UN’s Guterres heads to Iraq for first visit in six years to express solidarity 

The Secretary-General of the UN, António Guterres, has arrived in Iraq for the first time in six years. 

“This is a visit of solidarity” with Iraqi people and the country’s democratic structures, Mr. Guterres said in Baghdad on Wednesday, shortly after touching down. 

The official UN visit comes as Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani attempts to revive the country’s fortunes, after decades of conflict and infighting. 

Mr al-Sudani – a Shia politician - was elected Prime Minister by the Iraqi parliament last October after a year of political impasse over the formation of the country’s government.   

The President of Iraq is Abdul Latif Rashid, an independent Kurdish politician. 

While the United Nations remains “totally committed” to supporting Iraq’s institutions, the Secretary-General expressed his belief “that Iraqis will be able to overcome the …challenges they still face through an open and inclusive dialogue”.   

Lack of social protection set to plunge more children into poverty 

Children all over the world are increasingly at risk from a lack of critical social protection, leaving them vulnerable to under-age marriage, illegal labour practices and other lifechanging hardship, UN agencies UNICEF and ILO said on Wednesday. 

The warning from the UN Children’s Fund and the International Labour Organization outlines the devastating impacts on youngsters’ health, education and nutrition, when welfare safety nets are not in place. 

The agencies cited new data showing that between 2016 and 2020, an additional 50 million children missed out on child benefits, driving up the total number to 1.46 billion, globally. 

Factors that have contributed to growing insecurity for children in recent years include the COVID-19 emergency, the global cost-of-living crisis, conflict, displacement and climate change.  

And according to the joint ILO and UNICEF report, every region in the world saw child and family benefits fall or stagnate between 2016 and 2020. 

This has created the very real risk that no country is on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of achieving substantial social protection coverage by 2030, the UN agencies said. 

Right to development can save world from ‘destructive spiral’: Türk   

Staying with development,   UN rights chief Volker Türk has appealed to all countries to support sustainable development, as a way out of the world’s current “destructive spiral”. 

Marking the 35th anniversary of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Mr. Türk highlighted the accord’s insistence on the indivisibility of economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights. 

One right should not be prioritized over another, the High Commissioner explained, as he insisted that political freedoms were “not more vital than social or cultural rights”, just as civic freedoms were no less important than achieving economic rights. 

“We are seeing inequalities are escalating to perilous proportions. Climate change and biodiversity loss are far outpacing our corrective efforts... I am convinced that progress in realising the full spectrum of human rights can reverse this destructive spiral.” 

In a call for all UN Member States to acknowledge their interdependence and work together, the UN rights chief warned that key sustainable development goals have been “knocked badly off track” since the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Daniel Johnson, UN News.