POINT DE PRESSE DU SERVICE DE L'INFORMATION (en anglais)

Marie Heuzé, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the press briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the United Nations Refugee Agency the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the International Organization for Migration and the Kofi Annan Foundation.

[The briefing was also attended by a group of students in journalism of the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland]

Secretary-General Activities

Ms. Heuzé said that the Secretary-General’s letter to the participants of the upcoming G-20 Summit in London was available since yesterday. In it he said that a prolonged and severe recession, if not addressed boldly with urgent attention given to the needs of the vulnerable, could likewise affect countries and regions with profound consequences for the security and stability of us all.

Turning to the Secretary-General travels, Ms. Heuzé said that he was in Moscow today where he was participating at a Special Conference on Afghanistan that was being convened under the aegis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The meeting was mainly addressing the issues of the fight against organized crime and drug trafficking.

Also, following consultations with the UNDP Executive Board, the Secretary-General had written to the President of the General Assembly requesting the General Assembly to confirm Helen Clark of New Zealand as the new Administrator of UNDP for a term of four years, said Ms. Heuzé.

Ms. Heuzé also noted that the UN System was currently holding meetings with the General Commissioner for the Shangai World Expo2010, which would take place from 1 May to 31 October 2010 to discuss the participation of the UN and develop the theme: “one earth, one UN”.

Human Rights Council Tenth Session

Ms. Heuzé said that today was the last day of the Council’s tenth session and that at 2 p.m., the President of the Human Rights Council Mr. Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi would hold a press conference.

Durban Review Conference

Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that since the 17 March release of a shortened text of the draft outcome document for the anti-racism Durban Review Conference, the High Commissioner had met with a large number of ambassadors, from all regional groups, to discuss their reactions to that draft.

As Secretary-General of the Conference she had wanted to make sure the positive regional group statements that had been issued would be followed by the action necessary to advance the negotiating process, said Mr. Colville. All the ambassadors she had met with so far had indicated that they considered the text a very good basis for negotiations. They said that any fine-tuning or improvements should be minimal and that the fundamental balances in text should not be reopened. They had agreed that the text met the basic requirements of all concerned, while still being substantive and of added value.

Mr. Colville said that the High Commissioner was very encouraged by these reactions and she had appealed to all ambassadors to maintain the current momentum and spirit of cooperation. She remained actively engaged in and supportive of the process and ready to make any effort required with a view to reaching a consensual outcome as soon as possible.

The revised and significantly shortened text had been proposed following consultations with all regional groups and interested delegations by the Russian Chairperson of the intergovernmental working group, said Mr. Colville.

Answering to a journalist’s question concerning the upcoming meetings before the start of the Conference itself, Mr. Colville said that informal discussions on the text were continuing day by day. The next formal meeting of the full intergovernmental intercessional working group would bee held from 6 April to 9 April 2009. The full preparatory committee would then meet during the following week and the Conference itself would be from 20 to 24 April 2009.

Meningitis epidemic in Nigeria and Niger

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said that during the first three months of 2009, a total of 24,868 suspected cases of meningitis, including 1,513 deaths had been reported to WHO. More than 85 percent of the cases had occurred in the region, encompassing Northern Nigeria and Niger. In Niger there were currently 4,513 suspected cases of meningococcal disease, including 169 deaths. So far 20 of Niger's 42 districts had crossed the alert or the epidemic threshold.

Turning to the situation in Nigeria, Ms. Chaib said that the Ministry of Health of Nigeria had reported 17,462 suspected cases of meningococcal disease, including 960 deaths. Cases originated from the 16 Northern states of Nigeria. Vaccination campaigns had been implemented in both countries with the support of WHO, UNICEF and Médecins sans Frontières. WHO was supporting the Nigerian Federal and National Ministry of Health to strengthen disease surveillance, laboratory diagnosis, case management and in defining adapted vaccination strategies. WHO technical experts were also supporting the Federal Ministry of Health in Nigeria since mid February 2009.

The International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Provision for Epidemic Meningitis Control, created by WHO and its partners (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, United Nations Children Fund and Médecins sans Frontières), had released 2.3 million doses of polysaccharide vaccines to Nigeria and 1.9 million doses of vaccine to Niger. The stockpile of the ICG for this epidemic season was set at 12.97 million doses, but more was needed to face the current season which lasted from January to May.

Answering to a journalist’s question on why this epidemic was suddenly so huge, Ms. Chaib said that occurrence of meningitis in the so called 'African meningitis belt' in Sub-Saharan Africa, which went from Senegal to Ethiopia, was a yearly phenomenon. But it was the first time that they had recorded so many cases in northern Nigeria. The first cases had been reported very quickly by the Nigerian ministry of health and had asked WHO for help.

Somali Refugees

Ron Redmond of the United Nations Refugee Agency said that the number of Somalis seeking refuge in the overcrowded Dadaab refugee camps in north-eastern Kenya continued to grow despite the election of a new government in their homeland. Since the beginning of the year, more than 20,000 new arrivals had been registered in the three adjacent refugee sites that make up the Dadaab camp complex. Many of the new arrivals UNHCR had interviewed cited increased insecurity in Somalia, especially in the middle and lower Juba regions, coupled with drought and food shortages as the main reasons for fleeing into Kenya. Many of them had also expressed little optimism for the return of peace to their country in the near term. Despite the recent elections that had been held in Djibouti, which had seen a new government come to power, many parts of Somalia were still insecure.

UNHCR continued to receive and register new arrivals despite the fact that the capacity of the camps was completely overstretched, something UNHCR had been talking about for the last year or more. Camps that had been designed almost two decades ago to accommodate a total of 90,000 people were currently home to over 261,000 people, making the Dadaab complex one of the world’s oldest, biggest and most congested refugee sites. UNHCR had been negotiating with the Government of Kenya to provide land for the construction of new camps, but this was yet to be finalized. Mr. Redmond said that UNHCR was therefore receiving and accommodating these refugees with a lot of difficulty. It was crucial for the government to provide them with land as soon as possible, where they could build other camps and thus decongest the existing camps and also prepare for more people if the current arrival trend continued.

Over half the new arrivals were women and children and many were exhausted after having traveled long distances, often using unofficial routes to avoid detection when crossing the border. Some came from as far away as Mogadishu by road and even on foot, an 800 kilometer journey that could take up to 16 days, noted Mr. Redmond. When they arrived, they had to seek out family, relatives or clan members in the camps, as UNHCR had no more land on which to give them plots to live. This resulted in up to 30 people living on a 12 by 13-metre plot of land. UNHCR feared that the situation might further deteriorate once the rainy season would begin due to the shelter constraints. The next rainy season was expected in early April.

Situation in the DRC

Mr. Redmond said that in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, UNHCR remained seriously concerned about the plight of thousands of civilians who had fled their homes to escape daily attacks by many armed groups that were operating in north-eastern part of the country. Heavily armed militia from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and an allied armed group called PARECO, had surrounded the village of Pinga, some 80 kilometers north-east of the town of Walikale in North Kivu. A joint UN assessment team, including UNHCR, which had visited the area this week, had reported that the rebel forces had been sighted some 2 km on the south, west and north-west edges of Pinga. This had caused panic among its 8,500 population, which included some 2,000 previously internally displaced persons.

According to local residents the armed groups had repeatedly raided villages in and around Pinga, robbing villagers of their meager resources, said Mr. Redmond. Meanwhile, further to the east, more than 20,000 people had been driven out of three villages in the Rutshuru district of North Kivu, by various armed groups over the past several weeks. The displaced had fled into the forest after their homes had been plundered and torched.

In Haut Uele in the Orientale province, a UNHCR convoy carrying 22 tons of much needed assistance destined for displaced people in the town Faradje had been forced to turn back following reports of fresh Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) attacks in the area, some 80 km south of Faradje. The situation in Faradje was said to be tense and residents had begun to flee the town, said Mr. Redmond. Further LRA attacks had also been reported in the neighbouring district of Bas Uele. Local authorities said that there was a heavy concentration of internally displaced people in the town of Dingila, where they had already registered some 2,800 displaced persons. Two additional groups of 11,000 and 6,000 displaced had been reported in two other towns.

Situation in Sudan

Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that the report of the UN/Sudanese Government Joint Assessment Mission to Darfur had been released this Tuesday. Mr. Holmes, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, had said that it was important to continue to work together with the Sudanese Government to identify and fill the most immediately life-threatening gaps, left by the 13 expulsed non-governmental organizations. It was also important to continue working towards bringing the government to reconsider its decision to expel those non-governmental organizations.

Véronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund said that some 868,000 persons were still receiving potable water thanks to the rapid action by UNICEF’s water department and national non-governmental organizations, but reserves risked to start running low in the coming month, as was reported by the Joint Assessment Mission. UNICEF underscored that in the current context and with their limited capacity, the basic assistance for the population in the Darfur risked to last for only two months, while water and sanitation could even last shorter.

The Joint Assessment Mission had assessed the short-term needs and had not addressed the needs beyond June and in the May-June period the rainy season would start in Darfur, noted Ms. Taveau. Further, it would be extremely difficult for UNICEF to watch the level of malnutrition, especially in children under the age of five, a work which was being carried out until now by some of the expelled non-governmental organizations. If these non-governmental organizations could not resume their work in the coming three months, namely the distribution of treatments, some 6,000 severely and moderately undernourished children would be exposed to high risks in the Darfur.

UNICEF had also taken the necessary measures to ensure the distribution of fuel, needed to make the water pumps function, as well as the distribution of hygiene kits to the thousands of displaced persons in the camps. But these were also only short-term measures for the next three months, noted Ms. Taveau.

Answering to a journalist’s question on why the UN was not able to replace the expelled non-governmental organizations, Ms. Heuzé said that the UN had limited number of staff available at immediately. It was not excluded to increase the number of UN staff in the Sudan. However, this would represent additional costs for the UN. Further, many of the non-governmental organizations were equipped with specific logistics and had a know-how that could not be replaced in one day.

Ms. Byrs added that OCHA had started to identify where the replacement capacity could come from for the longer term but this was a process which was taking time. They had to identify, prioritize and fill the most immediately life-threatening gaps. It was also important to continue to assess the situation on an ongoing basis, together with the Sudanese government.

Floods in Namibia and Angola

Ms. Byrs said that OCHA had sent an evaluation and coordination mission to the region, composed of five staff members. They would arrive today in Windhoek and would start the assessments and support to the local authorities tomorrow. The floods currently affected an estimated 350,000 people, of which up to 13,000 were displaced, including 9,200 in relocation camps. The number of people arriving in the relocation camps was still increasing.

More than 50 percent of roads had been damaged and the harvest was expected to be reduced by 63 percent due to the flooding, said Ms. Byrs. The Namibian Government had allocated about US$ 10.9 million for the response and OCHA was currently preparing a flash appeal for the region and would be launched in the days to come.

Colombian refugees in Ecuador

Mr. Redmond said that a mobile team of 50 Ecuadorian government workers, supported by UNHCR, had begun this week work on registering and providing refugee documents to some 50,000 Colombian refugees who had fled insecurity in their homeland and had settled in northern Ecuador.

Migration

Jean Phillipe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said that IOM had received five million dollars of new funding from the Japanese government supporting IOM's work to address some of the growing consequences of poverty and insecurity on migration in Afghanistan and would provide a critical lifeline to many victims of trafficking and vulnerable migrants.

An IOM staff assessment at Torkham, on the border with Pakistan, had recently found the majority of the children crossing the border to smuggle food and other goods to be victims of trafficking. Aged between 10 and 16 years of age, the children had been placed into bonded labour to pay family debts that had arisen from crop failures brought on by drought, said Mr. Chauzy.

Increasing poverty through drought, higher food prices and general insecurity in a country where 85 percent of the average household income was spent on food and where 14 million people were at risk of nutrition-related health problems, was forcing growing numbers of Afghans into taking desperate measures to survive, said Mr. Chauzy.

The Japanese funds would be used to provide direct assistance to trafficking victims through the construction of a rehabilitation centre in Kabul, noted Mr. Chauzy.

World Health Day 2009

Ms. Chaib said that World Health Day 2009 would be celebrated on 7 April 2009 and would also mark the 61st anniversary of WHO. This year’s theme was “Save Lives: Make Hospitals Safe in Emergencies”. The celebration would be formally launched in Beijing, China by WHO’s Director-General, Ms. Margaret Chan during a press conference.

In 2008, there had been some 320 natural disasters, which had caused more 230,000 deaths. The majority of these casualties were due to just two events: cyclone Nargis in Myanmar and the major earthquake in the Chinese Sichuan province. WHO’s Director-General would visit the Sichuan region’s hospitals to assess the current situation and what measures had been taken to strengthen their emergency response. After that, WHO’s Director General would attend an International Conference on Health Responses to Natural Disasters in Chengdu, China starting 3 April 2009, followed by a press conference in Beijing on 7 April 2009, said Ms. Chaib.

Ms. Chaib announced that there would be a press briefing on the subject in Geneva on Friday 3 April at 11:30 a.m.

Trade and Development

Catherine Sibut of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said that the Trade and Development Board was meeting this morning to elect a new president, following the resignation of President Debapryia Bhattacharya from Bangladesh, who had been recalled by his Government. The new President would come from the same region, she noted.

Next week, on Tuesday, UNCTAD’s Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi would sign a memorandum of understanding with the United Nations Development Programme. Its aim was to strengthen the inter-agency cooperation, as part of the UN’s reform, said Ms. Sibut. From the 3 April to 5 April 2009, UNCTAD’s Secretary-General would participate to United Nations System Chief Executive Board meeting in Paris. The central theme of discussion would be the global economic crisis.

Also next week, in Geneva there would be a regional meeting on African Ports and the progress of UNCTAD’s “Train For Trade” programme on 30 March and 31 March 2009, said Ms. Sibut. Five countries would participate in the discussion, namely Guinea, Senegal, Togo Cameroon and Benin and would be represented by the Ports’ Director-Generals.

Children

Ms. Taveau said that from 3 to 5 April 2009, UNICEF’s Executive Director, Ms. Ann Veneman would also participate to the United Nations System Chief Executive Board meeting in Paris.

Further, on 7 April, the French Governments would decorate two former UNICEF staff members with the Legion of Honor, namely UNICEF’s former Executive Director Carol Bellamy and former Deputy Executive Director Rima Salah, said Ms. Taveau.

Other

Michael Moller of the Kofi Annan Foundation, presenting the Foundation, said that it had been created in 2007 and served to support Kofi Annan’s efforts to provide inspirational catalytic leadership on critical global issues, particularly through global leadership, mediation and conflict resolution and advocacy and partnerships. From 30 March to 31 March 2009 the Foundation would host a conference at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva, said Mr. Moller. Called “The Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation: One Year Later” it was aimed at taking a look back at last year’s mediation effort in Kenya and what lessons could be extracted from the process itself and form the implementation of the accords that were signed. All actors of the process had been invited to participate. Journalists are invited to register their participation for the opening session and the press conference.

The Foundation would also launch this June an advocacy campaign on the human face of climate change, along with other projects aimed at helping farmers in Africa to adapt to climate change, noted Mr. Moller. More information can be found under the Foundation’s website at: www.kofiannanfoundation.org.