UN Insider

Photo: Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed addresses the General Assembly informal meeting on the status of the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on 8 September 2017. United Nations, New York. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

UN Concerned About the Implementation of Development Goals

By Amina Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary-General

The United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at a historic summit on September 25, 2015. While 114 Governments have requested support from country teams on implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the world body's "assessment clearly shows that the pace of progress is insufficient to fully meet that ambition." Following are extensive excerpts from her remarks, as prepared for delivery, at the Sustainable Development Goals Dialogue in New York on September 8, 2017. – The Editor

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – Two years have passed since the world came together to adopt a truly remarkable framework for common progress — the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Agenda is transformative and inspiring in its own right. That it was agreed at a time of severe political divisions on so many other issues was especially encouraging.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; UN INSIDER; 10 September 2017

Photo: Lack of piped water across Africa has impelled villagers to turn to unprotected water bodies to access the precious liquid. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IDN-INPS

Safe Piped Water Remains a Luxury Across Africa

By Jeffrey Moyo

MWENEZI; Zimbabwe (IDN) - Raviro Chawuruka scoops out sand from a well on a stream bank closer to her rural home in Rutenga, 443 km west of Harare, in Mwenezi district in Zimbabwe’s Masvingo Province.

At the age of 72, Chawuruka says she has known no rest while scavenging for water, this as she daily battles it out with the sand-filled water well in the vicinity of her home. She stands out among millions of Africans to whom piped water still remains a luxury, decades after several African nations gained independence from their former colonisers: Zimbabwe over 37 years ago.

According to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, 65 percent of Zimbabwe’s 14 million people such as Chawuruka are domiciled in rural areas, where they have become the number one victims of lack of piped water.

: Jeffrey Moyo; THE WORLD; Africa; 09 September 2017

Photo: UN Secretary-General meets South Sudanese refugees during a visit to Imvepi settlement in northern Uganda in June 2017. UN Photo/Mark Gart

UN Chief Pleads for "a Surge in Diplomacy for Peace"

By J Nastranis

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has stressed the pressing need for increased diplomacy on vexatious global issues, broad adherence to the aims of the landmark Paris climate accord, wider engagement with the world’s youth and dedicated efforts to ensure gender parity across the UN system.

In an interview with UN News in the run-up to the 72nd Regular Session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 72), which will convene at UN Headquarters in New York on September 12, Guterres said the UN “must be an instrument for a surge in diplomacy for peace.” Guterres, the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002, and the former UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), took up his post on 1 January 1, 2017.

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 09 September 2017

China Hosts A Milestone UN Conference on Land Degradation

By Rita Joshi

BONN | ORDOS CITY (IDN) – A new strategy aimed at achieving Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) by 2030 will be a major outcome of the 13th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 13) to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which opened in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China, on September 6.

This is the first Conference hosted by China out of the three 1992 Earth Summit's Rio Conventions – on biological diversity and Climate Change, according to UNCCD Executive Secretary Monique Barbut. The target to be achieved between 2018 and 2030 has indicators to measure change. It provides "an organizing principle that we can all rally behind and achieve a specific change."

: Rita Joshi; UN INSIDER; 08 September 2017

Photo: Addis Ababa Financing for Development Conference 2015. Credit: climateobserver.org

Argentina to Host the Second UN Conference on South-South Cooperation in 2019

By Adriano José Timossi

The United Nations General Assembly adopted on 28 August 2017 a draft resolution calling for the organization of the Second High-level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation to be held in Argentina in 2019. The Conference will mark the 40th anniversary of the first UN Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries also held in Buenos Aires almost forty years ago, a milestone event in the history of the UN and multilateralism.

GENEVA (IDN | SOUTHNEWS) - The United Nations General Assembly adopted by consensus on August 28, 2017 the draft resolution titled Second High-level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation to be held in Buenos Aires from March 20 to 22, 2019.

: South Centre; UN INSIDER; 06 September 2017

Two UN Agencies Hold First Ever Asia-Pacific Ministerial Summit on the Environment

By Shamshad Akhtar and Erik Solheim*

“Resource Efficient and Pollution Free Asia-Pacific” is the focus of the UN ESCAP- UNEP's First Asia-Pacific Ministerial Summit on the Environment from September 5-8 September 2017 in Bangkok, which is purported to motivate policy makers to embark on sustainable development pathways that will achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and contributions under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

BANGKOK (IDN) - The high-level meeting is a unique opportunity for the region’s environment leaders to discuss how they can work together towards a resource efficient and pollution-free Asia-Pacific.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 05 September 2017

Photo: Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman (right) briefs the Security Council on 4 September 2017 on the latest nuclear test conducted by the DPRK. UN Photo/Evan Schneider

Security Council Debates Options To De-escalate Tensions on the Korean Peninsula

By J Nastranis

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – When Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at the Kremlin on July 4, 2017 they stressed the need for establishing a peace mechanism that would require North Korea to suspend its nuclear programme and the United States to halt military exercises and use of the anti-missile defence system in South Korea.

The Russian-Chinese Kremlin meeting came after North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), said it had successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of hitting Alaska, the largest and most sparsely populated U.S. state in the northwest of Canada.

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 04 September 2017

Photo: The ministers of foreign affairs of the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, France, China, the European Union and Iran (Lausanne, 30 March 2015). Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Scrapping the Iran Nuclear Deal Will Create Yet Another Nonproliferation Crisis

By Daryl G. Kimball*

The author is the Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. This article first appeared on August 29, 2017 in the Arms Control Today as a Focus Editorial with the caption Don’t Abandon the Iran Nuclear Deal, and is being republished by arrangement with that monthly journal on nonproliferation and global security. – The Editor

WASHINGTON (IDN-INPS) - Although his administration is already struggling with one major nonproliferation challenge – North Korea’s advancing nuclear and missile capabilities – President Donald Trump soon may initiate steps that could unravel the highly successful 2015 Iran nuclear deal, thereby creating a second major nonproliferation crisis.

: Daryl G. Kimball; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 03 September 2017

Photo: Solar energy has become the way to go amid deepening electricity deficits across Southern Africa. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IDN-INPS.

Southern Africa Turns to the Sun as Energy Woes Bite

By Jeffrey Moyo

HARARE (IDN) - He struggles with a huge solar panel as he crawls on the rooftop of his house. Just below him, on the ground, stands his wife gazing upwards, with one hand partially covering her face from direct sun heat.

Nevson Devera, for that is his name, at the age of 44 and domiciled in Harare the Zimbabwean capital, has not had electricity from the country’s main power utility, the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority, connected to his house, 15 years after he built it. Tired of using fossil fuels for energy, he and his wife Sarudzai have turned to the sun for electricity.

: Jeffrey Moyo; THE WORLD; Africa; 02 September 2017

Photo: The FEALAC 8th Foreign Ministers' Meeting & 16th Senior Officials' Meeting took place on August 29-September 1, 2017 in Busan, Korea, under the theme "One Vision, New Action." Credit. FEALAC

Little Known FEALAC Promotes Asia-Latin American Cooperation

By Tae Han Goo

SEOUL (IDN) – South Korea's large port city Busan hosted end of August the meeting of Foreign Ministers and Senior Officials of the little known Forum for East Asia-Latin America Cooperation (FEALAC) constituting 36 countries of East Asia, Southeast Asia and Latin America.

Though comprised mainly of developing countries, the two regions did not have an official cooperative mechanism bridging the two continents together until in September 1998, the then Prime Minister of Singapore Gho Chok Tong tabled a concrete proposal to enhance the relations. Subsequently, the EALAF (East Asia-Latin America Forum) Senior Officials' Meeting was held in Singapore in September 1999, marking the beginning of FEALAC.