REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Yvette Morris, Chief of the TV and Radio Section at the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing, which was attended by the Spokespersons for the United Nations Refugee Agency; the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the World Health Organization, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Economic Commission for Europe, the World Food Programme, and the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Ebola

Elisabeth Byrs, for the World Food Programme (WFP), stated that the WFP was supplying key technical assistance, particularly to medical partners to provide the best possible humanitarian response to the Ebola health emergency. That included construction, logistics, storage, procurement and transport.

Ms. Byrs also noted that WFP was supporting the Sierra Leone Government by procuring 74 World Bank-funded vehicles including ambulances, mortuary vehicles and pickup trucks. The first batch of 30 vehicles was expected to arrive in the country on 18 October.

WFP Sierra Leone was establishing logistics bases in three strategic locations including Port Loko, Makeni and Kenema to handle the influx of supplies needed in rural areas to scale-up the capacity of Ebola treatment centers.

WFP Guinea would provide communications support at Ebola Treatment Units, IT services to the humanitarian community and support for communities to communicate with family members in treatment centers.

Equipment was being airlifted in the affected countries this week to build logistics bases in more remote areas to be exclusively dedicated to the Ebola response.

UN Humanitarian Response Depots (UNHRDs), managed by WFP, had pre-positioned stockpiles of emergency supplies for humanitarian agencies. So far, UNHRD depots in Dubai, Accra and Las Palmas had dispatched USD 3.9million (449 metric tons) of items such as protective gear, emergency health kits, generators, and tents on behalf of WHO, WFP, Irish Aid, the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the UN Refugee Agency.

In September, WFP Guinea had distributed food to 74,000 people in Conakry, Gueckedou, Macenta and Kissidougou. In Liberia, WFP so far had reached over 125,000 people. WFP in Sierra Leone was scaling up operations to reach 400,000 people with food in October.

Ms. Byrs also stressed that the WFP was very grateful to all donors supporting its work to help stop Ebola, but that more funding was needed. The top five donors to WFPs’ response to Ebola (both to the Emergency Operation and the Special Logistics Operation, as of 15 October) were: the World Bank (USD 22.2 million through grants to the Governments of Sierra Leone, the Republic of Guinea and Liberia); the United States (USD 12.67 million); the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (USD 9.43 million); Japan (USD 6.7 million) and China (USD 6 million).

WFP’s new Common Logistics Services Special Operation had a total budget requirement of USD 87 million. The operation was 13 percent funded, with USD 6.1 million received.

WFP had a funding shortfall of 47 percent for its Emergency Operation in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Total requirements for the operation were approximately USD 93 million.

Ms. Byrs added that, because of Ebola, food prices had risen by about 24 percent, which was a problem for the families. WFP was carrying out evaluations and interviews by mobile phones in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. According to those evaluations, certain families only had one meal per day, or survived on cheaper food such as manioc flour, as a lot of families had lost the member who used to work in the field, and a lot of fields had been consequently given up. Ms. Byrs also said that evaluations’ results would be more complete by the end of October.

She stressed that if women were given the same capacities as men, in terms of loans, access to technologies, financial facilities, access to lands and tools, 100 to 150 million people could be lifted out of poverty.

Answering a question on the impact of Ebola on family farming, Silvano Sofia, for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said the outbreak was placing serious constraints on the agriculture sector and food security situation in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. In some areas, the epidemic was dramatically reducing households’ ability to produce food. Movement restrictions, fear of contagion and other constraints were preventing communities from working in their fields. In addition, hundreds of households had lost one or more of their members of working age.

In response to a question about pledges and donations to curb the Ebola epidemic, Jens Laerke, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), stated that OCHA had tracked humanitarian pledges and contributions against the document that the organization had presented some time ago on the needs and requirements in response to Ebola. In that document, OCHA had asked for USD 988 million. As of this morning, OCHA had received USD 377 million, giving a coverage of 38.1 percent. OCHA had also reviewed another USD 270 million in pledges, which had not yet come in.

Mr. Laerke added that he had a long list of those who had actually given money, and mentioned that USD 105 million had been given by the World Bank, USD 90 million by the United States, and USD 45 million by the African Development. Additionally, he responded that Switzerland had given USD 3 million as of 17 October. It was noted that there were often delays in reporting, which meant money did not appear in the bank for some time after the donor had pledged it.

Central African Republic

Mr. Laerke said that on Tuesday night the Senior Humanitarian Coordinator and the WHO representative in the Central African Republic had called upon armed groups operating in the capital Bangui to protect civilians from harm and respect the safety and integrity of medical facilities in the town. The Coordinator, Claire Bourgeois, had stated that she was extremely concerned with the loss of lives that occurred during the new waves of violence in the course of the previous week and deplored the high number of wounded, the burning of houses and the fact that victims had been compelled to seek refuge in displacement sites. More than 159 wounded had been received in medical facilities since the latest flare up had begun. More than 3,000 people had been newly displaced, which included many children.

The humanitarian coordinator had condemned the recruitment and use of children in the attacks, following the report by humanitarian organizations of a large number of children at check-points and barricades in the capital. The previous night, the WHO representative, Dr. Michel Yao, had urged all armed groups and demonstrators to respect medical facilities, and to allow all patients and medical workers unhindered access to hospitals and clinics. He asked that ambulances be allowed to move freely in the town, and stressed that it was unacceptable that some patients had been unable to get to hospitals. The representative stressed that health services had to remain available to everyone without discrimination.

Yemen

William Spindler, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), stated that there had been a sharp increase in 2014 in the number of migrants and asylum seekers losing their lives in attempts to get to Yemen, mainly from the Horn of Africa, with more deaths in 2014 than in the last three years combined.

In the latest tragic incident on 2 October, 64 migrants and three crew had died when their vessel, sailing from Somalia, had sunk in the Gulf of Aden. With five additional deaths since then, that brought the number of dead in 2014 to 215, thus exceeding the combined total for 2011, 2012 and 2013. It was also the largest single loss of life since sinkings in June, when 62 people had died, March, when 44 had lost their lives and another one in April, when 12 people had died.

Mr. Spindler said that there had been frequent reports of mistreatment, abuse, rape and torture, and analysts were saying that the increasingly cruel measures being adopted by smuggling rings seemed to account for the increase in deaths at sea. Boats crossing to Yemen were overcrowded, and smugglers had reportedly thrown passengers overboard to prevent capsizing or avoid detection. Search-and-rescue officials said that the practice had resulted in hundreds of undocumented casualties in recent years.

The latest deaths came against the background of a dramatic increase in the number of new arrivals for September off Yemen’s coast. At 12,768, it marked the single biggest month for arrivals since current records had begun to be kept in 2002.

The reasons for the surge were believed to include ongoing drought in South-Central Somalia, as well as the combined effects of conflict, insecurity, and lack of livelihood opportunities in countries of origin. Moreover, the surge could also be attributed to a decreasing level of cooperation between the countries in the region to better manage migratory movements.

UNHCR and its partners provided initial reception and assistance to individuals arriving across the Yemeni coast at the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and recorded all reported incidents. UNHCR and the Society for Humanitarian Solidary provided first aid, and food assistance at 3 coastal transit centres to those identified, usually in a dire situation, by the patrolling teams upon their arrival at the coast.

Transportation services were then provided from the transit centres to the nearest reception centre for initial registration by the Danish Refugee Council on behalf of the UNHCR. With Somalis receiving prima facie refugee status from the Government of Yemen, non-Somalis who expressed interest in seeking asylum were provided with attestation letters to present at the UNHCR offices in Sana’a or Aden and begin the Refugee Status Determination process.

Despite the commitment and the continuing work of the Yemeni Government and others on that issue, it was clear that those ongoing efforts alone could not hope to avoid such loss of life.

Mr. Spindler said that UNHCR had continued to offer support to the Government of Yemen in strengthening its capacity for search and rescue at sea, safe embarkation and proper identification, as well as initial reception and referral mechanisms for vulnerable people in need of protection and assistance.

UNHCR also called on countries of origin, transit and destination in the region to step up their cooperation in managing the flows of migration. At the same time they had to pay due attention to the protection needs of refugees, asylum seekers and other vulnerable groups such as women and minors. That kind of regional cooperation was the central idea behind a Regional Conference on Asylum and Migration organized by the Government of Yemen with support from UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration in November 2013 and it lay at the heart of the Sana’a Declaration adopted by the Conference.

Yemen was the only country in the Arabian Peninsula that was signatory to the 1951 refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. It currently hosted 246,000 refugees of whom over 230,000 Somali and a smaller portion of Ethiopian, Eritrean, Iraqi and Syrian refugees. The majority of the refugees had been living in Yemen for many years. Yemen also hosted more than 334,000 internally displaced persons, either forced from their homes as a result of recent conflicts or living in long-term displacement.

Italy

Mr. Spindler stated that UNHCR was concerned over the announcement of the ending this month of the Italian operation Mare Nostrum without a similar European search and rescue operation to replace it. That would undoubtedly increase the risk for those trying to find safety in Europe, and could lead to more refugees and migrants perishing at sea. It was estimated that 3,343 people had lost their lives in 2014 while making such journeys, 2,755 of them since the start of July.

UNHCR had welcomed Mare Nostrum, which had contributed to the rescue of around 150,000 refuges and migrants since it had begun a year ago as a response to two tragedies off the coast of Lampedusa, where over 600 refugees and migrants had died. Today, UNHCR reiterated its call for Europe to commit more resources to rescue at sea in the Mediterranean.

It was critical that the long-established tradition of rescue at sea was upheld by all. UNHCR also recognized the efforts made by many commercial vessels. In 2014 alone they had contributed to the rescue of about 37,000 people. To the extent possible, such rescue had to ensure minimal financial impact on the shipping industry. Predictability on places for the disembarkation in safety of those rescued was also required.

In addition, Europe needed to step up efforts to provide credible legal alternatives to dangerous voyages to protect people from the risks of traveling with smugglers. The collective response needed to maintain a strong capacity to rescue people at sea and increase safer ways for refugees to find safety in Europe, including enhanced resettlement, other forms of humanitarian admission and private sponsorship schemes. UNHCR was also calling on European governments to do more to facilitate family reunification and use programmes such as student or employment visas to benefit refugees.

Those challenges could not be addressed by a few states alone; a joint European response was needed, based on collaboration among states and EU support. Those efforts also needed to ensure additional initial reception facilities, adequate reception conditions, assistance in processing, as well as identifying solutions for those in need of international protection.

Nigeria

Mr. Spindler said that, as insurgent groups intensified their campaign of rebellion and terror in Nigeria’s north-eastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, Nigerian refugees had been fleeing across the border into northern Cameroon, Niger and Chad. In the previous two months, the number of new arrivals had increased significantly.

Since May 2013, when a state of emergency had been declared by Nigeria in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States, over 100,000 people had crossed to Niger according to Niger authorities. Those included both Nigerians fleeing across the border and citizens of Niger obliged to return to their home country. Both groups were dispersed among the local population and were receiving community-based protection and assistance.

Tanzania

Mr. Spindler stated that the UNHCR welcomed the decision by the Government of Tanzania to grant citizenship to 162,156 former Burundian refugees, who had fled their country in 1972. The Government would also start the naturalization process for many of their children benefitting some 200,000 people overall. This was the first time in UNHCR’s history that naturalization had been offered as a solution to such a large group of refugees in a country of first asylum.

South Sudan

Christophe Boulierac, for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), shared information on the fight against malnutrition in South Sudan. He said that UNICEF, along with the Ministry of Health, Sanitation and Environment of South Sudan and the World Food Programme, was launching today a new outreach mass-screening campaign to combat malnutrition. Trained governmental social mobilizers would go from door to door; the same system had been used to fight polio and cholera, for example. The campaign would commence today in the county of Juba and last for one month. The campaign. which would also include two weeks in the States of Warrap and Northern Bahr el Ghazal, was also set to last for one month. The level of conflict was low in those three regions, which was why the door-to-door campaign was possible. Social mobilizers were going to mosques and churches in Juba today, in order to explain what their campaign would entail. Talk-shows and radio spots would also be used to inform about the campaign. The social mobilizers would evaluate the condition of children in all visited households and refer those in need for malnutrition treatment. They would also advise mothers on best practices regarding nutrition, hygiene and sanitation.

The mass screening campaign in Juba county would cover an estimated 116,000 children aged between six months and five years of age. Around 6,500 children in Juba would probably be treated for severe acute malnutrition. The campaign was set to expand over the coming weeks and include more than 600 trained mobilizers. Some 600,000 children in three regions were expected to be reached.

Mr. Boulierac reminded that, according to estimates, 235,000 children would suffer from severe acute malnutrition by the end of 2014.

Maldives

Ramina Shamdasani, for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), stated that the OHCHR was deeply concerned about the case initiated by the Supreme Court of the Maldives against the five members of the Human Rights Commission of the country.

Following the Commission’s submission of a written contribution to the second Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Maldives before the UN Human Rights Council, the five members of the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives were facing serious criminal charges.

In making a UPR submission, the Commission had operated in line with international principles governing national institutions, known as the Paris Principles. The Human Rights Council specifically encouraged the participation of national human rights institutions in the UPR process. The case in the Maldives had been initiated by the Supreme Court through a summons issued on 22 September, and was currently under way.

Ms. Shamdasani said that the OHCHR called on the Government to firmly defend the independence of the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives, in line with the commitments made during the first UPR of the Maldives in 2011. The Government had a responsibility to ensure a safe operating space for the Commission and for civil society actors in the country, so that they would be able to cooperate with UN human rights mechanisms without fear of reprisals. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein had also written directly to the Government of the Maldives to express his concerns.

The next UPR of the Maldives was scheduled to be held between April and May 2015.

World Food Day

Silvano Sofia, for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said that in the context of the World Food Day and the International Year of Family Farming, a new edition of the United Nations annual report on the world food and agriculture situation had been presented at the FAO Headquarters in Rome. This year’s edition showed how innovation in familial farms contributed to food security, decline of poverty and protection of the environment worldwide.

The report’s conclusions underlined that 500 million family farms in the world produced 80 percent of world’s food and were seen, as a consequence, as essential to the fight against hunger that reached 805 million people. Family farming was also essential to ecological sustainability and the conservation of natural resources.

Mr. Sofia underlined family farming vulnerability to the impact of the depletion of resources and to climate change. In order to take up those challenges, the 2014 edition of the report stressed that family farmers needed to be encouraged to develop their innovation capacity, in particular in low-income countries.

The report’s conclusions were about tomorrow’s agriculture, which would have to feed more than 9 billion people in 2050 and would require that production increases by 60 percent. The report also revealed that public investment would have to be boosted in research and development, as well as in advisory services.

Family farming needed an environment conducive to innovation, notably good governance of stable macroeconomic conditions, transparent political and legal regimes, property rights, risk management tools and market infrastructures.

According to the report, agriculture policies had to facilitate a wider access to inputs such as seeds and fertilizers, as well as to markets and credit.

The report was available on the FAO website.

Geneva activities

Ms. Morris said that the Human Rights Committee was considering this morning the document on the right to liberty and security of person. On 20 October, it would examine the report of Israel, the last country to be examined in the current session, which would finish on 31 October. The Committee had already considered reports of Sri Lanka, Burundi, Haiti, Malta and Montenegro.

A background release had been distributed the previous day on the start of the session of the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. In the session starting on 20 October, the Committee would consider reports of Venezuela, Poland, China, Ghana, Belgium, Brunei Darussalam, Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

Ms. Morris said that today was the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The UN in Geneva would commemorate the day in collaboration with the non-governmental organization “ATD Fourth World”. A ceremony would be held in Room XXIV at 1 p.m. The 2014 theme was “Leave no one behind: think, decide, and act together against extreme poverty.” The event would be an opportunity to highlight the need to accelerate progress on the Millennium Development Goals leading up to the target date of 2015 and to let the voices of poor people be heard. The Secretary-General’s message was available in hard copy.

Catherine Sibut said, for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), that the 15^th Raúl Prebisch Lecture, organized by UNCTAD on the occasion of its 50^th anniversary, would be given by Rafael Correa Delgado, President of Ecuador, at the Palais des Nations on 24 October.

Mr. Correa's lecture – entitled "Ecuador: Development as a Political Process" – would cover efforts by his country to build a model of equitable and sustainable development, as well as the lessons learned from implemented policies.

In the absence of a single path towards development, the sum of knowledge gained by developing countries, such as Ecuador, offered a unique perspective on development issues to all those who believed in the possibility of a better world. Established in 1982, UNCTAD's Raúl Prebisch Lecture Series allowed prominent personalities to speak to a wide audience on burning trade and development topics.

Invitations and logistics details would be sent out by email. More details were available at: http://is.gd/7hBBN2.

Jean Rodriguez, for the Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), announced the International conference on Public–Private Partnerships in the water and sanitation sector – best practices and lessons learnt: an exchange of experiences between Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, which would take place in Geneva on 21-22 October. The UNECE Executive Secretary would open the conference.

On 21-23 October, there would a workshop on forest reporting in the UNECE region, which would also be opened by the Executive Secretary. The meeting would discuss the preliminary findings of a study on UNECE Forests – State, Trends and Challenges, to be released in May 2015 at the 11^th meeting of the United Nations Forum on Forests in New York.

Mr. Rodriguez explained that the UNECE region as a whole had 1.89 billion hectares of forest land, which was 41.4 percent of the global total, as compared to 34.8 percent of global land area and 18.3 percent of the population. The region’s share of the world’s forests was one percentage point more than ten years earlier because the UNECE region’s forests had expanded while the total of those elsewhere had declined.

Forest cover had been expanding in all parts of the region for several decades. Natural expansion onto former agricultural land accounted for most of the increase, but afforestation in the context of public programmes had also played a significant role. Preliminary findings also highlighted that forests of the UNECE region were expanding in terms of stocks of wood.

Christian Lindmeier, for the World Health Organization (WHO), reported that the sixth session of the parties of the WHO framework convention for tobacco control (FCTC) was going into its last days in Moscow. The last official day would be 18 October, when the plenary session would be held and most decisions would be finalised. Press statements from the FCTC would be circulated.

A press conference on the launch of the Global Tuberculosis Report 2014 would be held on 22October at 2 p.m. in Room 1, and advanced copies of the report could be obtained as of today. The contact person for the advanced copies was Ms. Dias: diash@who.int.

Mr. Lindmeier said that the WHO had two staff members returning from the field. One of them had stayed in Ukraine for one month and if there was interest, a special press briefing could be scheduled. The other staff member was returning from South Sudan and would be available on 3 and 4 November. If there was interest expressed, a special press briefing could be scheduled as well.

Ms. Morris announced, on behalf of the World Trade Organization, that in Press Room I on 17 October at 2.30 p.m, a press briefing would take place on Seychelles being next in line to join the WTO and on the sanitary and phytosanitary measures.

The WTO's World Trade Report 2014, with a focus this year on Trade and Development, would be launched at WTO in Room W on 20 October at 10 a.m. The WTO Director-General would deliver opening remarks.

The Dispute Settlement Body would meet on 20 October at 3 p.m, to be followed by the swearing-in ceremony of the new Appellate Body member Shree Baboo Chekitan.

On 21 October, WTO’s General Council would commence at 10 a.m. with an address by Director-General Azevedo.

Spokespersons for the International Labour Organization and the International Organization for Migration were also present, but did not brief.
The webcast for this briefing is available here: … http://bit.ly/1waBvzC