The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
PRESS BRIEFING BY THE UNITED NATIONS INFORMATION SERVICE
11 April 2023
Thousands of newly arrived Somali refugees in Ethiopia relocated to new settlement
Olga Sarrado, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said that the relocation of newly arrived refugees in the Somali region of Ethiopia, who had fled clashes in Somalia’s Lascanood city, had begun, with 1,036 of the most vulnerable people transferred from border areas to a new settlement over the past three days. Transportation to the new site, located some 50 km from the border in Mirqaan, Bokh district, was being organized by Ethiopia’s Refugees and Returnees Service with UNHCR and partners.
The Government of Ethiopia had generously allocated 400 hectares where refugees could settle and access existing services, such as health care, water, and education. UNHCR continued to engage with local authorities and leaders to assess gaps in basic services so support benefits both refugees and Ethiopians. Ms. Sarrado reminded that, since clashes had started in mid-February, thousands of people had arrived in the Somali region of Ethiopia seeking safety. As of last week, 91,000 people had been registered by RRS with UNHCR’s support.
Last month, UNHCR and humanitarian partners had launched an inter-agency emergency refugee response plan of USD 116 million to address the immediate critical needs faced by refugees and host communities in this area. Ms. Sarrado reminded that Ethiopia had welcomed refugees for decades and currently hosts nearly 990,000 refugees from neighboring countries like South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, and Sudan.
UNHCR’s full statement is available here.
The AI for Good Global Summit
Frederic Werner, Head of Strategic Engagement, Telecommunication Standardization Bureau,
at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), said that the AI for Good had been built on the rationale that AI could contribute significantly to the attainment of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. There were also several concerns connected to AI, he noted. To identify practical applications of AI that existed today and how to scale them for the Global Goals. Virtually the entire UN system was engaged on this process along the ITU. Great efforts had been made to bring many different voices to the table. The Summit was more than a talk-shop; it was very much hands-on, action- and result-oriented. AI for Good had started in 2017, and there had been three in-person summits in person, followed by online summits. On 6-7 July, there would be a return to an in-person meeting in Geneva, informed Mr. Werner. The conference would have a very strong robotics element, with more than 45 robotics topics under consideration. There would also be the first humanoid robot press conference.
More information about the Summit can be found here.
Media advisory is available here.
Replying to questions, Mr. Werner said that AI had entered the mainstream in recent months, largely thanks to Chat GPT. Generative AI would certainly be on the agenda. A lot of the issues to be discussed, such as ethics, had been addressed over the year, and would remain on the agenda at the upcoming Summit.
Food Price Index
Upali Galketi Aratchilage, Senior Economist, Markets and Trade Division, at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), speaking from Rome, informed that the FPI for March, released on 7 April, fell for the twelfth consecutive month, down 2.8 percent month-on-month and 20.5 percent year-on-year, from the peak in March 2022. The decline in the index in March from the previous month was due to drops in international prices of cereals and vegetable oils and a slight drop in dairy prices, partially counterbalanced by some increases in sugar and meat prices. Much of the decline could be attributed to abundant supplies and better production outlooks.
Mr. Aratchilage stated that abundant supplies were especially true for cereals, wheat, maize, and rice. FAO’s latest forecast for world cereal production in 2022/23 (2,777 million tons) was close to the record harvest in 2021/22 (2,812 million tons). Wheat production in most leading production regions, including the European Union, the Russian Federation, North America, Asia and Near East Asian countries, showed greater potential, only slightly behind the record harvest in 2022. The extension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative had also contributed to reducing potential market anxiety, further helping cereal prices decrease.
Although international food prices had declined for the last year, said Mr. Aratchilage, global food prices remained 30 percent higher than the average in 2020. Domestic food price inflation remained elevated in almost all low- and middle-income countries, with many experiencing double-digit inflation. More information about the latest FAO Food Price Index can be found here.
Announcements
Catherine Huissoud, for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), informed that UNCTAD would publish on 12 April at 4 p.m. its Trade and Development Update, in which it called for a bold international economic agenda to avert another lost decade for developing countries, facing projected USD 800 billion in foregone income, and battling unprecedented levels of debt distress. Global growth was expected to be lower than projected, signaling potential economic downturn, said Ms. Huissoud. The press kit would be shared at the end of the morning, under embargo. UNCTAD senior officials were presenting this analysis at the IMF/World Bank Spring meeting in Washington this week, calling for increased and specific support for developing countries on the various issues mentioned in the report.
David Hirsh, for the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), said that ITU had finalized report on preparatory studies for the 2023 World Radiocommunication Conference. A press release had been issued on 7 April.
Rolando Gómez, for the United Nations Information Service (UNIS), stated that today the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination started its 109th session, during which it would review the reports of the Russian Federation, Niger, Argentina, Portugal, the Philippines, and Tajikistan.
He reminded about the message of the Secretary-General on the death of Benjamin B. Ferencz, who had investigated and prosecuted Nazi war crimes at the Nuremberg trials and had been an early and passionate advocate for the establishment of an international criminal court which he described as “the missing link in the world legal order”.
Finally, Mr. Gómez informed that a ceremony to commemorate victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda would be held at the Palais des Nations on 13 April, in the presence of the UNOG Director-General. The Secretary-General’s message can be found here.
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As world’s water reserves change, countries must prepare for a new reality: WMO
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
- Past seven years have seen abnorfmal river flows
- Water storage on Earth’s land surface has decreased in past decade
- Widespread glacier loss across all regions for fourth consecutive year
- Asia and Africa are regions most affected by water-related disasters
- Water data availability has improved, but gaps remain in hard-hit areas
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.
Preparing for moving baselines
The report does not attribute every observed change to climate change alone. WMO says pressure on water resources and natural variability also contribute.
Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
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