The United Nations Office at Geneva
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PRESS BRIEFING BY THE UNITED NATIONS INFORMATION SERVICE
31 January 2023
Announcements
Sarah Bel, for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), informed that on 6 February at 2:30 p.m., there would be a hybrid press conference to launch new UNDP report on violent extremism in Sub-Saharan Africa and Arab States - Journey to and from Extremism: Pathways to Recruitment and Disengagement. Speakers would be Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator, and Nirina Kiplagat, main author and Regional Peacebuilding Advisor. The report, the most extensive research on this topic, with some 2,200 interviewees, would be under embargo until 7 February at 6 a.m.. One-on-one interviews with the authors could be organized. Ms. Bel explained that the reported focused on eight countries: Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Somalia, Sudan, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Cameroon, in which most incidents of violent extremism were taking place. The report concluded with policy recommendations for countries under threat. A key message was that the money going into prevention was a tiny fraction of overall sums spent to tackle the phenomenon.
Alessandra Vellucci, speaking on behalf of the Human Rights Council (HRC), said that the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) was currently reviewing the report of Japan, which was being webcast live. UPR would then review the report of Sri Lanka on 1 February.
Ms. Vellucci, for the United Nations Information Service (UNIS), stated that the Committee on the Rights of the Child would have a meeting with States Parties on 2 February at 3 p.m.. The Committee would then close its session the following day, 3 February, after at 5 p.m..
The Conference on Disarmament was holding this morning a public plenary meeting, still under the presidency of Egypt.
Ms. Vellucci reminded that 1 February would mark the second anniversary of the coup in Myanmar. On that occasion, the statement by the Spokesman of the Secretary-General had been shared with the media. UN Special Rapporteur for Myanmar Thomas Andrews would hold a press conference today at 8 pm Geneva time, which could be followed at webtv.un.org.
Finally, Ms. Vellucci informed about the Education Cannot Wait (ECW) High-Level Financing Conference event in Geneva on 16-17 February, which would be hosted by ECW and Switzerland and co-convened with Colombia, Germany, Niger, Norway, and South Sudan. A curtain-raised press conference was foreseen at the Palais des Nations. More information is available here.
Responding to questions, Tarik Jašarević, for the World Health Organization (WHO), said that the IHR Emergency Committee had advised the Director-General that COVID-19 still represented an emergency of international concern. The Director-General had concurred with this recommendation and urged countries to continue with a measured approach to address the pandemic. Numbers around the world had been on the rise again, stressed Mr. Jašarević.
Ms. Vellucci shared the sad news of the untimely passing of a dear UN Geneva colleague, Olga Cheremisina, at the age of 38. Ms. Cheremisina had worked at UNIS for several months and would be fondly remembered by all.
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New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
- 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years
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Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
“All 19 glacier regions around the globe lost ice; in Central Asia, Iceland, the Russian Arctic and western Canada and the United States, it was among the three worst years on record,” said Wayne Jenkinson, WMO’s Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere.
Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
“Some glacier loss is inevitable, but total loss of glaciers is not yet inevitable,” she said, pointing to emissions reductions as central to limiting future losses.
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Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
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