Tag: United Nations

It has now been more than seven years since the protracted conflict began in Yemen, which precipitated a humanitarian catastrophe and has forced more than 4.3 million people to leave their homes….reports Asian Lite News

A hundred million people across the world were forced to leave their homes in 2022 and the UN is continuing to help those in need in a myriad of ways, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said.

Filippo Grandi, head of the agency, described the figure as “a record that should never have been set”.

The figure is up from some 90 million in 2021. Outbreaks of violence, or protracted conflicts, were key migration factors in many parts of the world, including Ukraine, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Syria and Myanmar.

Thousands of desperate migrants looked to Europe as a preferred destination, putting their lives in the hands of human traffickers, and setting off on perilous journeys across the Mediterranean, UN News warned.

It has now been more than seven years since the protracted conflict began in Yemen, which precipitated a humanitarian catastrophe and has forced more than 4.3 million people to leave their homes.

In May, the UN migration agency IOM and the European Union’s humanitarian aid wing, ECHO, announced that they were scaling up efforts to respond to the needs of more than 325,000 displaced by the conflict, including migrants and the communities that host them.

“The situation is also getting worse for migrants in Yemen, especially women, who are living in dire conditions in Yemen with little control over their lives,” said Christa Rottensteiner, chief of the IOM mission in the country.

In Syria, war has now been upending lives for 11 years: nearly 5 million children born in Syria have never known the country at peace, UN News added.

More than 80,000 Syrians call the huge Za’atari camp in Jordan “home”, and many of them may have to remain outside of their country for the foreseeable future.

“Prospects for return for the time being do not look promising,” said Dominik Bartsch, UNHCR representative in the Jordanian capital Amman, in July. “We are not seeing an environment in Syria that would be conducive to returns.”

Overall, Jordan hosts around 675,000 registered refugees from Syria, and most of them live in its towns and villages among local communities, with only 17 per cent living in the two main refugee camps, Za’atari and Azraq.

More than five years ago, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled their homes in Myanmar. Almost a million live in the vast Cox’s Bazar camp across the border in neighboring Bangladesh.

In March, the UN launched its latest response plan, calling for more than $881 million for the refugees, and neighboring communities (more than half a million Bangladeshis), who are also highly reliant on aid.

UN refugee agency figures show that by December, more than 7.8 million Ukrainian refugees had been recorded across Europe.

In Ethiopia, millions remain displaced due to the armed conflict in the Tigray region, which began in November 2020. By the end of this year, a fragile internationally-brokered truce seemed to be holding with aid returning to embattled northern regions inaccessible for months, along with many returning home to rebuild their shattered lives.

Back in January, the UN refugee agency issued a stark warning that due to deteriorating conditions, refugees in the region were struggling to get enough food, medicine, and clean water, and risked death unless the situation improved.

According to UN News, refugees also found themselves under direct attack. In February, for example, thousands of Eritreans were forced to flee a camp in the Afar region, after armed men stormed in, stealing belongings and killing residents.

By August, UN agencies put out an urgent appeal for funding to help more than 750,000 people seeking refuge in Ethiopia. The World Food Programme warned that unless it received the funding, many refugees would have nothing to eat.

UNHCR said governments around the world had pledged some $1.13 billion, a record amount, to provide a lifeline to people displaced by war, violence, and human rights violations.

“As a result of conflict, the climate emergency, and other crises, displaced people around the world face unprecedented needs,” said Grandi. “Fortunately, UNHCR’s generous donors continue to support them during these dire days, creating hope for a brighter future.”

This coming winter will be very challenging for millions of people forced to flee their homes around the world, UNHCR said on its website.

“Our world is facing a crisis of internal displacement. Record high numbers of people around the world have been displaced within their countries by tragedies such as conflict, disasters and the climate crisis,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in June, when the UN launched the Action Agenda on International Displacement.

“We all have a responsibility to act. The plight of internally displaced persons is more than a humanitarian issue. It takes an integrated approach — combining development, peacebuilding, human rights, climate action and disaster risk reduction efforts,” he said.

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The resolution was adopted with 154 votes in favour, 0 against, and 4 abstentions…reports Asian Lite News

The UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution to designate February 12 each year as the International Day for the Prevention of Violent Extremism as and when Conducive to Terrorism.

The resolution was adopted with 154 votes in favour, 0 against, and 4 abstentions, reports Xinhua news agency.

Belarus, the Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Russia abstained.

The resolution says the designation aims to raise awareness of the threats linked to violent extremism as and when conducive to terrorism, and to enhance international cooperation in this regard.

It invites all UN member states, entities of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact and organisations of the UN system, as well as other international and regional organisations and other relevant stakeholders, to commemorate this international day in an appropriate manner, including through educational and public awareness-raising activities, and to share best practices in this regard.

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A new mindset that prioritizes long-term objectives, sustainability and resilience is urgently needed…reports Asian Lite News

he world’s ability to nourish its burgeoning population is under threat and without broader socioeconomic and environmental change, sustainable agrifood systems will be impossible to achieve, according to a new report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) issued today.

The report, ‘’The Future of Food and Agriculture – Drivers and triggers for transformation”, analyses current and emerging drivers of agrifood systems and their possible future trends. The report identifies the issues at stake and the threats and problems that have an impact on future food consumption and agrifood production.

The report urges decision makers to think beyond short term needs, warning that a lack of vision, piecemeal approaches and ‘quick fixes’ will come at a high cost for everyone.

A new mindset that prioritizes long-term objectives, sustainability and resilience is urgently needed, it adds.

The report goes onto identify key ‘triggers’ for agrifood systems transformation that can help achieve food security, nutrition, natural resource preservation, ecosystems restoration and climate change mitigation.

Trends such as increasing population and urbanization, macroeconomic instability, poverty and inequalities, geopolitical tensions and conflicts, fiercer competition over natural resources, and climate change are reaping havoc in socio-economic systems and damaging environmental systems, the report says.

“Many of the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals)are not on track and will only be achieved if agrifood systems are transformed properly to withstand ongoing global adversity that undermines food security and nutrition due to growing structural inequalities and also regional inequalities,” FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said at the launch event.

The report identifies 18 interconnected socio-economic and environmental forces, called drivers, and analyses how they interact and shape the various activities occurring within agrifood systems, including farming, food processing, and food consumption.

Poverty and inequalities, geopolitical instability, scarcity and the degradation of resources, and climate change are some of the key drivers and how they are managed will determine what the future of food looks like.

If agrifood systems remain on their current paths, the evidence points to a future characterized by persistent food insecurity, degrading resources and unsustainable economic growth, the report cautions.

The report illustrates four future scenarios for agrifood systems that bring diverse outcomes in terms of food security, nutrition and overall sustainability: ‘More of the same’, that envisages continuing muddling through by reacting to events and crises; ‘Adjusted future’, where some moves towards sustainable agrifood systems occur at a slow, uncertain pace; ‘Race to the bottom’, that portrays a world in disarray in the worst version of itself; and ‘Trading off for sustainability’, where short-term Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth is traded off for inclusiveness, resilience and sustainability of agrifood, socioeconomic and environmental systems.

“Strategic foresight helps us all, and governments in particular, by analyzing short-term and long-term trends and seeing possible alternative future scenarios. By considering worst-case scenarios, we can anticipate possible negative paths and take measures to avoid them,” Qu said.

To increase the chances of creating a more sustainable and resilient future for agrifood systems, the report underscores the urgent need to change course. To achieve this, it proposes four key “triggers of transformation” – improved governance, critical and informed consumers, better income and wealth distribution and innovative technologies and approaches.

“Very few low- and middle-income countries, perhaps none, will have the possibility of achieving hegemonic power and the status of empires that many high-income countries made use of to benefit their well-being and welfare. Future global development patterns depend on the resolution of key questions: institutions providing solutions for sharing the ‘global commons’; the distribution of political power and wealth; and the resolution of the extensive inequalities present in today’s economies,” the report argues.

The report proposes that, in a scenario where the world opts for a more sustainable future, global challenges will be tackled by “a more effective participatory and novel, multilevel governance”, where governments, consumers, businesses and academia interact with different functions but overall converging objectives.

“To ensure access to sufficient and nutritious food, decent jobs, income opportunities, and environmental services, among others, requires us to be smarter in identifying the triggers needed to accelerate transformative processes,” Director-General Qu said.

Consumers will need to be more responsible actors since they “hold the power to trigger transformative processes by shifting demand towards more environmentally and socially responsible, and nutritious products.”

For better income and wealth distribution, the report urges greater investment in social outcomes and increase social capital, to get people out of poverty – not just out of hunger. It also recommends that wealthier countries be willing to shoulder more of the costs of this transformation.

Transformation will also be aided by the further development of innovative technologies and approaches for which the authors of the report propose prioritizing scientific research and development and that these advances must be accessible to the most vulnerable groups.

By 2050, there will be 10 billion people in the world to feed and this will be an unprecedented challenge if significant attempts are not made to reverse current trends. The report points out that the world is ‘tremendously off track’ to meet the SDGs, including agrifood targets. But, while there are reasons to be pessimistic, the report is cautiously optimistic that if governments, consumers, businesses, academia and the international community act now, it is still possible to bring about long-term sustainable change.

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