UN GENEVA PRESS BRIEFING
Rolando Gómez, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section at the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired a hybrid press briefing, which was attended by the representatives and spokespersons of the United Nations Children's Fund, the International Telecommunication Union and the International Organization for Migration.
UNICEF: ‘Back to Learning’ for Hundreds of Thousands of Children in Gaza
James Elder, for the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), said that in one of the largest emergency learning efforts anywhere in the world, UNICEF would now expand its “Back to Learning” programme to include some 336,000 children in Gaza.
Before the war, Palestinians in Gaza had some of the highest literacy rates in the world. Today, that legacy was under attack: schools, universities, and libraries had been destroyed, and years of progress erased. An entire generation was at risk, with 60 percent of school-aged children in Gaza having no access to in-person learning. Rebuilding Gaza's schools, its education facilities and universities must sit at the very top of Gaza's recovery agenda. In this context, UNICEF, together with education partners in Gaza and the Palestinian Ministry of Education, was launching its “Back to Learning” programme to restore access to education for hundreds of thousands of children, so that they could return to a safe learning environment as soon as possible.
UNICEF had been very much engaged, in the last few months, in the delivery of thermal blankets and winter clothing kits for children; it also had opened more than 70 nutrition centres across Gaza, and its work to get water and water treatment plants back up and running remained a flagship intervention. Now, since “learning was lifesaving”, the Fund was also focusing on education. To this effect, UNICEF would expand its 100 temporary Learning Spaces – which were now providing some 136,000 children with safe spaces, health, nutrition and protection services, vital information, as well as a sense of routine – to accommodate 335,000 children. These spaces also had proper toilets and places to wash hands, some of the basics that many children in shelters did not have.
As the world talked about how Gaza would recover and rebuild, UNICEF was clear: with almost half of Gaza’s population being under 18, children had to be at the heart of every plan. Getting one child into a UNICEF Learning Centre cost just about USD 280 for a year, including mental health support. To reach 336,000 school-age children for the rest of this year, UNICEF urgently needed USD 86 million.
Answering questions from journalists, Mr. Elder stressed that UNWRA staff were a backbone of the health and education systems, and that they would remain so. Out of some 700,000 school-aged children in Gaza, about half had previously attended UNRWA-organized onsite and online learning; these children remained a priority for the Agency. UNICEF, for its part, was focusing on the other half, some 350,000 pupils aged 5 to 18.
As regards schools in Gaza, of which 90 percent had been destroyed or damaged, communities were utilising any facility – a majority being tents – that could function. UNICEF would make sure that hand washing and toilets were available. Many volunteers were going through basic training to complement existing teachers.
Palestinians had done everything they could to keep the education system going. But it had been under an unprecedented assault. Now UNICEF had good news: it had got in and, in the last days, passed on thousands of recreational kits and hundreds of “school-in-a-carton” kits, containing the most basic education supplies for children that UNICEF had been prevented from bringing in for more than two years.
There was no more excuse for Rafah not to reopen, Mr. Elder also remarked, answering another question. He stressed the importance of allowing passage so that families could finally reunite.
UNICEF, in meetings with Israeli authorities, would insist, time and again, on the criticality of education in rebuilding Gaza and on allowing school supplies in. The Secretary-General and the Resident Coordinator on the ground, whenever they had access to major players in the Board of Peace, also relayed this message.
Mr. Gómez, for the UN Information Service, added that the Secretary-General continued to urge all parties to facilitate sustained and unhindered humanitarian access, including through the Rafah Crossing, which was a very important lifeline.
IOM: Deadly Shipwrecks in the Central Mediterranean
Answering other questions from journalists quoting a press release issued on 26 January, Omondi Okoth, for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said he would provide updates on the number of victims of recent shipwrecks in the Central Mediterranean.
Announcements
David Hirsch, for the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), said the International Submarine Cable Resilience Summit 2026 would take place in Porto (Portugal) on 2-3 February. The event would bring together governments, regulators, industry representatives and other experts to strengthen technical collaboration on submarine cable resilience. Among the technical issues to be discussed would be the timely deployment and repair of cables, as submarine cables, which carried more than 99 percent of international data traffic, were subject to about 150 to 200 faults each year, 80 percent coming from human activities such as fishing. [Reporters can request event accreditation at pressreg@itu.int; a webcast will be available.]
Mr. Gómez, for the UN Information Service, said the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) would mark today, at 1 p.m. in Room XVI, the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, 81 years since the liberation of the concentration camps. This was an annual occurrence, mandated by the General Assembly. Messages and remarks by, among others, the UN Secretary-General and Tatiana Valovaya, Director-General of UNOG, would be read, before a keynote address by and interview with Leonie de Picciotto, a Holocaust survivor.
Mr. Gómez quoted a statement by the Secretary-General before the Security Council on 26 January, in which Mr. Guterres had warned against “the rule of law […] being replaced by the law of the jungle” and “flagrant violations of international law and brazen disregard for the UN charter”. “From Gaza to Ukraine and around the world”, the Secretary-General had also deplored, “the rule of law [was] being treated as an à la carte menu”.
Mr. Gómez said the Committee on the Rights of the Child (100th session, 12-30 January, Palais Wilson) would hold an informal meeting with State parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on Thursday, 29 January, starting at 3 p.m. Next Thursday, 5 February the Committed would issue its concluding observations on the seven countries reviewed during the session: Maldives, Ghana, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Colombia, Spain, and Malaysia.
The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) was continuing its session this week. Saint Kitts and Nevis would be reviewed this morning, Sao Tome and Principe this afternoon. The reports for the following states would all be adopted next Friday: Micronesia, Lebanon, Mauritania, Nauru, Rwanda, Nepal, Saint Lucia, Oman, Austria, Australia, Georgia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Sao Tome and Principe.
The Conference on Disarmament was holding a public meeting this morning at 10 a.m. in Tempus, under the presidency of H.E. Davaasuren Gerelmaa, of Mongolia.
A commemorative ceremony would be held on Thursday, 29 January, at 5:30 p.m., in the International Labor Organization’s parking lot, where a bicycle accident had cost the life of an ILO employee.
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