Haitians finding shelter, Jordan’s mines lifted, Thai migrants get affordable HIV help
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Warnings of impending civil war in Syria came from the UN’s Special Envoy Kofi Annan Tuesday 8 May, backed up by an International Red Cross appeal Tuesday for CHF24.5 million in funds to help the tens of thousands of displaced Syrians. But the news from international organizations in Geneva in recent days is not all gloomy. A sampling:
The IOM (International Organization for Migration) reports this week that “the number of people living in displacement camps in and around Haiti’s capital Port au Prince has declined by 14% to an estimated 421,000 since February, according to figures collected by IOM. This is the steepest decline in the camp population since early last year. Some 73% of the original population has now left Haiti’s camps since the height of the crisis in 2010, when an estimated 1.5 million people were made homeless by a massive earthquake, which the government says killed up to 300,000 people.”
The AP Mine Ban Conventionreported that Jordan “became the first country in the Middle East to have removed all minefields in its territory in accordance with its international obligations.” The 60 million m2 or more “of areas known or suspected to contain mines were cleared. Many of these areas were subsequently made available for major development projects, including for agriculture in the Jordan Valley, for religious pilgrimages to locations such as the Christian Baptism Site, and for tourism in Aqaba,” says the Convention office in Geneva.
Five million migrants in Thailand who come mostly from Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar will have better access to HIV treatment under a new regional governments agreement following a meeting organized by the UN Development Programme, UNDP. “Government representatives agreed to examine ways to use intellectual property rights and free trade agreement flexibilities to lower the cost of treatment services and increase coverage for migrants. They also agreed to harmonize treatment and medical referral protocols across countries and ensure that in addition to treatment, migrants have better access to HIV services overall.”
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – United Nations special envoy Kofi Annan is urging Syrian ally, Iran, to help in an effort to achieve peace,
The joint UN and Arab League appointee on Syria met with Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, Wednesday 11 April in Teheran, saying that Iran could be “part of the solution”. The meeting comes a day before the ceasefire agreement that he brokered is scheduled to go into effect.
Iran is a key regional ally of Syrian President Bashir Al-Assad, as Damascus becomes increasingly isolated internationally in the face of continued violence against government opponents. Opposition forces reported 101 civilian deaths on Tuesday, according to CNN .
Annan said he received assurances that the Syrian government would respect the ceasefire, and that by 06:00 Thursday 12 April, the ceasefire hour, “We should see a much improved situation on the ground”.
Links to other sources: BBC, New York Times, Financial Times, Aljazeera
Kofi Annan
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Syria has agreed to accept a United Nations six-point peace plan, the organization’s former Secretary General Kofi Annan, now a special envoy on the Syria problem for the UN, said through his spokesperson, Ahmad Fawsi, Tuesday 27 March. Fawsi said Monday that Annan had received a response from Syria but would study it before responding.
Annan is currently in China, following talks in Russia. He has obtained the backing for the agreement from both countries, which have been under fire for vetoing two UN resolutions condemning Syrian government violence.
The plan was endorsed by the UN Security Council in New York 21 March. It calls for dialogue coupled with a ceasefire. There is no implementation date.
Annan’s reaction to the acceptance by Syria was reserved, with the envoy noting that the next step is to see how to implement the plan.
Visit “against deteriorating humanitarian aid background” as fighting breaks out in capital
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Jacob Kellenberger, head of the Geneva-based International Red Cross, is in Moscow Monday 19 March to ask Russian authorities for help in getting a two-hour daily break in fighting in Syria.
Kellenberger’s visit “takes place against the background of a deteriorating humanitarian situation in Syria,” the aid group said Sunday.
“The humanitarian situation in Homs, Idlib, Hama, Deraa and other areas affected by the unrest remains extremely difficult and could deteriorate further. People have been suffering for several months in some areas, with women and children particularly affected,’ Kellenberger said before leaving
“A daily cessation in the fighting for a period of at least two hours remains essential in order for emergency medical evacuations to take place safely and for aid to reach vulnerable people swiftly,” he noted. “The ICRC is asking for an unambiguous commitment from all concerned to these breaks in the fighting, so that it can reach people in urgent need.”
Moscow said last week it will continue its “military cooperation with Syria”. Russia is reported Monday, by Swedish think tank and research group The Stockholm International Peace Initiative (Sipri), to have supplied 78 percent of Syria’s arms in the past five years – which have increased 580 percent.
Monday fighting in capital heaviest in a year
“Africa’s tomorrow starts today”, conference free with online registration, and open to the public. Lineup of top speakers that includes Kofi Annan, Gordon Brown and Al Gore. Hotel Intercontinental in Geneva, 4-6 April, with the programme starting Tuesday.
Location: Hotel Intercontinental
Link out: http://www.gateway2africa.org/default.aspx
Start date: 4 Apr 2011
End date: 6 Apr 2011
Kofi Annan announcing the new forum to international media in Geneva, 2007
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in an interview with Swiss public television TSR says he is disappointed in Switzerland and other donor countries for failing to provide more funding for the Global Humanitarian Forum. Annan was the president of the forum, which was dissolved 31 March by the Swiss government’s supervisory body for foundations. The forum had debts of CHF2 million.
Switzerland will pay half of these and the salaries of employees according to contractual terms.
Annan argues that Switzerland created the forum and invited him to preside over it, rather than that, as he says media have reported, he was behind the forum’s creation.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss government will decide next Wednesday how to best withdraw its support for Kofi Annan’s Global Humanitarian Forum (GHF), according to Le Temps newspaper, which says the decision has already been taken. The Wednesday meeting will review whether to pay CHF1 million in debts incurred by the forum or whether to let it sort out its own affairs, says journalist Stéphane Bussard in an article Friday 19 March. Bussard does not cite a source.
Walter Fust, who heads the non-profit foundation created in 2007, told Le Temps Thursday that he was not aware any such decision had been made.
Update 2 13:10 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A New York appeals court in the US has rejected an appeal by Cynthia Brzak and Nazr Ishak, who filed a sexual harassment suit against the former UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers and seven other high UN officials. Their lawyer in Geneva, Edward Flaherty, told Geneva Lunch they will appeal the decision, taking it to the US Supreme Court.
“My clients are disappointed with the Court’s judgment, but it was not unexpected,” Flaherty said in a written statement. “As the retaliation against both of them by officials within both UNHCR and the UN, which retaliation gave rise in part to the original suit, continues unabated through the present date, they have no choice but to seek vindication of their constitutional and other rights before the US Supreme Court. Their aim is to end the impunity exercised by UN officials everywhere who are placed beyond the reach of national laws by the UN’s outdated immunity, both in their own case, and on behalf of the many UN staff who have suffered and continue to suffer illegal and/or criminal acts in the workplace, as they have.”
Lubbers was named High Commissioner in 2001 but retired in 2005 under the shadow of the scandal. The appeals court ruled that Lubbers and the others, as United Nations diplomats, have immunity, in line with a US district court decision in 2007 that UN diplomats are immune under the 1946 Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations.
The case was heard in the US because Brzak is a US citizen and the incident that provoked the case, accusations that Lubbers improperly touched her during a 2003 meeting, took place in New York. The UNHCR is based in Geneva, where both Brzak and Ishak still work.
© 2010 APP
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Set up to monitor states’ pledges to help Africa, the Africa Progress Panel’s future is “under review”, according to a spokesperson quoted in the UK’s Telegraph. The Panel was called into existence in 2007 by then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, “as a vehicle to maintain a focus on the commitments to Africa made by the international community in the wake of the Gleneagles G8 Summit and of the Commission for Africa Report in 2007.”
Despite very high-profile members including former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, former IMF Director General Michel Camdessus, rocker Bob Geldoff and former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, critics claim that the panel has punched below its weight, and Blair has not even bothered to attend its last four meetings.
Members will hold a meeting 3 February to decide its future role. Its mandate expires in 2010.
Links to other sites: Africa Progress Panel, Daily Telegraph
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Eight countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus and five in Southeast Asia are implementing early warning systems to protect against weather-related events, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Today 14 October is International Day for Disaster Reduction, and the agency is highlighting how early warning and disaster risk reduction can save many lives when extreme weather strikes. Similar projects were introduced in seven southeast European countries in 2007.
These national and regional cooperation projects are part of a concerted programme that relies on technical expertise and funding provided by the WMO, the World Bank, UNDP and the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).
“Natural hazards are a part of life. But natural hazards only become disasters when people’s lives and livlihoods are swept away…” (Kofi Annan, World Disaster Reduction Day, 2003)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, who now heads the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum, has sent a sealed envelope with a list of names of people suspected of having fanned ethnic violence following the 2007 presidential election in Kenya, to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
Annan played a key role in mediating a settlement between opposing political forces.
Global Humanitarian Forum, Kofi Annan, 23 June 2009, Geneva
Update 2 13:01 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – “This conference must provide a powerful voice for the victims of climate change,” Kofi Annan said in opening remarks at the second annual Global Humanitarian Forum, Tuesday morning 23 June in Geneva. The forum is focusing on the impact on humans of climate change during the two day conference that brings together leaders from government, industry and academia.
“We have the knowledge, resources and the technology to reduce the pace of climate change,” said Annan. “What is needed is the vision, the courage” to act. He cited as an example of a good private and public partnership a weather information project recently launched in Africa by the Global Humanitarian Forum, Ericsson, World Meterological Organization and mobile phone operators. “Collecting accurate information about weather and climate across Africa will give farmers better guidance about when to plant and harvest crops as well as helping alert communities about severe storms.”
Kofi Annan
Bern, Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – The Global Humanitarian Forum set up in 2007 by Kofi Annan, former UN director-general, is being audited by the Swiss government, reports TSR. Switzerland has contributed CHF500,000 in 2009 and is scheduled to pay another half million this year once the audit is completed. The decision to carry out a financial review was taken by Bern in September 2008. The forum’s “strategic focus” is the human impact of climate change, with its “centrepiece” a 23-24 June conference in Geneva, scheduled to host 400 world political and business leaders.
London, England and Geneva, Switzerland (Le Temps, Fre) – Kofi Annan’s new Africa project, to be called Africa Progress Panel, has been created and is living in temporary quarters in London. The undefined project that made world headlines shortly before Annan left office as head of the United Nations is beginning to take shape, says Le Temps, with ads run in The Economist last week for management positions. The new group is based in London but will move to Geneva at an unspecified date. On its new web site the organization describes its objectives: "to focus world leaders’
attention on delivering on their commitments, particularly the good
governance and economic support which is imperative for achieving the
Millennium Development Goals. Panel members will draw on the expertise
of institutions working on African issues to present a rigorous and
independent assessment of progress."
The panel members are: Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the UN and Nobel Laureate; Michel Camdessus, former managing director of the International Monetary Fund; Peter Eigen, founder and chair of the Advisory Council, Transparency International; Bob Geldof, musician and founder/chair of Band Aid, member of the Commission for Africa; Graça Machel, women and children’s rights activist, president of the Foundation for Community Development; Robert E Rubin, chairman of the Executive Committee, Citigroup, former US secretary of the Treasury; Mohammad Yunus, economist, founder of Grameen Bank and Nobel Laureate.
