UN chief calls for urgent action against neo-Nazis, Pandemic will not end for anyone, ‘until it ends for everyone’ and 12 weeks into the conflict. Here is what you missed from last week’s headlines in the international development sector:
UN chief calls for urgent action against neo-Nazis in Holocaust remembrance message
More must be done to thwart neo-Nazis and white supremacists who are using the COVID-19 pandemic to target minorities, increase their ranks, and re-write history, the UN Secretary-General has said.
António Guterres made the impassioned appeal in a video message for the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, observed on January, 27, which honours the six million Jews and millions of others murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War.
As this year’s anniversary is taking place under the shadow of the pandemic, he noted that the crisis has exposed longstanding injustices and contributed to a renewed rise in antisemitism and xenophobia.
Pandemic will not end for anyone, ‘until it ends for everyone’
The COVID-19 pandemic “will not end for anyone until it ends for everyone”, an independent UN human rights expert said advocating for an equitable and globally-coordinated vaccine distribution programme.
“The virus can still travel from the vastly unvaccinated massive population of the Global South to the Global North, including in its increasingly mutating forms”, Obiora Okafor, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and international solidarity, said in a statement.
He explained that with mutations constantly evolving, only inoculating rich countries would likely “complicate or delay” the eradication of the virus.
The last few weeks of 2020 witnessed the approval of several COVID-19 vaccines by regulators in various countries, “offering much hope to billions of people worldwide”, according to the UN expert.
And while several states, mostly in the north, have already secured large quantities of vaccine and have begun inoculation campaigns, this has not been the case for most of the Global South, where close to 90 percent of the world’s population lives.
12 weeks into the conflict, ‘deeply troubling’ situation for children in Tigray
The very little we know about the impact of the conflict on children in Tigray – from limited partner accounts and UN assessments – is deeply troubling.
Across Tigray, immunizations have ground to a halt. Civilian infrastructure, including health facilities, has been damaged or destroyed, and essential supplies looted. There is little fuel to operate water and sanitation systems. Children in most of Ethiopia have returned to school following COVID-19 restrictions – but not the 1.3 million school-aged children in Tigray. There are reports of 300 unaccompanied or separated children among the refugees who fled to Sudan, and potentially many more among the thousands of internally displaced persons.
One assessment conducted by partners in early January in the Shire area showed rates of severe acute malnutrition of up to 10 percent among children below the age of five. This is far above WHO’s emergency threshold of 3 percent and could potentially put the lives of up to 70,000 children at risk. The global acute malnutrition level was up to 34 percent – raising fears that affected children could eventually fall into life-threatening malnutrition.
“Because of access restrictions, our knowledge of the situation is still very limited. Our concern is that what we don’t know could be even more disturbing. For 12 weeks, the international humanitarian community has had very limited access to conflict-affected populations across most of Tigray. The small but crucial opening that enabled UNICEF and partners to dispatch 29 trucks filled with emergency nutrition, health, and child protection supplies was a step in the right direction, but nowhere near the level of access and scale of support that is actually needed,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore.
DevelopmentAid Editorials
Agroecology: an opportunity for fragile farms
A recent study conducted by Solidarité Paysans, an association that focuses on more inclusive rural development, shows that practices based on the principles of agroecology such as synergy or diversity can help fragile farms to convert to more economically viable food production systems. This article considers the main arguments for such a claim.
10 the least reported by media humanitarian crises
While the world remains overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic which receives the most media attention, many countries are experiencing even worse disasters that the international media and therefore the international community have barely noticed.
With SheDecides, Ploumen has closed the gap that Trump created in women’s health programs
In March 2020, the PvdA (Dutch Labour Party) board nominated Lilianne Ploumen to be the party’s leader in the parliamentary elections. Ploumen had previously gained international recognition when she launched the SheDecides Foundation which aimed to provide access to safe abortions to women worldwide after the Trump administration cut funding for family planning.
Here’s what else has happened
World Bank and the European Commission: The World Bank, in partnership with the European Commission, will assist Poland to ensure a ‘Just Transition’ in the country’s coal regions of Dolnośląskie (Lower Silesia), Śląskie (Silesia), and Wielkopolskie (Greater Poland). The project will focus on enhancing the capacity of coal regions to plan for a Just Transition through job creation, repurposing of former mining lands, and stakeholder engagement.
UNHCR: Alarmed at the increasing frequency of expulsions and pushbacks of refugees and asylum-seekers at Europe’s land and sea borders, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is calling for states to investigate and halt these practices.
UK: The UK will offer its world-leading genomics expertise to identify new variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 to countries who do not have the resources to do so.
IRENA: The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) signed a host of new agreements in the margins of IRENA’s recently concluded Eleventh Assembly. The four-day meeting held virtually for the first time brought close to 100 minister-level representatives and 2000 attendees together to discuss pathways needed to drive renewables adoption in a year of critical climate action.
Yemen: Twenty-two aid organisations working in Yemen remain extremely concerned about the humanitarian consequences of the designation of Ansar Allah as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) and Specially Designated Terrorist Group (SDGT) which came into effect on 19 January.
UNESCO: One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, over 800 million students, more than half the world’s student population, still face significant disruptions to their education, ranging from full school closures in 31 countries to reduced or part-time academic schedules in another 48 countries, according to new data released on UNESCO’s interactive monitoring map.
Reports
Conflict-affected children at heightened risk of grave violations due to COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated children’s vulnerability to grave violations in situations of armed conflict and restricted the realization of their rights, highlighted the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict in her annual report to the Human Rights Council, which covers the period from December 2019 to December 2020.
Read the full report.
New report shows promising improvements in off-grid appliance energy efficiency
A new report from Efficiency for Access shows promising improvements in the performance and cost of off-grid appropriate appliances, particularly televisions and fans.
The 2021 Appliance Data Trends report finds near-to-market products are significantly more energy-efficient and affordable than they were five years ago. Televisions are 48% more efficient and 44% cheaper than 2016 models, despite increases in screen size. Similarly, fans are 49% more efficient than models assessed two years ago, with some models 2-3 times more efficient than conventional models sold in Europe.
Global foreign direct investment fell by 42% in 2020, outlook remains weak
Global foreign direct investment (FDI) collapsed in 2020, falling 42% from $1.5 trillion in 2019 to an estimated $859 billion, according to a UNCTAD Investment Trends Monitor.
Events
2021 Blended Finance and Impact Week | Virtual
? 1-4 February ? 13:34 PM to 18:20 PM (CET)
Virtual
Building on the success of its 2020 pre-COVID Private Finance for Sustainable Development (#PF4SD) Conference the OECD will mark the first anniversary of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC)’s Community of Practice on Private Finance for Sustainable Development (CoP-PFSD) with a series of discussions.
International Conference on AI in Work, Innovation, Productivity and Skills | Virtual
? 1-5 February
Virtual
The 2021 OECD International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Work, Innovation, Productivity and Skills (AI-WIPS) brings together technical and policy experts to discuss the fast-evolving changes in AI capabilities and uptake and to assess their implications for labour markets and societies.
