REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the World Meteorological Organization, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations Refugee Agency and the World Food Programme.

Activities in New York

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed yesterday the High Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals. His speech was available at the back of the room in French and English. The Secretary-General this week would also hold many bilateral meetings in the margins of that Meeting.

Today at 4 p.m., New York time, a press conference by the Middle East Quartet would take place in New York. Among the participants would be the Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, United States Secretary of State, Ms. Hillary Clinton, the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Sergey Lavrov, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Ms. Catherine Ashton, the United States Special Envoy for Middle East Peace, Mr. George Mitchell, and the Quartet Special Representative, Mr. Tony Blair. The press conference would be webcasted live over the Internet, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.

Tomorrow, the Security Council would convene a Summit on “Ensuring the Security Council’s effective role in maintaining international peace and security”, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.

Also tomorrow, the General Assembly would hold a High-level meeting as a contribution to the International Year of Biodiversity, said Ms. Momal-Vanian. And on Friday, 24 September, there would be the High-Level Meeting on Disarmament that was called for by the Secretary-General.

Ms. Momal-Vanian further said that the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) had released figures yesterday that were part of a forthcoming report on the Progress of the World’s Women 2010/2011 on Access to Justice, which would be launched this December. The publication revealed the need for urgent action in four areas critical to gender justice and the Millennium Development Goals.

The UNIFEM report is available here: http://www.unifem.org/progress/.

Committee on the Rights of the Child

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Committee on the Rights of the Child was concluding today its consideration of the reports that were presented yesterday by Sudan on the Convention on the rights of the child and on children in armed conflicts and by Montenegro on the Convention and the two Optional Protocols.

This afternoon and tomorrow all day the Committee would hold private meetings, said Ms. Momal-Vanian. On Thursday and Friday it would take up its consideration of the reports of Sri Lanka and Nicaragua. These would be the last country reports to be considered during the current session, which would end next week.

Situation in Pakistan

Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that last Friday, the United Nations and its partners had launched an appeal for US$ 2 billion for Pakistan. As of today, the Appeal was 22 per cent funded, with US$ 434 million received and an additional US$ 53 million have been pledged for at this time. The sectors that were the less financed were health (25 per cent), protection (24 per cent) and shelter (19 per cent).

Turning to the logistics cluster, Ms. Byrs said that it was operating out of hubs in Islamabad, Peshawar, Gilgit, Multan, Sukkur and Hyderabad. Since 5 August, the cluster had delivered 2,290 metric tons of relief items to 110 locations that had been inaccessible by road, through a total of 523 sorties. Over 22,000 square meters of common storage space was available across the country.

Mr. Byrs said that the Sindh and Punjab Provinces were still among the most affected areas. Water was now receding, leaving stagnant ponds of water which would take weeks to evaporate.

Paul Garwood of the World Health Organization, giving an update on the health situation, said that between 29 July and 20 September, some 5.6 million people had been treated across the flood-affected areas for the main four conditions: diarrhoeal diseases, particularly acute diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, suspected malaria and skin diseases. Up until yesterday, medicines had been delivered to health cluster partners that could treat up to 4.5 million people.

The World Health Organization and its health cluster partners had requested US$ 200 million in the latest Appeal to fund 94 health projects to respond to the overarching goal of the Appeal, which was to prevent avoidable deaths and reduce the suffering and health concerns faced by the affected population, said Mr. Garwood.

Starting today was a high-level visit to Pakistan, involving three senior representatives of the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund, and the World Food Programme. Tomorrow they would visit the Sindh Province and on Thursday they would visit affected areas in Peshawar. The representatives were Eric Laroche, World Health Organization Assistant Director-General for Health Action in Crises, Louis-Georges Arsenault, Director of the United Nations Children's Fund’s Office for Emergency Programmes, and David Kaatrud of the World Food Programme. The reason for this joint visit was to highlight the tri-cluster survival strategy and address challenges.

Marixie Mercado, of United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said their revised appeal for the Pakistan emergency was being released today at noon and was for US$ 252.3 million. As of 17 September they had received US$ 92 million, which left a funding gap of US$ 160 million.

As the UNICEF's Executive Director had said, this enormous and extremely complex emergency was a children’s emergency. Over 10 million children had been hit by the flooding. Among those severely affected were 2.8 million children under five and 820,000 pregnant women. Although much had been achieved, the emergency was far from over. Large numbers of children and women had not been reached with the assistance they urgently needed, said Ms. Mercado.

There was an acute shortage of drinking water, sanitation facilities were virtually non-existent and hygiene was rapidly emerging as a priority. This risk of malnutrition loomed large, with the very young being extremely vulnerable. Ms. Mercado said the risk of malaria was also increasing in some area and people were in urgent need of insecticide treated bed nets and preventive medicines.

Ms. Mercado said that UNICEF Fund and its partners were collectively reaching over 6 million people with a combination of safe water supplies and water treatment for families, and half a million people had benefited from hygiene kits that UNICEF had distributed among those affected. They were providing nutritious food and were working with partners to provide essential medical services and supplies, including insecticides treated bednets, to thousands of children and families to prevent death and illness.

UNICEF's revised appeal covered urgent relief and recovery needs in water, sanitation, hygiene, nutrition and health services, said Ms. Mercado. It targeted the most vulnerable and worked to build capacity, sustainability and ownership at the community level. It also scaled up a protection and education response, including children who had never been in school, with a focus on strengthening systems.

Over the next months, they would need to sustain and scale up their efforts to reach more children especially in the area of nutrition, said Ms. Mercado. If they did not, the conditions for those affected would deteriorate.

The amount of money that was required to meet the current and future needs in Pakistan was extremely large. They needed new donors to respond to this appeal in a big way and they needed existing donor to dig deeper still, said Ms. Mercado.

Adrian Edwards of the United Nations Refugee Agency said that this week their focus was to bring shelter supplies to the remote and high altitude area of Utror in northwest Pakistan's Kalam Tehsil. The aim was to get warm shelter to flood victims in Upper Swat before winter. The first snows in this area were expected in about a month.

The airlift of shelter kits had begun on Sunday. The region had been virtually cut off since flash floods had destroyed homes, roads and bridges in late July, said Mr. Edwards. In Utror village 300 families had lost their homes. The shelter kits provided a single large warm room for winter, so that families could rebuild and get on to other things.

Separately, this week around a million Afghan refugee children who had been born in Pakistan would be receiving birth certificates as the Government began issuing new registration cards to the country's 1.7 million Afghan refugees. Mr. Edwards said that UNHCR was supporting Pakistan's National Database and Registration Authority to issue these certificates alongside with new Proof of Registration cards, which would be valid until the end of December 2012.

These cards were an important identity document for Afghan refugees, proving their legal right of stay in Pakistan. The birth certificates would help those refugees born in Pakistan to get access to services like healthcare and education, and prevent statelessness and avoid early marriage. Also recognized by the Afghan government, the birth certificates could help returning refugees re-establish themselves after voluntary repatriation, said Ms. Edwards.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme, answering to a question of the impact of the lack of funds on the humanitarian operations, said that the food portion of the revised Appeal was of US$ 600 million and so far they had received US$ 103 million. If they were able to get the full amount, people would get more food, especially children. Another important aspect was to get recovery started as soon as possible for farmers, in order to avoid even more difficulties in the future.

Acute Lead Poisoning in Nigeria

Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that efforts were being stepped up to assist Nigerian Authorities in combating massive acute lead poisoning, which had reportedly affected hundreds of children to date.

Excess childhood deaths and illness had been recorded since the beginning of 2010 in the northern part of the country, especially in Zamfara State, said Ms. Byrs. Investigations had revealed that the cause had been acute lead poisoning from the artisanal processing activities of lead-rich ore for gold extraction, taking place inside houses and compounds, said Ms. Byrs. According to the latest figures, more than 200 children had died from lead poisoning since January.

The Nigerian Authorities had started decontamination activities and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had sent out yesterday a joint United Nations Environment Programme/Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ Environmental Emergency Team. The five-member team’s mission would conclude on 7 October. They would take samples and analysis of soil and drinking water and develop recommendations for clean-up from pollution by lead, copper and mercury. The United Nations’ Central Emergency Response Fund had also allocated US$ 2 million to address this emergency, said Ms. Byrs.

Asylum Situation in Greece

Adrian Edwards of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that they were today calling on Greece to urgently accelerate implementation of its planned asylum reform. This was in light of the continued absence in Greece of a functioning asylum system, an issue with important implications for the wider European Union.

The conditions for asylum-seekers in Greece, which was among the principal entry points to the European Union, were notoriously difficult, said Mr. Edwards. Most asylum-seekers received no assistance. Many lived on the streets, including women and children. The refugee status determination system did not operate properly and as a result, persons needing international protection were not identified as such. This was a humanitarian crisis situation which should not exist in the European Union.

UNHCR welcomed Greece's plans to implement a far-reaching reform of its asylum system even in the face of current economic challenges. They also appealed to the European Union to step up its assistance to help Greece to comply with its international and European obligations. Until such time as an asylum procedure meeting international standards was in place in Greece, UNHCR reiterated its recommendation to other European countries not to send asylum-seekers back to Greece under the Dublin II Regulation, said Mr. Edwards.

Yesterday, in a statement, Human Rights Watch had called on UNHCR to intervene and take on responsibility for refugee status determination in Greece in light of these shortcomings. Mr. Edwards said that UNHCR noted this recommendation, but emphasized that responsibility for asylum rested with the State, and as an European Union member, Greece was bound by European Union legislation to have laws and procedures for dealing with people seeking asylum.

Distribution of Refugee ID Cards in DRC

Adrian Edwards of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that UNHCR and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo were today launching a distribution of refugee identity cards to the country's 173,000 refugees, aimed at strengthening their rights.

The identity card was equivalent to a resident's permit. It granted its holders the same rights as Congolese citizens, as stipulated by the national refugee law of 25 October 2002, save for political rights, said Mr. Edwards. Among these were the rights to work, to education, access to healthcare, and freedom of movement within the country.

Mr. Edwards said that the first 3,300 refugees to receive their ID cards would be in the capital Kinshasa. Distribution would then be extended to all refugees around the country, most of whom originated from Angola, Rwanda, and Burundi.

Agenda

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescents Societies would hold a press conference this afternoon at 2:30 p.m. to present its World Disasters Report 2010 on urban risks. The official launch of the report would take place today in Nairobi.

Clare Nullis of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said that the Musée d’histoire naturelle would unveil a new exhibition tonight on supervolcanoes and a conference would take place on the subject. The guest speaker would be Herbert Puempel, WMO Volcano Expert.

Next week in Paris, the World Climate Research Programme, which is co-sponsored by WMO, would hold a workshop on metrics and methodologies of estimation of extreme climate events, said Ms. Nullis.