A green wall to promote peace in Africa’s Sahel region
22/2/2023: The Great Green Wall of restored forests and lands stretching more than 8,000km across the Sahel region has been selected as a flagship of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. The project is making a difference in the lives of many people in countries prone to conflict.
Source: UN Environment Programme
Rights groups urge UN Human Rights Council to act on Egypt
24/2/2023: The 2021 UN climate conference in Cairo drew attention to the unsatisfactory human rights situation in Egypt. International rights groups are calling on the UN to respond to the further deterioration that has occurred since COP27.
Source: Human Rights Watch
US suggests Rwanda has illegally deployed troops to DR Congo
24/2/2023: The US Department of State has called on Rwanda to cease support for the M23 armed group and to withdraw its troops from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The US cited a request by the African Union Peace and Security Council for all foreign armed groups to leave DRC.
Source: The East African
How Sierra Leone and Liberia escaped the conflict trap
16/2/2023: After a tough year for UN peacekeeping operations in Africa, it is pertinent to review the factors that contributed to post-war stability in Sierra Leone and Liberia. It is 20 years since the civil wars in those countries ended.
Source: PassBlue
Cereal production falls in Africa’s “year of nutrition”
17/2/2023: Despite promises, nearly three-quarters of African governments have reduced their agricultural budgets while paying almost double that on arms. Chronic under-investment in agriculture is a key cause of the widespread hunger experienced in 2022.
Source: Oxfam International
UN Ocean Treaty negotiations to resume
17/2/2023: Greenpeace has warned that, without a strong Ocean Treaty, it is practically impossible to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030, the target agreed at COP15 in Montreal in December 2022. Resolving impasses depends on the Global North making a fair and credible offer to the Global South.
Source: Greenpeace International
China and Russia fail to defund UN human rights work
15/2/2023: UN member states have agreed to fully fund UN human rights mechanisms that China and Russia had sought to eliminate from the 2023 budget. UN investigations in Sri Lanka, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Ukraine, Nicaragua, North Korea, Belarus, Syria, and Eritrea will continue.
Source: Inter Press Service
UN food agencies call for action on the global food crisis
8/2/2023: A joint statement by UN food and development agencies warns that food insecurity is on the rise, with global food supplies projected to drop to a three-year low in 2022/2023. They recommend urgent action to rescue hunger hotspots, facilitate trade and reform harmful subsidies.
Source: UN Food and Agriculture Organization
Myanmar’s junta benefits from weak international response
6/2/2023: For two years, Myanmar's military junta has committed numerous crimes against humanity, widely documented by human rights groups. A wide range of responses by the international community have not been enough to change the junta’s conduct or calculations.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Will China help resolve lower-income countries’ debt crisis?
8/2/2023: It is by now clear that many low- and middle-income countries will have to restructure their debt. This situation is quite unlike the debt crisis of the 1980s, now involving a multitude of creditor groups, including China, which is the newest and largest entity, with the least experience of debt relief.
Source: Devex