UN
90% of countries see decline in human development
Multiple crises are halting progress on human development, which is going backwards in the overwhelming majority of countries, according to the UN.
The 2021-22 human development report "Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives: Shaping our Future in a Transforming World," released Thursday, paints a picture of a global society lurching from crisis to crisis, and which risks heading towards increasing deprivation and injustice.
For the first time in the 32 years that the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has been calculating it, the Human Development Index, which measures a nation's health, education, and standard of living, has declined globally for two years in a row.
Human development has fallen back to its 2016 levels, reversing much of the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
The UN report finds that nine out of 10 countries have fallen behind on life expectancy, education and living standards.
Heading the list of events causing major global disruptions are Covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which have come on top of sweeping social and economic shifts, dangerous planetary changes, and massive increases in polarization.
This signals a deepening crisis for many regions, and Latin America, the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia have been hit particularly hard as 30 years of continuous human progress is unravelling.
Read: Bangladesh moves 3 notches up in Human Development Index
"The world is scrambling to respond to back-to-back crises," said Achim Steiner, UNDP administrator. "We have seen with the cost of living and energy crises that, while it is tempting to focus on quick fixes like subsidising fossil fuels, immediate relief tactics are delaying the long-term systemic changes we must make."
The UN study's authors identified three layers of today's "uncertainty complex" – dangerous planetary change, the transition to new ways of organising industrial societies, and the intensification of political and social polarization.
Also read: Rebuilding Ukraine may cost $349bn
"It is not just that typhoons are getting bigger and deadlier through human impact on the environment," the report said. "It is also as if, through our social choices, their destructive paths are being directed at the most vulnerable among us."
UN for adoption, implementation of national strategy for cutting poverty among Bangladesh's differently-abled
The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) Friday called on Bangladesh to adopt and implement a national strategy to cut poverty among differently-abled people.
The committee noted the extreme poverty in the differently-abled community and the absence of social protection measures.
It recommended developing a robust social protection scheme that guarantees an adequate living standard, including support for disability-related expenses.
Also, the committee was "concerned" that differently-abled people, especially women and members of religious and indigenous groups, are deprived of their legal capacity to enter into contracts or inherit property in the country.
It requested that Bangladesh amend its legislation to introduce decision-making measures that duly respect the autonomy, will and preferences of differently-abled people.
Read: Crisis in Myanmar taking an enormous toll on children: UN committee warns
The committee issued its country reviews on Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, New Zealand and Singapore, as well as a special report on the situation of differently-abled people in Ukraine.
The findings contain the committee's main concerns and recommendations on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as well as positive aspects.
Austria's Volker Türk new UN human rights chief
A week after Michelle Bachelet stepped down as the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, the intergovernmental organisation has approved Austrian diplomat Volker Türk to take on the challenging job.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres forwarded the name of Türk, 57, Wednesday to the General Assembly, which approved the appointment without a vote Thursday.
Guterres said in a statement that Türk had "devoted his long and distinguished career to advancing universal human rights, notably the protection of some of the world's most vulnerable people – refugees and stateless persons."
He also cited Türk's work for the UN refugee agency in countries like Kosovo, Bosnia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Read: UN human rights chief to visit Dhaka, Cox's Bazar Aug 14-17
Most recently working in Guterres' office as under-secretary-general for policy, Turk now faces unrelenting opposing pressures from governments and activists while reacting to the realities of the human rights situation.
From 2019 to 2021, Türk served as assistant secretary-general for strategic coordination in the UN chief's Executive Office.
Before that, he was the assistant high commissioner for protection at UN refugees, UNHCR, in Geneva – from 2015 to 2019 – where he played a key role in the development of the landmark Global Compact on Refugees.
Throughout his career, Türk held several key positions, including at UNHCR headquarters where he served from 2009 to 2015 as director of the Division of International Protection; from 2008 to 2009 as director of Organizational Development and Management; and from 2000 to 2004 as chief of Section, Protection Policy and Legal Advice.
UN says part of Somalia will reach famine later this year
The United Nations says “famine is at the door” in Somalia with “concrete indications” famine will occur later this year in the southern Bay region. This falls just short of a formal famine declaration in Somalia as thousands are dying in a historic drought made worse by the effects of the war in Ukraine.
U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told reporters that he was “shocked to my core these past few days” on a visit to Somalia in which he witnessed starving babies too weak to cry.
A formal famine declaration is rare and a warning that too little help has come too late. At least 1 million people in Somalia have been displaced by the worst drought in decades, driven by climate change, that also affects the wider Horn of Africa including Ethiopia and Kenya.
Famine is the extreme lack of food and a significant death rate from outright starvation or malnutrition combined with diseases like cholera. A declaration means data shows more than a fifth of households have extreme food gaps, more than 30% of children are acutely malnourished and over two people out of 10,000 are dying every day.
Also read: UN warns 6 million Afghans at risk of famine as crises grow
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been described as a disaster for Somalia, which has suffered from a shortage of humanitarian aid as international donors focus on Europe. Somalia also sourced at least 90% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine before the war and has been hit hard by scarcity and the sharp rise in food prices.
“Ukraine has occupied the narrative,” Griffiths said.
Hungry families in Somalia have been staggering for days or weeks on foot through parched terrain in search of assistance. Many bury family members along the way. Even when they reach camps outside urban areas, they find little or no help.
At one camp outside the capital, Mogadishu, Fadumo Abdi Aliyow showed The Associated Press the graves of her two small sons next to their makeshift home. Disease had overwhelmed their weakened bodies. One was 4. The other was eight months old.
Also read: Ukraine's ports must be reopened to avert looming famine threat: UN
“I wanted to die before them so they could bury me,” Aliyow said. Another resident of the camp of 1,800 families, Samey Adan Mohamed, said the last meal she and her eight children had was rice a day ago. Today they had only tea.
Camps like theirs are ringed by death, bringing aid workers to tears. “I couldn’t get out of my head the tiny mounds of ground marking children’s graves,” UNICEF’s deputy regional director Rania Dagash said last week. “I’m from this region and I’ve never seen it so bad.”
A formal famine declaration would bring desperately needed funding. But “tragically, by the time a famine is declared, it’s already too late,” the U.N. World Food Program has said.
When famine was declared in parts of Somalia in 2011, the deaths of a quarter-million people were well underway.
“This is not a repeat of the 2011 famine. It is much worse,” the U.N. humanitarian agency said last week. So far, at least 730 children have died in nutrition centers across Somalia, it said, and more than 213,000 people are at “imminent risk” of dying.
“You feel like you’re looking at the face of death,” Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna told the AP after visiting the badly hit city of Baidoa. There is not enough therapeutic food to treat the acutely malnourished, said McKenna, who saw many young children and pregnant women. “For every one person I saw, imagine all the people who couldn’t get that far. And so many people were arriving each day.”
At the same time, aid funding has dropped more than 60% from the response to Somalia’s previous drought in 2017, USAID administrator Samantha Power said last week, noting a “degree of despair and devastation” not seen before in her career.
The Horn of Africa region has seen four straight failed rainy seasons for the first time in well over four decades. The upcoming rainy season is also expected to fail. That endangers an estimated 20 million people in one of the world’s most impoverished and turbulent regions.
“Sadly, our models show with a high degree of confidence that we are entering the fifth consecutive failed rainy season,” the director of the regional climate prediction center, Guleid Artan, has said. “In Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, we are on the brink of an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.”
The rainfall in this year’s failed March-to-May season was the lowest in the last six decades, Artan told the AP. Next year’s March-to-May season doesn’t look good either, he said, worrying that “this could be the seven-year drought, the biblical one.”
Formal famine declarations are rare because data to meet the benchmarks often cannot be obtained because of conflict, poor infrastructure or politics. Governments can be wary of being associated with a term of such grim magnitude. Somalia's recently elected president, however, appointed a drought envoy in one of his first acts in office, which Griffiths called “impressive.”
Because of the remote nature of Somalia’s drought, and with some hard-hit areas under the control of the al-Shabab extremist group which has been hostile to humanitarian efforts, no one knows how many people have died — or will in the months to come.
Hundreds of calls from across Somalia, including from al-Shabab-controlled areas, come in daily to the Somali-run Radio Ergo. Some say no aid is available in camps. Others say water sources have run dry or lament the loss of millions of livestock that are the foundation of their health and wealth.
“People don’t cry because they want their voice to be heard,” radio editor Leyla Mohamed told the AP. “But you can feel they are hurting, that they feel more than we can hear.”
To China’s fury, UN accuses Beijing of Uyghur rights abuses
The U.N. accused China of serious human rights violations that may amount to “crimes against humanity” in a long-delayed report examining a crackdown on Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups. Beijing on Thursday denounced the assessment as a fabrication cooked up by Western nations.
Human rights groups have accused China of sweeping a million or more people from the minority groups into detention camps where many have said they were tortured, sexually assaulted, and forced to abandon their language and religion. The camps were just one part of what the rights organizations have called a ruthless campaign against extremism in the far western province of Xinjiang that also included draconian birth control policies and all-encompassing restrictions on people's movement.
The assessment from the Geneva-based U.N. human rights office was released in the final minutes of High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet's four-year term. It largely corroborated earlier reporting by researchers, advocacy groups and the news media, and it added the weight of the world body to the conclusions. But it was not clear what impact it would have.
Still, among Uyghurs who have fled overseas, there was a palpable sense of relief that the report had finally seen the light of day since many worried that it would never be published. Several saw it as a vindication of their cause and of years of advocacy work.
“The report is pretty damning, and a strong indictment on China’s crimes against humanity,” said Rayhan Asat, a Uyghur lawyer whose brother is imprisoned in Xinjiang. “It’s a really long-awaited recognition of the Uyghurs and their unimaginable suffering, coming from the world’s most authoritative voice on human rights."
Human rights groups, the U.S., Japan and European governments also welcomed the report. It had become caught up in a tug-of-war between China and major Western nations as well as human rights groups that have criticized the repeated delays in releasing the document. Many Geneva diplomats believe it was nearly complete a year ago.
The assessment released late Wednesday concluded that China has committed serious human rights violations under its anti-terrorism and anti-extremism policies and calls for “urgent attention” from the U.N., the world community and China itself to address them.
Human rights groups renewed calls for the U.N. Human Rights Council, which meets next month, to set up an independent international body to investigate the allegations. But China showed no sign of backing off its blanket denials or portraying the criticism as a politicized smear campaign.
“The assessment is a patchwork of false information that serves as political tools for the U.S. and other Western countries to strategically use Xinjiang to contain China," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said. "It again shows that the U.N. Human Rights Office has been reduced to an enforcer and accomplice of the U.S. and other Western countries.”
In a sign of China’s fury, it issued a 122-page rebuttal, entitled "Fight against Terrorism and Extremism in Xinjiang: Truth and Facts," that was posted by the U.N. along with the report.
The U.N. findings were drawn in part from interviews with more than two dozen former detainees and others familiar with conditions at eight detention centers. They described being beaten with batons, interrogated while water was poured on their faces and forced to sit motionless on smalls stools for long periods.
Some said they were prevented from praying — and were made to take shifts through the night to ensure their fellow detainees were not praying or breaking other rules. Women told of being forced to perform oral sex on guards or undergo gynecological exams in front of large groups of people.
The report said that descriptions of the detentions were marked by patterns of torture and other cruel and inhumane treatment and that allegations of rape and other sexual violence appeared “credible."
Read: China rejects UN report on Uyghur rights abuses in Xinjiang
“The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups ... in (the) context of restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights ... may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity,” the report said.
It made no mention of genocide, which some countries, including the United States, have accused China of committing in Xinjiang.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken welcomed the report, saying in a statement that it “deepens and reaffirms our grave concern.” He added: “We will continue to work closely with our partners, civil society, and the international community to seek justice and accountability for the many victims.”
The rights office said it could not confirm estimates that a million or more people were detained in the internment camps in Xinjiang, but added it was “reasonable to conclude that a pattern of large-scale arbitrary detention occurred” at least between 2017 and 2019.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres believes the assessment “clearly identifies serious human rights violations in the Xinjiang region,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Thursday. He said the U.N. chief “very much hopes” China will follow recommendations in the assessment.
Beijing has closed many of the camps, which it called vocational training and education centers, but hundreds of thousands of people continue to languish in prison, many on vague, secret charges.
The report called on China to release all individuals arbitrarily detained and to clarify the whereabouts of those who have disappeared and whose families are seeking information about them.
“Japan is highly concerned about human rights conditions in Xinjiang, and we believe that it is important that universal values such as freedom, basic human rights and rule of law are also guaranteed in China,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said.
Germany and Britain also welcomed its publication.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who is also the frontrunner in the contest to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister, noted that the report “includes harrowing evidence, including first-hand accounts from victims, that shames China in the eyes of the international community.”
Human Rights Watch said the report laid a solid foundation for further U.N. action to establish accountability for the abuses.
“Never has it been so important for the U.N. system to stand up to Beijing, and to stand with victims,” said John Fisher, the deputy director of global advocacy for the group.
Rahima Mahmut, U.K. director of the World Uyghur Congress, said she was relieved the report is finally out -- but had no hope it would change the Chinese government’s behavior and called on the international community to send a signal to Beijing that “business cannot be as usual.”
That the report was released was in some ways as important as its contents.
Outgoing rights chief Bachelet said she had to resist pressure both to publish and not publish. She had announced in June that the report would be released by end of her four-year term on Aug. 31, triggering a swell in back-channel campaigns — including letters from civil society, civilians and governments on both sides of the issue.
Why she waited until the last minute to release the report remains unclear.
Critics had said a failure to publish the report would have been a glaring black mark on her tenure.
“The inexcusable delay in releasing this report casts a stain" on the record of the U.N. human rights office, said Agnès Callamard, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, “but this should not deflect from its significance.”
UN cites possible crimes vs. humanity in China’s Xinjiang
China’s discriminatory detention of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in the western region of Xinjiang may constitute crimes against humanity, the U.N. human rights office said in a long-awaited report Wednesday, which cited “serious” rights violations and patterns of torture in recent years.
The report seeks “urgent attention” from the U.N. and the world community to rights violations in Beijing’s campaign to root out terrorism.
U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, facing pressure on both sides, brushed aside multiple Chinese calls for her office to withhold the report, which follows her own, much-criticized trip to Xinjiang in May. Beijing contends the report is part of a Western campaign to smear China’s reputation.
The report has fanned a tug-of-war for diplomatic influence with the West over the rights of the region’s native Uyghurs and other ethnic groups.
The report, which Western diplomats and U.N. officials said had been all but ready for months, was published with just minutes to go in Bachelet’s four-year term. It was unexpected to break significant new ground beyond sweeping findings from researchers, advocacy groups and journalists who have documented concerns about human rights in Xinjiang for several years.
But the 48-page report comes with the imprimatur of the United Nations and its member countries — notably including rising superpower China itself. The report largely corroborates earlier reporting by advocacy groups and others and injects U.N heft behind the outrage that victims and their families have expressed about China’s policies in Xinjiang.
Also read: Taiwan: China, Russia disrupting, threatening world order
“Beijing’s repeated denial of the human rights crisis in Xinjiang rings ever-more hollow with this further recognition of the evidence of ongoing crimes against humanity and other human rights violation in the region,” Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary-general, said in a statement.
The run-up to the report’s release fueled a debate over China’s influence at the world body and epitomized the on-and-off diplomatic chill between Beijing and the West over human rights, among other sore spots.
China shot back, saying the U.N. rights office ignored human rights “achievements” made together by “people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang.”
“Based on the disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces and out of presumption of guilt, the so-called ‘assessment’ distorts China’s laws, wantonly smears and slanders China, and interferes in China’s internal affairs,” read a letter from China’s diplomatic mission in Geneva issued in response to the U.N. report.
China released a 122-page report titled “Fight Against Terrorism and Extremism in Xinjiang: Truth and Facts” that defended its record and was distributed by the U.N. with its assessment.
The U.N. report says “serious human rights violations” have been committed in Xinjiang under China’s policies to fight terrorism and extremism, which singled out Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim communities, between 2017 and 2019.
The report cites “patterns of torture” inside what Beijing called vocational training centers, which were part of its reputed plan to boost economic development in region, and it points to “credible” allegations of torture or ill-treatment, including cases of sexual violence.
Above all, perhaps, the report warns that the “arbitrary and discriminatory detention” of such groups in Xinjiang, through moves that stripped them of “fundamental rights … may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”
The report called on China to release all individuals arbitrarily detained and to clarify the whereabouts of individuals who have disappeared and whose families are seeking information about them.
The report was drawn in part from interviews with former detainees and others familiar with conditions at eight detention centers. Its authors suggest China was not always forthcoming with information, saying requests for some specific sets of information “did not receive formal response.”
The rights office said it could not confirm estimates of how many people were detained in the internment camps in Xinjiang, but added it was “reasonable to conclude that a pattern of large-scale arbitrary detention occurred” at least between 2017 and 2019.
According to investigations by researchers and journalists, the Chinese government’s mass detention campaign in Xinjiang swept an estimated million or more Uyghurs and other ethnic groups into a network of prisons and camps over the past five years.
Beijing has closed many of the camps, but hundreds of thousands continue to languish in prison on vague, secret charges.
The report said that reports of sharp increases in arrests and lengthy prison sentences in the region strongly suggested a shift toward formal incarceration as the principal means for large-scale imprisonment and deprivation of liberty — instead of the use of the “vocational training centers” once touted by Beijing.
“This is of particular concern given the vague and capacious definitions of terrorism, ‘extremism’ and public security related offenses under domestic criminal law,” the report said, saying it could lead to lengthy sentences, “including for minor offenses or for engaging in conduct protected by international human rights law.”
Some countries, including the United States, have accused Beijing of committing genocide in Xinjiang. The U.N. report made no mention of genocide.
Bachelet said in recent months that she received pressure from both sides to publish — or not publish — the report and resisted it all, treading a fine line while noting her experience with political squeeze during her two terms as president of Chile.
In June, Bachelet said she would not seek a new term as rights chief and promised the report would be released by her departure date on Aug. 31. That led to a swell in back-channel campaigns — including letters from civil society, civilians and governments on both sides of the issue. She hinted last week her office might miss her deadline, saying it was “trying” to release it before her exit.
Bachelet had set her sights on Xinjiang on taking office in September 2018, but Western diplomats voiced concern in private that over her term, she did not challenge China enough when other rights monitors had cited abuses against Uyghurs and others in Xinjiang.
In a statement from her office early Thursday, Bachelet said she had wanted to take “the greatest care” to deal with responses and input received from the Chinese government last week. Such reports are typically shared with the concerned country before final publication, but generally to check facts — not to allow vetting or influence of the final report.
“I said that I would publish it before my mandate ended and I have,” she said after the report was published.
Critics had said a failure to publish the report would have been a glaring black mark on her tenure, and the pressure from some countries made her job harder.
“To be perfectly honest, the politicization of these serious human rights issues by some states did not help,” said Bachelet, who early on staked out a desire to cooperate with governments.
“I appeal to the international community not to instrumentalize real, serious human rights issues for political ends, but rather to work to support efforts to strengthen the protection and promotion of human rights,” she added.
Her trip to the region in May was widely criticized by human rights groups, the U.S. administration and other governments as a public relations exercise for China.
Hours before the publication, the spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Stephane Dujarric, said the U.N. chief had “no involvement” in how the report was drafted or handled, citing his commitment to Bachelet’s independence.
Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch, said Bachelet’s “damning findings explain why the Chinese government fought tooth and nail to prevent the publication of her Xinjiang report, which lays bare China’s sweeping rights abuses.”
Richardson urged the 47-member Human Rights Council, whose next session is in September, to investigate the allegations and hold those responsible to account.
UN seeks $160 million in emergency aid for Pakistan floods
The United Nations and Pakistan issued an appeal Tuesday for $160 million in emergency funding to help millions affected by record-breaking floods that have killed more than 1,160 people since mid-June.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Pakistan’s flooding, caused by weeks of unprecedented monsoon rains, were a signal to the world to step up action against climate change.
“Let’s stop sleepwalking toward the destruction of our planet by climate change,” he said in a video message to an Islamabad ceremony launching the funding appeal. “Today, it’s Pakistan. Tomorrow, it could be your country.”
Guterres will visit Pakistan on Sept. 9 to tour areas “most impacted by this unprecedented climate catastrophe,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric announced Tuesday. The U.N. chief meet displaced families and witness how U.N. staff are their humanitarian partners are supporting government efforts to provide assistance, Dujarric said
More than 33 million people, or one in seven Pakistanis, have been affected by the catastrophic flooding, which has devastated a country already trying to revive a struggling economy. More than 1 million homes have been damaged or destroyed in the past two and half months, displacing millions of people. Around a half million of those displaced are living in organized camps, while others have had to find their own shelter.
Read: Over 33 mln people, 72 districts of Pakistan affected by floods
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif said the floods badly destroyed crops, and his government was considering importing wheat to avoid any shortage of food.
Sharif said Pakistan was witnessing the worst flooding in its history and any inadvertent delay by the international community in helping victims “will be devastating for the people of Pakistan.”
He promised funds from the international community would be spent in a transparent manner and that he would ensure all aid reaches those in need. “This is my commitment,” he told reporters, saying his country is “facing the toughest moment of its history.”
Pakistan says it has received aid from some countries, and others were dispatching aid too.
On Tuesday, the U.S. government said it would provide $30 million in assistance to help victims of the flood. According to a statement released by the U.S. Agency for International Development, this aid will be given to Pakistan through USAID. It said the United States is deeply saddened by the devastating loss of life and livelihoods throughout Pakistan.
Youtube video thumbnailAccording to initial government estimates, the devastation caused $10 billion in damage to the economy.
“It is a preliminary estimate likely to be far greater,” Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal told The Associated Press. More than 243 bridges and more than 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) of road have been damaged.
Although rains stopped three days ago, large swaths of the country remain underwater, and the main rivers, the Indus and the Swat, are still swollen. The National Disaster Management Authority on Tuesday warned emergency services to be on maximum alert, saying flood waters over the next 24 hours could cause further damage.
Rescuers continued to evacuate stranded people from inundated villages to safer ground. Makeshift tent camps have sprung up along highways.
Meteorologists have warned of more rains in coming weeks.
“The situation is likely to deteriorate even further as heavy rains continue over areas already inundated by more than two months of storms and flooding. For us, this is no less than a national emergency,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said Tuesday, urging the international community to give generously to the U.N. appeal.
“Since mid-June, in fact, Pakistan has been battling one of the most severe, totally anomalous cycles of torrential monsoon weather,” he said. Rainfall during that time was three times the average, and up to six times higher in some areas, he said.
Read: Pakistan flooding deaths pass 1,000 in 'climate catastrophe'
The U.N. flash appeal for $160 million will provide food, water, sanitation, health and other forms of aid to some 5.2 million people, Gutteres said.
“The scale of needs is rising like the flood waters. It requires the world’s collective and prioritized attention,” he said.
Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Asim Iftikhar told U.N. correspondents at a virtual press conference that Turkey, China, United Arab Emirates and Qatar all offered relief supplies, some of which has already arrived. More important will be the next reconstruction and rehabilitation phase where requirements are going to be “huge,” he said.
A day earlier, the International Monetary Fund’s executive board approved the release of a much awaited $1.17 billion for Pakistan.
The funds are part of a $6 billion bailout agreed on in 2019. The latest tranche had been on hold since earlier this year, when the IMF expressed concern about Pakistan’s compliance with the deal’s terms under the government of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Khan was ousted through a no-confidence vote in the parliament in April.
Pakistan has risked default as its reserves dwindle and inflation has spiraled, and to get the IMF bailout, the government has had to agree to austerity measures.
The flooding catastrophe, however, adds new burdens to the cash-strapped government. It also reflects how poorer countries often pay the price for climate change largely caused by more industrialized nations. Since 1959, Pakistan is responsible for only 0.4% of the world’s historic emissions blamed for climate change. The U.S. is responsible for 21.5%, China for 16.5% and the EU 15%.
Several scientists say the record-breaking flooding has all the hallmarks of being affected by climate change.
“This year, Pakistan has received the highest rainfall in at least three decades,” said Abid Qaiyum Suleri, executive director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute and a member of Pakistan’s Climate Change Council. “Extreme weather patterns are turning more frequent in the region and Pakistan is not an exception.”
UN warns 6 million Afghans at risk of famine as crises grow
Warning that Afghanistan faces deepening poverty with 6 million people at risk of famine, the U.N. humanitarian chief on Monday urged donors to restore funding for economic development and immediately provide $770 million to help Afghans get through the winter as the United States argued with Russia and China over who should pay.
Martin Griffiths told the U.N. Security Council that Afghanistan faces multiple crises -- humanitarian, economic, climate, hunger and financial.
Conflict, poverty, climate shocks and food insecurity “have long been a sad reality” in Afghanistan, but he said what makes the current situation “so critical” is the halt to large-scale development aid since the Taliban takeover a year ago.
More than half the Afghan population -- some 24 million people -- need assistance and close to 19 million are facing acute levels of food insecurity, Griffiths said. And “we worry” that the figures will soon become worse because winter weather will send already high fuel and food prices skyrocketing.
Also read: UNHCR raises concerns over Afghan refugees forced returns from Tajikistan
Despite the challenges, he said U.N. agencies and their NGO partners have mounted “an unprecedented response" over the past year, reaching almost 23 million people.
But he said $614 million is urgently required to prepare for winter including repairing and upgrading shelters and providing warm clothes and blankets -- and an additional $154 million is needed to preposition food and other supplies before the weather cuts access to certain areas.
Griffiths stressed, however, that “humanitarian aid will never be able to replace the provision of system-wide services to 40 million people across the country.”
The Taliban “have no budget to invest in their own future,” he said, and “it’s clear that some development support needs to be started.”
With more than 70 percent of Afghan’s living in rural areas, Griffiths warned that if agriculture and livestock production aren’t protected “millions of lives and livelihoods will be risked, and the country’s capacity to produce food imperiled.”
Also read: One year on, Afghans at risk await evacuation, relocation
He said the country’s banking and liquidity crisis, and the extreme difficulty of international financial transactions must also be tackled.
“The consequences of inaction on both the humanitarian and development fronts will be catastrophic and difficult to reverse,” Griffiths warned.
Russia called the U.N. Security Council meeting on the eve of the first anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and its ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, sharply criticized the “ignominious 20-year campaign” by the United States and its NATO allies.
He claimed they did nothing to build up the Afghan economy and their presence only strengthened the country’s status “as a hotbed of terrorism” and narcotics production and distribution.
Nebenzia also accused the U.S. and its allies of abandoning Afghans to face “ruin, poverty, terrorism, hunger and other challenges.”
“Instead of acknowledging their own mistakes and supporting the reconstruction of the destroyed country,” he said, they blocked Afghan financial resources and disconnected its central bank from SWIFT, the dominant system for global financial transactions.
China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun also accused the U.S. and its allies of “evading responsibility and abandoning the Afghan people” by cutting off development aid, freezing Afghan assets and imposing “political isolation and blockade.”
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield accused the Taliban of imposing policies that “repress and starve the Afghan people instead of protecting them” and of increasing taxes on critically needed assistance.
She asked how the Taliban -- which has not be recognized by a single country -- expect to build a relationship with the rest of the world when it provided a safe haven for the leader of al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in downtown Kabul. He was killed by a U.S. drone strike on July 31.
Nonetheless, Thomas-Greenfield said, the United States is the world’s leading donor in Afghanistan, providing more than $775 million in humanitarian aid to Afghans in the country and the region in the last year.
As for Afghan frozen assets, President Joe Biden announced in February that the $7 billion in the U.S. was being divided -- $3.5 billion for a U.N. trust fund to provide aid to Afghans and $3.5 billion for families of American victims of the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States.
“No country that is serious about containing terrorism in Afghanistan would advocate to give the Taliban instantaneous, unconditional access to billions in assets that belong to the Afghan people,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
To Russia’s claims that Afghanistan’s problems are the fault of the West and not the Taliban, Thomas-Greenfield asked, “What are you doing to help other than rehash the past and criticize others?”
She said Russia has contributed only $2 million to the U.N. humanitarian appeal for Afghanistan and China’s contributions “have been similarly underwhelming.”
“If you want to talk about how Afghanistan needs help, that’s fine. But we humbly suggest you put your money where your mouth is,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
Russia’s Nebenzia took the floor again, calling the suggestion tunning.”
“We are being asked to pay for the reconstruction of a country whose economy was essentially destroyed by 20 years of U.S. and NATO occupation?" he asked. “You are the ones who need to pay for your mistakes. But first of all, you need to return to the Afghan people the money that has been stolen from them.”
Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador, had the last word.
“If the Russian Federation believes that there was an economy in Afghanistan to be destroyed, it’s been destroyed by the Taliban,” she said.
Myanmar conditions do not allow for safe, voluntary return of Rohingya: US
The regional refugee coordinator of the US Embassy in Dhaka, Mackenzie Rowe, has said five years after nearly a million Rohingya were driven from their homes in Myanmar, things have gotten worse.
Conditions in Myanmar do not allow for a safe, voluntary, dignified, or sustainable return, Rowe added.
For the sake of Rohingya, who have borne the brunt of the persecution, she said they must maintain their pressure on the regime to bring such actions to an end. "Until that happens, the door remains shut for a voluntary return of Rohingya to their homeland."
However, the US would help the relevant parties in any way possible for safe and successful repatriation, Rowe said.
She was speaking at the seminar "Rohingya Crisis: The Pathways to Repatriation" organised by the Centre for Genocide Studies (CGS), University of Dhaka, Thursday at the Foreign Service Academy.
At the event, Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen emphasised creating a conducive environment for repatriation by taking tangible and sustainable measures with the help of the international communities.
Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen chaired the seminar.
The UN has failed to pressure Myanmar to take back Rohingyas, say civil society leaders
A group of civil society leaders on Wednesday said that the international community, including the United Nations, has completely failed to exert effective pressure on Myanmar to take back the Rohingyas to their homeland.
This emerged during an online discussion meeting organized by Cox's Bazar CSO-NGO Forum (CCNF).
The discussants said Bangladesh is bearing the brunt of the Rohingya crisis even though the fault lies with Myanmar. The international community must pressure Myanmar to take back their nationals.
The meeting, organized by CCNF, a network of around 50 local and national organizations working in Cox's Bazar, was moderated by Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, Co-chair of the forum and Executive Director of COAST Foundation, and Abu Morshed Chowdhury, another Co-chair and Chief Executive of PHALS.
Shireen Haque of Naripokkho, Barrister Manzoor Hasan of BRAC University's Center for Peace and Justice , Disaster Forum's Gowher Nayeem Wahra, YPSA's Md. Arifur Rahman, Sheuli Sharma of Jago Nari Unnayan Sangtsha , Md. Mujibul Rahman of Sushilan, Sangeeta Ghosh of ACLAB and Co-Chair of CCNF and Chief Executive of Mukti Cox's Bazar Bimal Chandra Dey Sarkar and Member Secretary of the Network Md Jahangir Alam also spoke at the event.
Abu Murshed said, there are about 1.2 million Rohingya people living in Bangladesh. Except for a few UN resolutions, there has been no successful effort to return them to Myanmar thus far, which has left the Rohingya population as well as the locals unsure and frustrated. To secure repatriation, formal and informal diplomacy, known as track-2 diplomacy, should be prioritized, he said.
Read: UNHCR seeks more support from international community for Rohingyas
Bimal Chandra said, nearly half of the Rohingya population, are children and young adults. This sizable population must participate in a variety of camp activities and receive technical and life skills training. This will lessen their likelihood of going astray, and even if they return to Myanmar, they will be able to establish respectable jobs.
Md. Mujibur said, the construction of the camp caused harm to around 6,000 acres of mountainous terrain and 2,000 acres of forest. A little over 2500 families working in social forestry did not get compensation. The water level is going down. Use of plastic in camps should be banned since it is such a significant problem. An Environmental Pool Fund should be created for environmental restoration.
Sangeeta Ghosh said reproductive health services should be ensured for teenagers.
Md. Jahangir Alam said, the local government institutions should be involved in the planning and execution of the Rohingya program and the local organizations should take lead in carrying out operations on the ground to cut costs. At present, the participation of local organizations in the Rohingya program is insufficient.
Md. Arifur said, intelligence gathering should be intensified in the camps to prevent the formation of any new religious extremist organizations. If such groups emerge within the camp, the country will be in jeopardy.
General Secretary of Ukhiya Reporters Unity, Rafiq Uddin, said that although the Rohingya camp recently got help in repairing the Rohingya houses damaged by fire, the local 14 families there did not get any help. Special attention should also be given to all affected local families.
Gowher Nayeem said that repatriation should be kept at the centre of the Rohingya programme. A national strategy for resettlement should be developed and the implementation progress of the plan should be regularly reviewed. Also, the communication between the civil societies of the respective countries including Bangladesh and Myanmar should be increased.
Barrister Manzoor said that the international community, especially the United Nations, has failed in repatriation. ASEAN also failed in this regard. The Rohingya crisis has become a protracted crisis, requiring regional and international initiatives. There is no alternative to implementing a localization roadmap to deal with the crisis as funding is dwindling.
Shirin Haque said that until the repatriation, special programmes should be implemented for the women of the Rohingya camps. Tree plantation program should be implemented in camps.
Rezaul Karim said that the comprehensive development programme of the government is being implemented for Cox's Bazar. Up to 70 projects totalling roughly $3.3 billion are now being carried out. The development efforts in Cox's Bazar must be kept safe from all dangers in order to preserve the nation's wealth.