This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.
Race is on to limit impact of extreme weather on most vulnerable: Guterres
As the global aid community marked World Humanitarian Day on Thursday, UN chief António Guterres paid tribute to all those who help people in need, before urging support for the day’s #TheHumanRace campaign and its focus on protecting the world’s most vulnerable from the climate emergency.
“Humanitarian workers are here to help the world’s most vulnerable people when disaster strikes”, the Secretary-General said, adding that in the past 20 years, shootings, kidnappings and other attacks on humanitarian organizations have increased tenfold. This year alone, at least 72 humanitarian workers have been killed in conflict zones.”
Turning to this year's campaign for World Humanitarian Day - #TheHumanRace - which highlights how climate extremes are causing misery across the world and overwhelming frontline responders, Mr. Guterres warned that the climate emergency is “a race we are losing. But it's a race we can and must win.”
Hosted on exercise platform Strava, participants are asked to clock 100 minutes of exercise for the World Humanitarian Day campaign.
“They can run, roll, ride, walk, swim, kick or hit a ball, each action will count towards helping us carry our message to world leaders when they meet at the UN Climate Change Conference in November,” said UN humanitarian coordinating office, OCHA, which is behind the campaign.
Minorities must be at heart of bid to save planet’s biodiversity: rights expert
The global initiative to save the planet's biodiversity on land and water must not be allowed to threaten the world's most vulnerable people, a top human rights expert said on Thursday.
Under a UN-backed global biodiversity framework draft agreement, countries have agreed to protect 30 per cent of the planet and restore at least 20 per cent by 2030.
UN Special Rapporteur David Boyd said that although the plan was essential to conservation efforts, it “must not be achieved at the expense of further human rights violations against indigenous …and other rural people”.
Minorities including people of African descent, rural women and rural youth were not adequately prioritized in the current draft plan, Mr. Boyd insisted, despite the fact that their knowledge and conservation contributions “must be recognized, respected, and supported”.
The independent rights expert, who reports to the Human Rights Council, cautioned against what he called “fortress conservation” approaches that aim to restore “pristine wilderness” where no humans live.
The call comes ahead of an October conference in Kunming, China, where representatives of 190 Governments will seek to finalize the UN Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.
UN launches strategy for digital transformation of peacekeeping
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has led a call for UN peacekeepers to fully embrace new technology to respond to ever-changing challenges.
Outlining his Strategy for the Digital Transformation of UN Peacekeeping, Mr. Guterres told the Security Council that 21st century innovations were changing the nature of conflict, and having an “indelible impact” on civilians.
The Organization’s 12 peacekeeping operations already use many digital tools in their daily work, such as unmanned aerial vehicles and online platforms that provide information about the kind of terrain that blue helmets should expect to encounter.
But it is “essential” that this process picks up speed, “to improve the UN’s agility, anticipation and responsiveness to conflicts”, Mr. Guterres insisted, before adding that peace operations should develop clear principles on the use of digital tools and undertake human rights due diligence wherever there is potential for harm.
Katy Dartford, UN News.
