REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for and Representatives of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Environment Programme, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the World Health Organization, the Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Food Programme, the UN Refugee Agency, the International Organization for Migration and the GAVI Alliance.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Momal-Vanian welcomed the group of Palestinian journalists attending a training programme which was organized by the UN Department of Public Information. They were in Geneva this week.

The 2010 Meeting of States Parties to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) was continuing its meeting at the Palais des Nations (6 to 10 December 2010).

Human Rights Day

Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said Friday, 10 December was Human Rights Day and it would be marked by parallel major events in Geneva and in New York. The theme this year for Human Rights Day was “Human Rights Defenders Acting to End Discrimination”. In Geneva, High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay would host the event from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Room XX. Ms. Pillay would give the keynote address to the event, and there would be a welcome address from the Mayor of Geneva, Sandrine Salerno. There would be five human rights defenders on a panel engaged in issues such as people suffering from Down’s Syndrome and Autism, sexual orientation, the situation of black women in Europe, access to information and the prevention of sexual exploitation and child abuse. They came from Austria, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and the occupied Palestinian territories (Gaza). There would also be a performance by the Angolan opera singer Nelson Ebo. There was a media advisory at the back of the room with more details, as well as other documents relating to the commemoration event.

Mr. Colville said the High Commissioner for Human Rights would give a press conference at 3 p.m. on Thursday, 9 December linked to Human Rights Day.

UNICEF and Pakistan

Dan Toole, the United Nations Children’s Fund’s Regional Director for South Asia, speaking in a teleconference from Pakistan, said they were just reaching the four-month mark after the start of the massive emergency in Pakistan because of the floods. In many ways, this was the worst year that Pakistan had ever had since its independence in terms of natural disasters and the scale and the number of people affected. Thousands of families in Pakistan had over the past three of four years suffered from multiple disasters, and were coping with multiple emergencies, the flood being the most massive and serious that they had seen. Many had also suffered from the earthquake and displacement from fighting in the north late last year. UNICEF could not have done its work without its partners. The 120-day report highlighted mostly what UNICEF had done, but obviously also with WHO, WFP and the Government. The first task had been to evacuate the people, and they had also mobilized the response from the army and the international community. UNICEF had made a huge amount of progress in the last four months. It had vaccinated more than 9 million children against measles and polio. UNICEF was providing clean water to about 2.8 million people daily, which was a near herculean task, and about 1.5 million now had access to clean water and sanitation. Nutrition had become a major issue. Pakistan had been suffering from a chronic long-term under-nutrition problem for many years, and the emergency had brought this to a peak level of mal-nutrition. UNICEF had been working closely with the Government and the World Food Programme to initiate supplementary feeding programmes as well as therapeutic feeding programmes that were now reaching over 100,000 people. Good progress had been made, but there was still a huge amount of work to do. In terms of funding, the international community had been a strong supporter, and they had received approximately $ 170 million of the $ 252 million that they had requested. Their appeal was around 67 per cent funded, which was better than other organizations, but they were still short of about $ 80 million to continue the programme.

Mr. Toole said snow was falling in the north already, and UNICEF had rushed blankets, sweaters, shoes, supplies and equipment and food to the northern areas so that people had enough for winter, but it was urgent that this continued. In northern Sindh, waters had finally started to recede and people were returning to find their homes destroyed, their crops and their food gone, their sources of income gone, and in many places, they found the health facilities and the schools partially or totally damaged. When they talked about the need for “early recovery”, in some parts of the country, it really meant that they must continue emergency relief to help people get back on their feet. Another issue was that of polio. Pakistan was one of four endemic polio countries in the world, and it was now the one endemic country with the largest number of cases, 126 new cases of polio as compared to 80 last year. The combination of mal-nutrition and winter were perfect conditions for acute respiratory infection and UNICEF and WHO were rushing medical supplies. UNICEF and the UN system as a whole needed to be flexible and needed to continue to work at a very large scale. For that, they needed funding. The effects of this emergency would continue for years to come and they needed to generate as much support as possible today.

UNEP

Isabelle Valentiny of the United Nations Environment Programme said Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director, was launching in Cancun today a new UNEP report which examined the impact of receding glaciers and changing precipitation levels on communities worldwide. There was increasing concern about the effects of climate change on high mountain glaciers and the resulting impact on sea-level rises, natural hazards and water resources. Changes in the intensity and timing of rains, added to the melting of snow, could have serious consequences for food security, livelihoods, water resources and health. At noon today, she would send journalists the embargoed press release and the link to the report. It would be embargoed until 4:30 p.m. today Geneva time.

Miss Valentiny said that Saturday, 11 December was International Mountain Day. To commemorate the day, UNEP would be organizing an event in Verbier, Switzerland at 3 p.m. on Saturday, which would bring together mountain experts from around the world to speak about the main threats European mountains were facing in an age of global warming. There would be a briefing held at the Palais des Nations on Thursday, 9 December at 1 p.m. in press room I on the event.

UNCTAD

Catherine Sibut-Pinote of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said the President of Sierra Leone would be in Geneva on 14 December for discussions with UNCTAD on investment policies of Sierra Leone.

The UNCTAD Creative Economy Report would be launched on 15 December. The report dealt with the arts, cinema, fashion and other sectors in relation to creativity. The first report was issued in 2008 in cooperation with the United Nations Environment Programme. There would be a press conference at noon on 15 December to launch the report.

Ms. Sibut-Pinote said the third session of the multi-year expert meeting on transport and trade facilitation would be held from 8 to 10 December at Salle XXVI of the Palais des Nations. There was more information on the UNCTAD website.

WHO

Christine Feig of the World Health Organization said today WHO was announcing the launch of a project that would assist in creating an evidence base for traditional medicine, producing terminologies and classifications for diagnoses and interventions. The International Classification of Traditional Medicine would have an interactive web-based platform that allowed users throughout the world to enter their data. There was a note for the press at the back of the room.

Ms. Feig said after the briefing today, WHO’s TB team would be holding a press conference to discuss a new rapid diagnostic test for TB. The information was embargoed until 8 December. Also, in Friday’s Lancet, there would be an article showing that healthcare associated infections were more common in developing countries than in high-income countries, and it would discuss what could be done to reduce this. The embargo on the article was until 2 a.m. on Friday, 10 December. Finally, WHO had some colleagues coming to Geneva from Somalia at the end of this week, who could brief journalists on Friday, 10 December.

OCHA

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on 14 December at noon, there would be a press conference by the Director of OCHA’s Geneva office, and an Executive Vice Director of DHL to celebrate the five years of existence of the cooperation agreement on logistical support in the aftermath of natural disasters between OCHA and Deutsche Post–DHL (DP-DHL). Also, available at the back of the room was a note on the latest figures concerning the cholera epidemic in Haiti. To date, the UN appeal for $ 174 million was only 20 per cent funded, with $ 35 million received. There was an urgent need for more actors to be involved in sensitization activities as well as in cholera treatment, particularly in the remote rural areas.

WFP

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme said available at the back of the room were some fact sheets as well as a media advisory on the unveiling of the new WFP policy on nutrition and HIV which WHO would make public on 8 December at the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board meeting. The policy was aimed at integrating nutritional support into the healthcare for people living with AIDS and combining that with support for their families. Martin Bloem, WFP’s Head of Nutrition and HIV, would make the presentation tomorrow and was also available for interviews.

UNHCR

Adrian Edwards of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR was concerned about a group of some 250 Eritreans who had been held hostage for about a month by traffickers in the Sinai, Egypt. UNHCR had very limited information about this group. UNHCR noted media reports that the traffickers were demanding payments of around $ 8,000 per person for their release, that people were being held in containers and were subject to abuses, and that some may have been held for months. UNHCR was in contact with the Egyptian Government over this matter. Every year thousands of people attempted to cross the border from Egypt into Israel, often in the hands of Bedouin traffickers who had little regard for their safety. UNHCR’s eligibility guidelines considered that most Eritreans fleeing their country should be considered as refugees.

Mr. Edwards said today UNHCR had a pledging conference in Geneva, and there should be a press release containing an update on the figures available later in the day.

IOM

Jared Bloch of the International Organization for Migration said he wanted to give journalists an update on an IOM-UN University organized event at the Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico. Questions would be asked on what concrete steps could be taken and by whom to address the many challenges of climate and environment induced-migration and would be tackled by IOM and partners of the Climate Change, Environment and Migration Alliance on 8 December. IOM Director-General William Lacy Swing would moderate the event which would take place on the sidelines of the Climate Conference. While there were no reliable estimates on climate and environment-induced migration, it was clear that this type of human movement would increase significantly in the foreseeable future as the effects of climate change were felt more acutely.

GAVI Alliance

Dan Thomas from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization said a new vaccine had been introduced in Burkina Faso against meningitis yesterday. Today, he had something even more exciting to report, the introduction of the new vaccine into the developing world which would tackle the most deadly forms of pneumonia. Pneumonia was the number one killer of children worldwide. On Sunday 12 December in Nicaragua, the first child in the developing world would be immunized against the pneumococcal disease with this new vaccine. In partnership with the Pan-American Health Organization, UNICEF and the Government of Nicaragua, the GAVI Alliance would be hosting a special ceremony to launch this vaccine. By rapidly scaling up the introduction of the pneumococcal vaccine in more than 40 countries, starting with Nicaragua on Sunday, they could avert about 700,000 deaths between now and 2015 and about 7 million deaths between now and 2030.