May 2020 — Page 4 of 15 — Human Rights & Charity

Build back better and preserve biodiversity after COVID-19 pandemic: UN chief

In a video message for the day, UN Secretary-General António Guterres focused on the symbiotic relationship between humans and all other life on Earth, stressing that preserving and sustainably managing biodiversity is necessary for mitigating climate disruption, guaranteeing water and food access, and even preventing pandemics.

“COVID-19 – which emanated from the wild – has shown how human health is intimately connected with our relationship to the natural world. As we encroach on nature and deplete vital habitats, increasing numbers of species are at risk. That includes humanity and the future we want”, he said.

“As we seek to build back better from the current crisis, let us work together to preserve biodiversity so we can achieve our Sustainable Development Goals. That is how we will protect health and well-being for generations to come.”

Fragile way of life threatened

The Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, provide a blueprint for global peace and prosperity by a deadline of 2030. They show why tackling global challenges such as poverty and inequality must be done in tandem with addressing climate change and preserving the natural environment.

For the UN General Assembly president, the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified “the fragility of our way of life, our health systems and our global economy”, thus heightening inequalities and threatening the world’s most vulnerable communities.

Tijjani Muhammad-Bande insisted that these issues are interconnected. He said hunger was already on the rise before the crisis, with more than 820 million worldwide not getting enough to eat. Food security was also being undercut by biodiversity loss, desertification and climate-related shocks, while one million animal and plant species are facing extinction.

Nature has the solution

With the pandemic as a backdrop, the International Day for Biological Diversity is being commemorated under the theme ‘Our solutions are in nature’.

“Nature-based solutions have the capacity to protect, sustainably manage and restore both natural and modified ecosystems”, said Mr. Muhammad-Bande. “They can address the challenges posed by climate change, natural disasters, and food and water security.”

Still time for action

The General Assembly president stressed that there is still time to reverse biodiversity loss, but action must be taken now. He described the UN Summit on Biodiversity, due to take place for now in September, as “the key moment” to build political momentum.

In the interim, the UN’s educational and scientific organization, UNESCO, has been identifying solutions to ward against further species loss.

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Readers can find information and guidance on the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) from the UN, World Health Organization and UN agencies here. For daily news updates from UN News, click here.

The agency is hosting a virtual meeting on Friday to share knowledge that has been developed across the world, including through its various networks and indigenous communities.

“This disappearance threatens us directly: the living fabric that is biodiversity is not foreign to us; our food, health and well-being depend upon it”, said UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay.

“The pandemic must therefore compel us to think within this web of interdependence and to intensify mobilization, so that we turn away from the destructive trajectory we are on.”

Experts underscore COVID-19 threat to global progress on child immunization

“As the world comes together to develop a safe and effective vaccine for COVID-19, we must not forget the dozens of lifesaving vaccines that already exist and must continue to reach children everywhere”, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), speaking in Geneva on Friday.

The WHO chief was addressing journalists listening in to his latest virtual briefing on the crisis, where he was joined by the head of the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, and a top official from the global vaccine alliance, GAVI.

Decades of progress at risk

Child mortality rates have dropped by half over the past 20 years, largely due to safe, effective vaccination.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic means routine immunization services are now substantially hindered in nearly 70 countries, with roughly 80 million children under a year old, likely to be affected.

As UNICEF chief Henrietta Fore explained, vaccination campaigns have dwindled for several reasons, including implementation of measures to contain coronavirus spread, redeployment of health personnel to treat COVID-19 patients, and “serious disruption” to supply chains and transport routes.

Parents have also been reluctant, or unable, to go to vaccination sites due to fears surrounding transmission, or because of movement restrictions.

“However, we cannot let our fight against one disease come at the expense of long-term progress in our fight against other diseases”, she said.

“We cannot exchange one deadly outbreak for another. We cannot afford to lose the decades of health gains that everyone has worked so hard to achieve.”

Preparing for ‘mass vaccine catch-up campaigns’

Despite the dire news, some countries such as Afghanistan, Côte d’Ivoire and Laos, are forging ahead with vaccine programmes, according to Seth Berkley, Chief Executive Officer at GAVI.

The Vaccine Alliance has helped lower-income countries save more than 13 million lives since its inception in 2000.

Mr. Berkley underscored the importance of immunization.

“Recent modelling from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine shows that if you were to try to avoid getting COVID by stopping routine immunization, for every COVID death prevented you would have more than 100 deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases”, he said.

Summit seeks to raise $7.4 billion

Globally, there were more than five million COVID-19 cases as of Friday, and more than 320,000 deaths.

GAVI stands ready to support what Mr. Berkley called “the mass vaccine catch-up campaigns”, to protect children unable to be immunized because of the pandemic.

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The United Kingdom will host the Global Vaccine Summit on 4 June with the goal of securing $7.4 billion to cover GAVI’s work over the next five years.

The funding will be enough to vaccinate 300 million additional children worldwide, preventing at least another seven million deaths.

Pledges have been received so far from numerous countries including the UK, the United States, Norway, Germany, Canada, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Spain.

Victims of intercommunal violence in South Sudan deserve ‘justice, truth and reparations’: Bachelet

Three aid workers were among those killed.

“The reports from Jonglei State are appalling”, Michelle Bachelet said of fighting that broke out between 16 and 17 May, forcing thousands to flee their homes.

‘Recurring pattern’

“This recurring pattern of violence, which continues to claim lives in South Sudan, has to stop,” she said. “I urge the Government to ensure measures are in place to investigate this violence and to ensure that those responsible are prosecuted, and that victims and their families have access to justice, truth and reparations.”

Intercommunal fighting has been on the rise across South Sudan. In the first quarter of 2020, it was the main source of violence affecting civilians, having led to 658 deaths, 452 injuries, 592 abductions and 65 cases of sexual violence.

In Jonglei State and the Greater Pibor Administrative Area, a series of attacks from mid-February to early March, left 22 civilians dead. Most of the 266 women and children abducted during the fighting have not been released from captivity.

Years of setbacks

The region has suffered years of food insecurity and was severely hit by flooding in 2019.

Ms. Bachelet – a former Head of State, leading Chile’s Government for two terms – has been vocal about what it will take to ensure durable peace. She most recently pressed South Sudanese authorities in mid-March to address escalating tensions.

The nature of intercommunal fighting – long driven by tensions over access to water and grazing land for cattle – has taken on a militarized character in recent years, with military style tactics and military-grade weapons.

“State authorities must act to end these cycles of retaliatory violence, including by holding those responsible to account and promoting peacebuilding between individual communities”, Ms. Bachelet stressed.

Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan, Alain Noudéhou, reported that a Médecins San Frontières staff member, and two staffers from another humanitarian organization, were killed during intense fighting in and around the town of Pieri, in Jonglei. Several aid workers are still unaccounted for.

“I condemn in the strongest possible terms the killing of three aid workers in Pieri and call for those responsible to be brought swiftly to justice,” he said. “The Government, all parties and communities, must step up efforts to protect humanitarians who are taking great risks to their safety in order to provide much needed assistance.”

Intercommunal clashes and armed conflict are hampering humanitarian efforts to pre-position food, medicine and other supplies in the final weeks before the rains grow heavier and cut off road access to vulnerable communities, the Coordinator said. “Humanitarians must be able to reach affected communities freely and without fear.”

Yemen: Coronavirus transmission likely widespread, decimating ‘collapsed’ health system, UN warns

Speaking at a virtual press conference in Geneva, Jens Larke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Yemen was “really on the brink right now”, with teams on the ground “talking about having to turn people away because they do not have enough oxygen, they do not have enough Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)”.

He warned that the numbers of infections being reported were worrying, but the UN is now “working on the assumption that there is widespread communal transmission going on”.

The civil war in Yemen metastasized in 2014 when rebel Houthis, known officially as the Ansar Allah movement, took control of Yemen’s north and captured the capital Sanaa, forcing the UN-recognised government there to flee to Aden. Since 2015, a Saudi-led coalition of mostly Arab countries has been battling the Houthi rebels to reinstate full Government control, drawing in other nations to the conflict.

More funding crucial to repel virus

With only half of Yemen’s health facilities fully functioning, funding for the country’s aid operation is crucial, with up to $2 billion required until the end of the year. The UN and Saudi Arabia will co-host a virtual pledging event on 2 June to support fund raising.

“We are heading towards a fiscal cliff”, said Mr. Laerke. “If we do not get the money coming in, the programs that are keeping people alive and are very much essential to fight back against COVID-19, will have to close”, he warned.

“And then, the world will have to witness what happens in a country without a functioning health system battling COVID-19, and I do not think that one will see that”.

More than 30 key UN programmes risk closing in the coming weeks due to lack of funding. Coronavirus Rapid Response Teams are funded only for the next six weeks.

According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest figures, Yemen has 184 cases and 30 deaths.

Cases ‘almost certainly much higher’

However, “the actual incidence is almost certainly much higher”, said the OCHA spokesperson. “Tests remain in short supply, aid agencies in Yemen are operating on the basis that community transmission is taking place across the country, and only half of the health facilities are fully functioning. Yemen’s health system needs significant assistance to counter the threat. Humanitarian aid agencies are scaling up outreach, prevention and case management. “

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Some 125 metric tons of supplies have arrived, while over 6,600 metric tons of tests, personal protective equipment and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) supplies are in the pipeline.

However, oxygen and PPE are more urgently needed. Preserving large-scale existing aid programmes in health, water and sanitation, nutrition and other sectors also offers an essential defence against infection for millions of people.

A UN flight arrived in Yemen’s capital Aden on Thursday, with more international staff on board.

Laerke said that UN staff “both in and out of the country” are working together to deliver critical programmes, including some international staff working remotely as well as international staff in Yemen and Yemeni nationals on staff.

“Yemeni national staff remain the large majority of aid workers in Yemen”.

Spirit of Eid

In a message to all Yemenis as the holy month of Ramadan draws to a close, the UN Special Envoy, Martin Griffiths, passed on his heartfelt wishes: “May the spirit of Eid guide us all to achieve sustainable peace and stability for all men, women and children in Yemen, redirect the country toward reconciliation and recovery, and pave the way for a better future”, he said.

“Today, I urge the parties to forgo war and division and build on points of convergence. I call on them to join efforts to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak and turn the tide for the sake of the people of Yemen.”

Shrinking forests need bold action to safeguard their biodiversity

Published on the International Day for Biological Diversity, The State of the World’s Forests 2020, highlights that since 1990, some 420 million hectares of trees have been lost to agriculture and other land uses.

And the COVID-19 crisis has thrown into sharp focus the link between peole’s health and that of the ecosystem, underscoring the importance of conserving and sustainably using nature.

“Deforestation and forest degradation continue to take place at alarming rates, which contributes significantly to the ongoing loss of biodiversity”, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General, QU Dongyu, and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), Inger Andersen, said in the foreword.

Working with nature

Protecting the world’s biodiversity is entirely dependent on the way in which we interact with the world’s forests. And as they harbour most of our terrestrial biodiversity, safeguarding woodland holds the key.

The report shows that forests contain 60,000 different tree species, 80 per cent of amphibian species, 75 per cent of bird species, and 68 per cent of the earth’s mammal species.

Conservation and sustainable use can work together to protect plants, animals and livelihoods.

Within the report, a special study from the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission and the US Forest Service, found 34.8 million patches of forests in the world, ranging in size from one to 680 million hectares – illustrating that greater restoration efforts are urgently needed to reconnect forests that have fragmented over time.

Turning the tide

As FAO and UNEP prepare to lead the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration in 2021, both UN agency heads expressed their commitment to increased global cooperation in the race to restore degraded and damaged ecosystems, combat climate change and safeguard biodiversity.

“To turn the tide on deforestation and the loss of biodiversity, we need transformational change in the way in which we produce and consume food”, said Mr. QU and Ms. Andersen. “We also need to conserve and manage forests and trees within an integrated landscape approach, and we need to repair the damage done through forest restoration efforts.”

The report notes that the target to conserve at least 17 per cent of the earth’s terrestrial areas by 2020 has been achieved for forests, but acknowledges that progress is still required to ensure that protection.

One study conducted for this report shows that the largest increase in protected forest areas were in broadleaved evergreen forests, typically found in the tropics. Furthermore, over 30 per cent of all tropical rainforests, subtropical dry forests and temperate oceanic forests, are now located within protected areas.

Jobs and livelihoods

Forests provide more than 86 million green jobs to the millions of people around the world who count on them for food security and their livelihoods.

Of those living in extreme poverty, over 90 per cent are dependent on forests for wild food, firewood or part of their livelihoods, including eight million extremely poor, forest-dependent people in Latin America alone.

The report was produced by FAO in partnership, for the first time, with UNEP, and technical input from the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre.

Somalia looks to first full elections in 51 years, despite COVID-19 crisis

James Swan, Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Somalia (UNSOM), told the Security Council that 2.6 million internally displaced persons are particularly at risk from the novel coronavirus.

Somalia coronavirus cases

In its latest situation report, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday put the number of confirmed cases in Somalia at 1,502, with 59 deaths.

Even before the outbreak, more than 5 million Somalis required humanitarian assistance, Mr. Swan said, as the country continued to deal with the al-Shabaab terrorist insurgency and a major locust invasion that is putting food production in peril.

COVID-19 is also having a severe economic impact, with remittances from the Somali diaspora dwindling and the federal Government projecting an 11 per cent drop in nominal GDP this year, he said.

Nevertheless, the Federal Government and Federal Member States have responded quickly to the crisis “within their means,” he said, with Prime Minister Hassan Khaire leading a National COVID Task Force and the six regional states participating in national-level coordination efforts.

UN aiding Government effort

“The UN family is working to reinforce the Government’s response”, he said, noting that the WHO is helping to expand Somali hospital and testing capacity, with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) also providing electricity generators.

Somalia’s response is greatly aided by having achieved the so-called decision point under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Debt Initiative, on 25 March, enabling it to tap into additional budget support and grant financing from global institutions, he said.

Looking beyond the immediate health crisis, Mr. Swan – speaking from Mogadishu via video-teleconference – said the coming weeks will be decisive in determining how Somalia will proceed with its first direct elections since March 1969.

In the coming weeks, a parliamentary Ad Hoc Committee will make recommendations to resolve outstanding electoral issues, while the head of the National Independent Electoral Commission will report on plans to conduct the vote within a constitutional timeframe.

The pathway to a vote for all

“These Somali institutions will determine the pathway to elections,” said Mr. Swan, urging Somalia’s partners to be ready to mobilize the technical support and financial resources needed to make the landmark polls a success.

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Turning to the security situation, he said that Somalia has made progress in recovering areas occupied by al-Shabaab, including the strategic town of Janaale, liberated by the Somali National Army and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) on 16 March.

Al-Shabaab resists ceasefire call

“We regret that al-Shabaab has not embrace the Secretary-General’s appeal for a global ceasefire (in response to the pandemic) and that their terrorist operations continue unabated,” he said.

He added that regrettably, due to COVID-19, the pace of future military operations could be impacted by a slowdown in international partner training needed for the fight against the terrorist group.

Mr. Swan’s briefing to the Council followed the release of the Secretary-General’s latest report on the situation in Somalia. The Council is due to decide on renewing AMISOM’s mandate by 31 May and UNSOM’s mandate by 30 June.

Cyclone Amphan’s trail of destruction in Bangladesh and India

“It is believed that around 10 million people in Bangladesh are impacted by the cyclone, with half a million families potentially having lost their homes”, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters during a regular virtual briefing on Thursday, from New York.

The cyclone, which lashed coastal areas with brutal winds and rain, left at least 84 people across India and Bangladesh dead, according to news reports.

“Our humanitarian colleagues tell us that the storm has damaged houses and crops in Bangladesh”, he continued. “Power has been cut off to cities and towns, many of which are working to contain the COVID-19 pandemic”.

Noting that while the cyclone had been downgraded to a tropical depression, he asserted that “it is still expected to bring heavy to moderate rain over the next 24 hours”.

The Bangladesh Government has already evacuated nearly two million people to more than 12,000 cyclone shelters that are supplied with, among other things, masks and sanitizers, to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

Refugees sheltering in Bangladesh

The Office of the UN Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh flagged that preliminary reports indicate that damage is minimal in Cox’s Bazar – home to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who have fled Myanmar – with some 300 shelters damaged, approximately 60 of which were fully destroyed.

Flooding and small landsides have been reported in several refugee camps, as well as blocked drains and damaged stairs, latrines, and bridges – but no word of casualties or deaths.

Humanitarian partners are on standby to ensure access to information, temporary shelter, food, safe drinking water and other vital services for affected refugees according to need.

Damage in India

Meanwhile, the UN Country Team in India reported that Cyclone Amphan, which caused widespread damage around Calcutta is now considered even more destructive than Cyclone Aila, which slammed the region in May 2009.

Amphan hit seven districts badly, namely South 24 Paraganas, North 24 Paraganas, East Medinipur, West Medinipur, Howrah, Hooghly and Kolkata, with damages also reported in the district of Birbhum.

Power and telecommunications have been affected across the cyclone-affected districts and North and South 24 Parganas are facing water scarcity.

Massive damage is also expected to standing crops and plantations.

Kolkata

While fires have maimed transformers and telecommunications in Kolkata, uprooted trees and damaged electric poles have caused power cuts.

Moreover, several roads have been blocked, shops damaged, and streets waterlogged from the heavy rainfall during high tide.

Embankment breaches have occurred throughout the state while water inundation and wind have damaged Kolkata airport.

As the Chief Minister closely monitors the situation, road clearance and restoration work are underway both in the districts and city of Kolkata.

Meanwhile, the power supply was cut off in vulnerable districts of West Bengal and its Chief Minister has estimated $13.2 billion in losses for the state.

Response

Currently, the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Fund, Kolkata police, fire services and West Bengal state police are in the throes of relief and restoration efforts.

And the state and district-level Interagency Group coordination mechanism has been activated in West Bengal.

UNICEF, which is closely monitoring the situation with state departments, expressed concern that the COVID-19 could deepen the cyclone’s humanitarian consequences in both the countries.

FROM THE FIELD: Nature ‘strongest ally’ to building sustainable planet

Tan Sri Datuk Amar Wilson Baya Dandot told UNDP how indigenous communities in Malaysia can share their traditional knowledge of how to use local plants to provide food, medicine and sustain thriving local economies whilst protecting the natural environment.

The southeast Asian nation is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world and 20-05-2020-UNDP-Malaysia.jpg
home to a number of indigenous peoples and communities who over millennia have managed and cared for natural resources.

Ahead of International Day for Biological Diversity, marked annually on 22 May read more here about how Malaysia’s rich biodiversity and biological resources are generating economic and social benefits to not just local communities but also the nation.

Danger awaits migrant children returned to Mexico and Central America during pandemic

Returnees perceived to have the virus have been the target of violence and discrimination, while their reintegration is fraught with “major protection risks”, the agency reported on Thursday.

“For children on the move across the region, COVID-19 is making a bad situation even worse. Discrimination and attacks are now added to existing threats like gang violence that drove these children to leave in the first place”, said UNICEF chief Henrietta Fore.

“This means many returned children are now doubly at risk and in even greater peril than when they left their communities. It is never in a child’s best interest to be sent back to an unsafe situation.”

COVID-19 fear and confusion

Since March, the US authorities have returned at least 1,000 unaccompanied migrant children to Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, despite serious protection risks in their communities of origin.

Nearly 460 migrant children were also returned from Mexico to Guatemala and Honduras during this same period.

UNICEF said limited public information about COVID-19 testing, treatment and containment is sowing confusion and fear in the region. Some communities fear that returned families and children could be carrying the virus, prompting further stigmatization of migrants.

The UN agency has received reports of communities in Guatemala and Honduras barring entry to outsiders and strangers, including returnees, in efforts to prevent virus transmission. Some migrants have also been threatened with violence, while migrant reception and transit centres have been attacked.

The situation is further compounded by movement restrictions and lack of personal protection equipment (PPE) for staff working on child protection.

Support for governments and returnees

UNICEF urges all governments to halt pushbacks and deportations of unaccompanied or separated minors, as well as children with their families, without prior adequate protection and health screenings.

Authorities are also being called on to uphold children’s right to seek asylum and reunite with their families, and to ensure equal access to COVID-19 testing and treatment.

UNICEF is also working with governments across the region to shore up protection in numerous ways.

The agency is supporting Guatemala with providing accommodation and services for returned children, some of whom have tested positive for COVID-19 while in quarantine or isolation. These children are also receiving health care and other assistance, including with family tracing.

UNICEF is also ramping up efforts to protect migrant and returned children in El Salvador and Honduras, in addition to providing PPE for people working with them.

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Meanwhile, authorities at Mexico’s northern and southern borders, are receiving assistance in implementing protection screenings. UNICEF also is working in shelters, providing psychosocial activities, hygiene kits and information.

Asia-Pacific nations commit the whole region to ‘defeat’ COVID-19

In a resolution adopted on Thursday, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) declared “profound solidarity” with the countries and people affected by the disease and resolved “to pursue coordinated and decisive actions, to contain, mitigate and defeat the pandemic through reinforced regional and global cooperation.”

“[The Commission] reiterates the importance of multilateralism and international cooperation, and encourages action by all members … to promote measures that may reinforce global solidarity in responding to the outbreak of COVID-19”, read the resolution, which was tabled by the Chair and co-sponsored by several of the Commission member States.

International and regional cooperation was also highlighted as a means to strengthen the resilience of the region’s countries, with regard to the socioeconomic effects of pandemics and other related crises.

Recovering from COVID-19 provides an opportunity to “build back better” in the region, added the text, “including by building more equal, inclusive and sustainable institutions, economies and societies that respect human rights and are more resilient in the face of any future pandemic, and other related crises faced by the region, in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”

‘Build back better’

The importance of the 2030 Agenda to realize a better future was also underscored by the UN Secretary-General at the opening of the Commission’s seventy-sixth session.

“I am strongly convinced that we have an opportunity to build back better on the foundations of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” said Secretary-General António Guterres in a video message.

“That means forging common solutions to the climate crisis, economic and social inequalities, new forms of violence, and rapid changes in technology and demography. We can rescue our planet and build a better world for all. Let us work together to do just that.”

The hope of a better future was echoed by leaders from across the Asia-Pacific region.

Prayut Chan-o-cha, the Prime Minister of Thailand; Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh; Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, the Prime Minister of Fiji; and Kausea Natano, the Prime Minister of Tuvalu delivered video messages from their capitals.

In their messages the leaders cautioned about the complexities and growing threats of COVID-19 on sustainable development. They, however, also expressed their optimism that recovery will provide the opportunity to strengthen resilience and build a more equal, inclusive and sustainable Asia-Pacific region.

Balancing pandemic response with socio-economic recovery

As a result of the pandemic, countries have witnessed dramatic falls in economic growth and jobs, only to be followed by low demand, constrained trade and reduced mobility.

Against this background, Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, the Executive Secretary of ESCAP, highlighted three key areas to help balance pandemic containment measures against those for socio-economic recovery: protecting and investing in people and enhancing resilience; supporting sustainable and inclusive economic recovery; and restoring supply chains and supporting small and medium enterprises.

“These challenging times calls upon us, as citizens of the region, to extend our hands to the most vulnerable. Upholding our collective strengths, rekindling our values and reinvigorating the spirit of compassion unite us as we chart new pathways,” she said.

First-ever virtual session

In its more than seven decade history, this was the first time the Commission’s membership convened virtually, via video-conference, with only the ESCAP’s incoming Chair, Md. Nazmul Quaunine, the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh; the Executive Secretary of ESCAP; and a handful of secretariat officials in the body’s primary chamber – “ESCAP Hall” – at the UN Conference Centre in Bangkok.

The outgoing Chair, Damdin Tsogtbaatar the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia, opened the session remotely from Ulaanbaatar, and all participants, numbering about 260 from 54 of the Commission’s 62 members and associate members, connected remotely.

For its annual session, the Commission usually meets over five days, hosting several special and side events as well as exhibitions, drawing over a thousand participants, including civil society organizations representatives and university students.

Established in 1947, ESCAP is the largest of the UN’s five regional commissions – both in terms of geographic coverage and population served – its membership spanning from the Pacific island nation of Kiribati in the east, to Turkey in the west, and Russia in the north, to New Zealand in the south.

Fragile way of life threatened

Nature has the solution

Still time for action

Coronavirus Portal & News Updates

Decades of progress at risk

Preparing for ‘mass vaccine catch-up campaigns’

Summit seeks to raise $7.4 billion

Coronavirus Portal & News Updates

‘Recurring pattern’

Years of setbacks

More funding crucial to repel virus

Cases ‘almost certainly much higher’

Coronavirus Portal & News Updates

Spirit of Eid

Working with nature

Turning the tide

Jobs and livelihoods

Somalia coronavirus cases

UN aiding Government effort

The pathway to a vote for all

Coronavirus Portal & News Updates

Al-Shabaab resists ceasefire call

Refugees sheltering in Bangladesh

Damage in India

Kolkata

Response

COVID-19 fear and confusion

Support for governments and returnees

Coronavirus Portal & News Updates

‘Build back better’

Balancing pandemic response with socio-economic recovery

First-ever virtual session

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