 schools have been damaged or destroyed, and 22 temporarily closed. These are in addition to the more than 700 schools damaged since the conflict began – many of these schools are still in need of repair.

On 12 April, a school bus of 30 children who were on their way home from school had to be immediately evacuated and taken to a safe space because the bus was caught in crossfire. This happened in the early afternoon.

The harm these incidents have on a child’s psychological well-being cannot be overstated. Principals and teachers are also suffering. For example, a school director in Avidiivka told UNICEF “If I had one word to describe the conflict and its impact on children: it is horror. She then pulled out pieces of shrapnel and bullets from her desk drawer that she had collected from her school yard.

We also spoke to the Principal of Secondary School in the town of Krasnohorivka. The school has been shut down since last May after it was hit by a shell that tore off a huge portion of the roof and damaged multiple classrooms. Students continue to attend a neighbouring school, until their school is repaired. Ms. Mihatskaya said ‘The children are extremely nervous of shelling and teachers try to calm them down, but it’s hard for them. It’s hard for kids to cope because they are nervous and stressed.’

Children in eastern Ukraine need an end to the fighting. UNICEF is calling on all parties to the conflict to respect international humanitarian law and ensure that schools and other vital civilian infrastructure are never in the line of fire. This year, UNICEF has appealed for USD 26.6 million to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to children and families affected by the conflict in eastern Ukraine. To date, less than 15 per cent of this appeal has been met.”

Protests in Gaza

Christophe Boulierac, for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said that he wished to read a statement attributable to Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa:

“Over the past five weeks, five children were killed and hundreds were injured in largely peaceful protests in Gaza. Power cuts and shortages of fuel, medicine and equipment are straining an already fragile health system and complicating access to treatment for the injured.

In addition to physical injuries, children are showing signs of severe distress and trauma. Yesterday, our UNICEF Special Representative visited a 14-year-old boy who suffered a gunshot wound, causing a severe injury close to his heart. He is now home recovering after being in hospital for two weeks. It is hard for him to be optimistic through the pain, but when he gets better, he wants to be a doctor, like the ones who helped him survive.

The escalating violence in Gaza has exacerbated the suffering of children whose lives have already been unbearably difficult for several years. Half of all children depend on humanitarian assistance, and one in four needs psychosocial care. Schools are overcrowded and operating on triple shifts, limiting children’s learning prospects.

The minimal power supply in Gaza has disrupted water and sanitation services, severely reducing the availability of drinking water – nine out of ten families do not have regular access to safe water. UNICEF continues its lifesaving assistance for children in health, water, sanitation, hygiene, education and protection.

UNICEF renews its calls for all those with influence to protect children and keep them out of harm’s way. Children belong in schools, homes and playgrounds – they should never be targeted or encouraged to participate in violence.”

Update on emergency preparedness and response for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

Andrej Mahecic, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), read the following statement:

“UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency is rushing additional aid to Bangladesh where the first scattered monsoon rains have been affecting Cox’s Bazar district and the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees there.

The first of three scheduled humanitarian airlifts carrying additional shelter materials arrived in Bangladesh on Tuesday (1 May). Its load, 1,400 tents, is the first batch of 10,000 tents that UNHCR will airlift by the end of May. The second flight duly arrived on 2 May. The aim is for the tents to provide emergency shelter for an estimated 60,000 refugees currently residing in areas at high risk of landslides and flooding. Aid is also being moved by sea; this includes additional tents, 170,000 tarpaulins sheets, and other basic items.

Humanitarian partners estimate that between 150,000 and 200,000 Rohingya refugees will be at risk this monsoon season. They are living on land prone to landslides and flooding and are in urgent need of relocation. Of this number, 24,000 people are at critical risk due to severe instability of the land on which their shelters have been constructed.

Since August 2017 more than 670,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh, joining over 200,000 refugees already in the country. In a massive effort to shelter refugees and meet their needs, Bangladesh has generously allocated thousands of acres of land that has already been settled on by refugees.

In addition, the Government has recently allocated new land for settlement. UNHCR, IOM and WFP engineers are working around the clock to flatten this land to accommodate those at greatest risk. Heavy machinery and thousands of labourers are working on this. Nonetheless this work is going more slowly than initially anticipated due to the hilliness and instability of the terrain. UNHCR hope to relocate some 5,000 people to the new land by the end of May.

In the absence of more available land, UNHCR has made temporary emergency relocation arrangements, which will be activated as needed. An estimated 35,000 refugees can be hosted by other refugees living in safer areas; 34,000 refugees can be hosted in communal structures in refugee settlements; and 66,000 refugees can be hosted in tents or other emergency shelters within or adjacent to the current settlements. These arrangements are not a sustainable solution, but they may be life-saving in the short-term.

Meanwhile, in support of Bangladesh’s intensive efforts to ready the refugee settlements for the monsoon rains, UNHCR is further strengthening its own emergency preparedness and response capacity – in an effort to save lives, reduce health, landslide and flood risks and preserve access to settlements.

By the end of May, UNHCR plans to equip all refugee families with shelter kits, which will include bamboo poles, ropes, shelter-grade tarpaulins, sandbags, and tools. In addition, UNHCR is distributing 80,000 pre-monsoon kits to help secure shelters in case of storms, and is stock-piling tens of thousands post-disaster response kits to be distributed to refugees, as well as another 30,000 post-disaster response kits to be distributed to any families who might be affected among the host community. UNHCR has already positioned five hospital tents and emergency health kits in Cox’s Bazar. More medicines and supplies are being ordered.

Refugees themselves are working with us on the preparedness efforts. Refugee community health workers have completed first aid and cyclone preparedness training. Some of them have been trained to be in search and rescue teams. UNHCR and partners are working closely with refugees to develop early warning systems and information campaigns for emergency situations.

Six weeks ago UNHCR and partners launched the Joint Response Plan for the Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis seeking more than USD 950 million in 2018 to meet the immediate needs of more than 880,000 Rohingya refugees and over 330,000 Bangladeshis in communities affected by the crisis. UNHCR’s portion of this appeal amounts to more than USD 180 million.

As of May, only 16 per cent of needed funds have been received. While UNHCR is grateful to donors who had made their contributions early, which allowed UNHCR to continue its response efforts uninterrupted, it hopes that more resources will be made available.”

In response to questions, Mr. Mahecic said that the 16 per cent referred to funding for the entire Joint Response Plan. Funding for the UNHCR portion of the appeal currently stood at 23 per cent. People were still arriving by land in Bangladesh, although in smaller members than had previously been the case. In addition, smaller groups, which had set out by boat from Rakhine State, were arriving in Malaysia and Indonesia. No refugees had officially returned to Myanmar.

Clashes in Rwanda refugee camp

Andrej Mahecic, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), read the following statement:

“UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is reiterating its call on the Rwandan authorities and Congolese refugees in Rwanda for restraint and calm, after recent clashes left one refugee dead and others injured at the Kiziba refugee camp in western Rwanda.

The full circumstances surrounding this incident are still unclear, but we understand that the death of the refugee followed a stand-off between the Rwandan National Police and a crowd of refugee youths on Tuesday. The individual was injured. He was taken to a district hospital in Kibuye, but succumbed to his injuries late the same day.

We deplore this tragedy and have shared our sympathies with the family. We urge police and refugees to avoid any further confrontation and peacefully resolve issues.

Over 17,000 Congolese refugees live in the camp. Many have been there for more than two decades, while a significant number were born there. Faced with dwindling assistance levels and food ration reductions as humanitarian funding levels have remained chronically low, residents began protests in February.

A previous clash on February 22 led to 10 refugee deaths, left many others injured including members of the police.

The Rwandan National Police had beefed up their presence in Kiziba with more personnel arriving there on April 20. This week’s confrontation reportedly began on Monday when police used tear gas after being blocked by refugee youths. A 12 year old refugee boy was injured and is currently recovering in hospital. Another 23 refugees are reported to have been arrested, apparently for provoking Rwandan police patrols.

With the situation still tense, some refugees have indicated that they want to return to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) out of desperation. UNHCR is urging them to make a properly informed decision and not one based on misinformation or rumours.

The continued confrontation has also hindered humanitarian access to Kiziba camp. UNHCR and its partners are struggling to provide support and assistance to the refugees.

With our continued efforts to peacefully resolve the current situation, UNHCR is also advocating with donors to address the gaps in humanitarian funding and urgent needs of refugees. UNHCR’s 2018 funding appeal for USD 98.8 million to support refugees in Rwanda is only is 13 per cent funded.”

In response to journalists’ questions, Mr. Mahecic said that most of the camp residents had been there since the mid-1990s and many of them knew no other life. A number of factors had recently come together to exacerbate tensions. Firstly, a general lack of resources and funding had led to a reduction in the amount of food available. Secondly, resettlement opportunities were scarce and those that did exist were reserved for the most vulnerable refugees. Thirdly, although camp residents were not prevented from seeking out opportunities to earn their own livelihood and, in fact, were encouraged to engage in income-generating activities, the fact was that resources such as land were limited and realistic prospects were few. Finally, the prospect of return to their areas of origin seemed remote as those areas remained extremely volatile.

Update on flooding in East Africa

Jens Laerke, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that floods in Kenya had displaced more than 260,000 people and killed at least 100, according to the Red Cross in Kenya. The highest numbers of displaced people were reported in Tana River, Turkana, Mandera and Kilifi counties.

The major humanitarian concern, beyond the displacement, was disease outbreaks, particularly cholera and chikungunya, a mosquito-borne disease. Since the beginning of 2018, cholera had been reported in 15 counties in Kenya and five counties still had active cholera transmission. Nearly 3,000 cholera cases, including 55 deaths, had been reported by the end of April. Flooding exacerbated cholera outbreaks and increased the risk of vector-borne diseases, which also included malaria and dengue fever.

The Kenya Red Cross and the Government, including the armed forces, were leading the response with support from UN agencies, notably UNICEF. The humanitarian country team was currently discussing how to further support the response.

In neighbouring Somalia, heavy rains and flooding in the Juba and Shabelle river basins had displaced some 215,000 people. Overall, 630,000 people had been affected by flash floods, with the Juba and Shabelle rivers bursting their banks. Baidoa and Belet Weyne in central Somalia were among the worst-hit districts.

Humanitarian partners had stepped up their flood response and were providing food, water, sanitation and hygiene, health services and shelter. The President of Somalia had described the situation in Belet Weyne as a national disaster and appealed for international assistance.

An estimated USD 16 million was urgently required to avert a humanitarian crisis. The Somalia Humanitarian Response Plan 2018 required USD 1.5 billion but was only 19 per cent funded.

Deadly Indian storms and other extreme and unusual weather

Clare Nullis, for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), said that the floods in Eastern Africa, which were also impacting other countries such as Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda, were part of a wider pattern of extreme weather around the world, including the Indian subcontinent. In that regard, she read out the following statement:

“The India Meteorological Department is issuing warnings of more storm activity in northern parts of India. This includes parts of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan which were impacted by storms and sand and dust storms in the past few days. The Indian National Disaster Management Department says that at least 108 people died and nearly 300 people were injured by lightning and the storm which hit Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

Storms are common in the pre-monsoon season in India. But the severity and the impact of this particular storm is exceptional. The India Meteorological Department says that a combination of high winds and high temperatures contributed to the storm activity. Parts of Rajasthan have witnessed temperatures above 40°C. Maximum temperatures are appreciably above normal (3.1°C to 5.0°C in many parts of Rajasthan, with the highest maximum temperature of 46°C in the town of Phalodi).

Two meteorological stations in Pakistan reported temperatures of at least 50° C. There is no other recorded instance of a temperature topping 50°C in April. A site in Shaheed Benazirabad recorded a new national temperature record for April of 50.2 °C while a temperature of 50.0°C was recorded on the same day at Jacobabad.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department has forecast above average temperatures for the coming two months and has established a heatwave early warning centre in Karachi in an attempt to avoid the high fatalities recorded during previous heatwaves.

Extreme events including heatwaves and heavy precipitation are increasing in frequency and intensity as a result of climate change. The month of April is not expected to be the warmest at global level. However, a number of countries including Argentina and Germany set new monthly national temperature records. Germany’s average temperature of 12.4°C was 4.0°C above the long-term baseline.

Spain’s Izaña observing station in Tenerife reported a new record concentration of carbon dioxide of nearly 414 parts per million on 7 April. WMO’s Global Atmosphere Watch monitoring stations in the northern hemisphere traditionally report peak concentrations in spring before the growth of vegetation which absorbs CO2. Despite the seasonal fluctuations, the underlying trend in greenhouse gas concentrations remains upward.

Arctic sea ice extent was well below average. In particular, ice cover in the Bering Sea was record low at the end of April. Situated at the northern edge of the Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Bering Strait. ‘It’s the end of April and basically the Bering Sea is ice-free, when normally there would be more than 500,000 square kilometres of ice,’ said the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.”

Ms. Nullis also announced that WMO was convening a Hydro Conference from 7 to 9 May 2018, with partners both from within and outside the United Nations. The initiative aimed to improve the forecasting, management and utilization of water resources in an era of growing water stress and hazards like floods.

Relocating Venezuelans in Brazil

Joel Millman, for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), read out the following statement:

“IOM, the UN Migration Agency is today supporting the relocation of 236 Venezuelans from the city of Boa Vista in the State of Roraima on the border with Venezuela, to the cities of Manaus and Sao Paulo, Brazil.

This is the second group to be relocated under the Relocation Strategy led by the Government of Brazil and supported by IOM and other UN Agencies including UNHCR and UNFPA. The initiative seeks to help Venezuelans find opportunities in other Brazil cities.

The first group of 265 Venezuelans was relocated to the cities of Sao Paulo and Cuiaba on 4 and 6 April respectively.

Today’s group is comprised of 34 families (152 individuals including 74 children) who will relocate to Manaus, and 84 individuals to Sao Paulo. The Venezuelans will be in six temporary sites (three in Manaus and three in Sao Paulo) where the local governments will provide them with accommodation, food, healthcare and labour market orientation. They will also receive support from civil society and UN Agencies.

IOM’s logistical support to the Government includes the identification of the people who voluntarily want to relocate to other cities and coordination of transport and movement to the temporary shelter where the government health authorities perform their medical check-up. IOM also supports the preparation of their travel documents and provides orientation and information sharing on their destinations throughout Brazil.

The State of Roraima has registered the highest number of Venezuelans who have entered Brazil recently. Up to April, according to the Government, approximately 43,000 Venezuelans have applied for the regularization of their migration status in Brazil.”

Mr. Millman went on to say that the number of Venezuelans abroad had risen from 700,000 to more than 1,500,000 between 2015 and 2017, an increase of nearly 110 per cent. In South America alone, the number of Venezuelans rose from 89,000 in 2015 to 900,000 in 2017, an increase of approximately 900 per cent. Although the figures were akin to those of some of the largest migration emergencies of recent years, IOM was pleased to see how effectively some of the migrants were being integrated, thanks also to the fact that Latin American countries largely shared the same language and culture, and had a long tradition of cross-border exchanges. Particularly encouraging was the fact that 400,000 temporary and permanent residences had already been granted to Venezuelans by other Latin American States.

Replying to questions from journalists, Mr. Millman said that IOM was assisting with the registration of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia and in Chile, as well as in Brazil. The volume of persons arriving in Brazil was very high but the situation was not as dramatic as, for example, in Myanmar and most of the migrants had every intention of returning to their homes in Venezuela.

Answering a query posed by a journalist, Andrej Mahecic, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said that UNHCR had been working closely with the Brazilian authorities to register Venezuelans and ensure all arrivals had proper documentation. Once documented, Venezuelan asylum-seekers, as well as those with special stay permits, had the right to work, and access health, education and other basic services. Brazil’s Federal Government Committee on the Emergency Response to the Venezuelan influx, which was coordinating the humanitarian response in Roraima, was working with UNHCR to ensure Venezuelans had access to health care and proper shelter, and that they were being provided with basic aid items such as personal hygiene kits and mattresses. UNHCR and the Brazilian authorities were increasingly concerned by the growing risks faced by Venezuelans living on the streets. UNHCR was managing the new shelters, and its staff was doing biometric registration and issuing identification cards for food and aid distributions. At the same time, the Federal authorities, through the Brazilian army, were providing three warm meals a day as well as physical security. As of 26 April 2018, there were 170,169 Venezuelan asylum seekers around the world, most of them in the United States. As of March 2018, 24,000 Venezuelans had officially sought asylum in Brazil. In addition, there were up to half a million Venezuelans across the region with different legal statuses including persons with temporary residence visas, migration visas, humanitarian visas, etc.

Responding to journalists, Bettina Luescher, for the World Food Programme (WFP), said that, according to the Colombian Government, 1 million Venezuelans had so far crossed the border into Colombia. Of them, 660,000 had stayed in the country. WFP had called for funding of USD 46 million plan to deliver emergency food assistance to 350,000 impoverished migrants. An eight-month-long operation was planned, which also included the distribution of electronic cash cards to a value of USD 35 per person per month. The cards could be redeemed in local shops to buy nutritious food from a pre-defined list. The scheme had the advantage of both allowing recipients to choose the foods they wished to eat, meaning a more diverse diet, and supporting the local economy.

Ukraine funding warning

Joel Millman, for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), read out the following statement:

“IOM, the UN Migration Agency, has highlighted a disturbing lack of funds for the millions affected by conflict in Eastern Ukraine. ‘Today, 3.4 million conflict-affected people in Ukraine urgently require humanitarian assistance and protection, but the international humanitarian appeal to help address their needs is a shocking 97 per cent unfunded,’ said IOM Chief of Mission in Ukraine, Thomas Lothar Weiss.

With the conflict in eastern Ukraine entering its fifth year, 1.5 million people are registered as IDPs. Those building their lives from scratch in new communities face growing economic challenges, IOM warns.

New data collected by IOM shows that over half (54 per cent) of IDPs have barely enough money to buy food on a day-to-day basis. The United Nations and its humanitarian partners estimate that the number of food-insecure people in Ukraine has doubled over the last year, to 400,000 people in the government-controlled area, and to 800,000 in the non-government controlled territories.

According to the latest IOM survey, the National Monitoring System (conducted with funding from the European Union), the current average monthly income per IDP is USD 85, a little less than the USD 93 recorded in December 2017. These values are lower than the current subsistence levels calculated by the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine of USD 122 per month. One-fourth of IDP households surveyed have a monthly income of up to USD 114, while almost half of IDP families live on USD 114 to USD 266 per month.

IOM data shows healthcare is unaffordable for many IDPs due to the cost of medicine and services. The share of IDPs satisfied with the accessibility of health care services declined from 85 per cent in December 2017 to 62 per cent in March 2018.”

Shortfalls in humanitarian funding

Responding to a journalist’s question about the underfunding of humanitarian projects in general, Jens Laerke, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that some areas were better funded than others. As part of their ordinary advocacy, United Nations agencies tended to draw attention to specific areas where underfunding was especially critical. The total amount of funding being sought for appeals and response plans across the world in 2018 was USD 25 billion. As of the present – i.e., about halfway through the year – 25 per cent of that global requirement had been met, which was not a very satisfactory state of affairs. For a number of years, needs had been growing exponentially and, although donors were giving more and more in monetary terms, they were not increasing their funding at the same pace as the needs. Thus the gap between requirements and donations was becoming ever wider.

Mr. Laerke explained that around 80 per cent of humanitarian aid expenditure went to meet needs provoked by protracted human-made conflicts, not earthquakes and other natural disasters where the aid response could often be circumscribed to a period of a few months. Year after year, conflicts such as those in Syria, Yemen and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were draining humanitarian resources and no solution was in sight. In those situations, humanitarian operations, which were intended as an emergency frontline response, essentially took over what under normal circumstances would be government-funded social services. For example, the health service in Yemen was destroyed and was effectively being provided by humanitarian agencies.

Mr. Laerke went on to say that different countries had different budget cycles and different parliamentary and government procedures for releasing funding. Therefore, more funds might be forthcoming later in 2018. Clearly, some humanitarian response plans were catastrophically underfunded but it was difficult to make a comparison between the funding provided by different donors at different times for different plans to meet different situations in different parts of the world. In any case, 86 per cent of refugees in the world were hosted by developing nations, and those nations were unquestionably the largest donors.

Replying to questions from journalists, Joel Millman, for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that it was the IOM Chief of Mission in Ukraine who had described the underfunding of the humanitarian response in Ukraine as “shocking”. That was no exaggeration but a serious reflection on a critical situation. At a broader level the world was witnessing unprecedented levels of human mobility. Poorer countries were generating larger and larger numbers of young, educated and healthy job-seekers at the same time as populations in developed countries were growing older. At a global level, those two generations were competing for the same resources. All humanitarian agencies had to face that political and demographic reality, which was not likely to change in the future.

Answering a query posed by a journalist, Andrej Mahecic, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said that UNHCR was entirely funded by voluntary contributions and entirely dependent on the good will of donors. In effect it started from zero every year when, each December, it launched a global appeal for funds from States, the private sector, foundations, etc. Early funding allowed the Agency to plan a flexible response and address priority concerns. With no solution in sight for existing protracted crises and very little effort made to prevent new crises, there was a serious deficit of peace in the world and current levels of global displacement were at the level they had been after the Second World War.

Greece Migration and Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration Programmes

Joel Millman, for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said that, in the month of April 2018, the entire volume of irregular migration by sea into Greece had barely surpassed 7,000. That number should be compared with statistics from the previous four years when, on some occasions, more than 8,000 migrants had landed on a single day. The biggest single number – 10,842 – had arrived on 30 October 2015. Over a period of 20 months, IOM had assisted a total of 10,576 irregular migrants who had arrived by sea in Greece to return voluntarily to 84 different countries of origin. Most of the 10,576 had come from five States:
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Georgia and Algeria.

WHO announcements

Christian Lindmeier, for the World Health Organization (WHO), said that, in agreement with journalists, the WHO update on the Humanitarian Crisis of the Rohingya in and around Cox’s Bazar would be held from 10 a.m. to 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday 8 May, before the regular press briefing.

A virtual press briefing on the opening of public consultations on new guidelines on fats would take place at 3 p.m. on Friday 4 May. The public consultations were expected to last for around a month and the new guidelines were expected to be ready for issuance by the end of 2018.

On Monday 7 May at 2.30 p.m. a briefing would be held by GAVI Alliance / WHO on the subject “Update on the largest cholera vaccination drive in Africa and global stockpile”. The speakers would be: Seth Berkley, CEO, Gavi the Vaccine Alliance; Michael J. Ryan, Assistant Director-General, Emergency Preparedness and Response, and Mamoudou Harounda Djingarey, Programme Area Manager, Infectious Hazard Management, WHO / AFRO.

Announcements

Alessandra Vellucci, for the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, said that the Universal Periodic Review Working Group of the Human Rights Council would begin its thirtieth session on Monday 7 May. Fourteen States were due to be reviewed over the two-week session: Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Djibouti, Germany, Russian Federation, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu and Uzbekistan.

Ms. Vellucci also said that, following the conclusion of the work of the Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the Chair of the Committee, Ambassador Adam Bugaiski, would hold a press stakeout that day at 1.10 p.m.


Monday, 7 May at 2.30 p.m. in Room III
Gavi Alliance /WHO
Update on cholera vaccination drive in Africa and global stockpile.
Press conference by Seth Berkley, CEO, Gavi the Vaccine Alliance; Michael J. Ryan; and Assistant Director-General, Emergency Preparedness and Response
Dominique Legros, Cholera Team Lead, WHO
https://bit.ly/2riI7ks

Wednesday, 9 May at 10.00 a.m. in Press Room 1
UNICEF Press Conference under embargo
Embargo: Friday 11 May, 00.01 GMT
UNICEF report launch: Child alert in Kasai: A children’s crisis (Democratic Republic of Congo)
Press conference by Christophe Boulierac, UNICEF Spokesperson in Geneva (recently in Kasai region)
https://bit.ly/2w6XKQI

The webcast for this briefing is available here: http://bit.ly/unog040518