One year of the Black Sea Initiative: key facts
10/7/2023: For almost a year, the UN-brokered Black Sea Initiative agreed by Russia, Türkiye, and Ukraine has allowed millions of tonnes of grain to leave Ukraine’s ports. The Initiative has helped reverse spiking global food prices, which reached record highs shortly before the agreement was signed.
Source: UN News
ICC launches investigation into surging violence in Darfur
13/7/2023: The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is investigating fresh allegations of war crimes in the Darfur region, including the recent killings of 87 members of the ethnic Masalit community. The ICC Prosecutor also called on the warring factions in Sudan to uphold their fundamental obligations under international humanitarian law.
Source: UN News
WFP funding crisis leaves millions without aid in West Africa
5/7/2023: Food insecurity has reached a 10-year high in West and Central Africa, affecting 47 million people during the June-August lean season. A funding crunch means that the World Food Programme will be able to assist just over half of those initially targeted. Mali and Chad will be hit the hardest.
Source: World Food Programme
Africa must own the idea of the “just transition”
4/7/2023: The just transition towards a sustainable planet is a universal agenda with localised practice. Among richer countries the concept centres on moving away from fossil fuels. But for most of Africa the idea will mean something very different.
Source: African Arguments
Developing nations decry threat to UK climate finance
6/7/2023: A leaked memo suggests that the UK's promise to deliver £11.6 billion in international climate finance by 2026 is being dropped. A broken pledge is likely to sow further divisions between developed and developing nations at climate talks.
Source: Climate Home News
US destroys remaining chemical weapons stockpile
7/7/2023: America's last remaining weapons containing the GB nerve agent and mustard gas were destroyed last month. The global chemical weapons watchdog said the US was the last "possessor state" and that all declared chemical weapons stockpiles globally have now been "irreversibly destroyed."
Source: DW
Mali’s MINUSMA peacekeeping mission: A foreseeable disaster
4/7/2023: Mali's relations with many of its most important partners has been deteriorating since the military coup of May 2021 and the UN Security Council has now decided to withdraw all its peacekeepers. The withdrawal will impact on the work of aid and development organizations that relied on the protection provided by the UN mission.
Source: DW
10 years later: Why are Egyptian human rights ignored?
3/7/2023: Egyptian activists complain the international community often talks about Egypt's crisis-ridden economy, but says far less about its dreadful human rights situation. Why is one seen as more important than the other?
Source: DW
Global refugee resettlement needs grow in 2024
26/6/2023: The UN Refugee Agency anticipates that over 2.4 million refugees will be in need of resettlement next year, a 20 per cent increase compared to 2023. In 2022, out of approximately 116,000 submissions, only 58,457 refugees were able to depart for resettlement.
Source: UN Refugee Agency
10% increase in primary tropical forest loss in 2022
27/6/2023: During the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021, heads of 145 countries pledged to reduce global deforestation by 10% each year, targeting zero deforestation by 2030. In the first year after the Glasgow pledge, tropical forest loss increased by 10%.
Source: Mongabay