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UNOG Bi-weekly press briefing 26 January 2021
Tropical storm Eloise
Jens Laerke, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said the United Nations was on the ground and supporting the national disaster response in Mozambique, where Tropical Cyclone Eloise had made landfall on Saturday, killing at least six people and injuring 12. More than 176,000 people had been affected by the cyclone, including more than 8,300 displaced. Thirty-two accommodation centres had been opened in heavily affected Sofala province, including in Beira city. People in the centres were receiving assistance from the Mozambican authorities, and the United Nations was delivering food, health care and sanitation and promoting good hygiene practices to prevent COVID-19 transmissions.
The cyclone had destroyed, damaged or flooded more than 8,800 houses and at least 26 health centres. Large areas of crops had been flooded, raising concern for the annual harvest expected in April. The most urgent humanitarian needs included food, tents, drinking water, hygiene kits, COVID-19 prevention materials, mosquito nets and blankets. As humanitarian partners had already been responding to multiple needs in Mozambique, including the conflict in Cabo Delgado in the north and the recent impact of Tropical Storm Chalane, more resources were urgently needed to ensure a quick scale-up in response to Tropical Cyclone Eloise and to avoid having to choose one response over the other.
Zimbabwe, South Africa and Eswatini had also been impacted by heavy rains, localized flooding and mudslides. Widespread rainfall was expected in Botswana in the coming days.
Tomson Phiri, for the World Food Programme (WFP), said that, in order to quickly have a full picture of the extent of the damage, WFP was supporting both ground and aerial assessments undertaken with drones. Early indications were that the storm had further aggravated the precarious food security situation in Sofala province. January to March was the peak of the lean season, when people most struggled to find food. The latest statistics from the IPC Acute Food Insecurity and Acute Malnutrition Analysis indicated that over 2.9 million people were facing high levels of food insecurity in rural and urban areas in southern, central and northern provinces. A total of 640 metric tons of food was available in WFP’s central warehouse in Beira city, which could be trucked to affected areas across Sofala province and in the southern hub in Maputo. As those resources were originally for WFP’s ongoing lean season response, more resources would be urgently needed to ensure an adequate and timely response.
Paul Dillon, for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said residents of Beira were navigating streets waist deep in flood waters and littered with debris. Churches, mosques and some government buildings were sheltering hundreds of displaced families. Many were reporting having lost farming tools and seed, raising questions about food security in the future. IOM’s 160 staff in the area had been working closely with the Government of Mozambique, United Nations and other humanitarian partners since the morning after the storm to ensure a coordinated response. IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix assessments indicated that more than half of the 71 resettlement centres where people displaced by Cyclone Idai in 2019 resided were in affected areas with restricted access due to flooding. IOM staff were distributing soap and a limited supply of cloth face masks to the most vulnerable and providing further information about the need to maintain physical distancing. IOM health staff were very concerned for chronic disease patients who had lost their medication in the cyclone. IOM was monitoring the accommodation centres in order to refer cases to health facilitates, although many of those had been damaged. There were also many cases of malaria due to the rainy season.
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19)
Margaret Harris, for the World Health Organization (WHO), announced that the clinical care guidelines on COVID-19 had been updated and would be available online shortly. The main new recommendations related to people with persistent symptoms beyond the average of two to eight weeks, including neurological and heart symptoms. Other recommendations were that: at-home patients should have the use of pulse oximetry to identify deteriorating cases that required hospitalization; awake prone positioning should be used in severe cases requiring ventilation to improve oxygen flow; low-dose anticoagulants should be administered to hospitalized patients; and medical decisions should be taken by the health-care professionals directly involved rather than on the basis of models.
Replying to questions from journalists, Ms. Harris said it was too soon to make recommendations regarding the use of chloroquine or specific types of masks. WHO experts conducting the mission to China would finish their quarantine in two days, at which time information would be available about next steps. The potential for the virus to change had been a deep concern from the start of the pandemic, which was why a large expert group on virus evolution had been created. Nevertheless, so far, there was no definitive evidence of a serious change other than in the level of transmissibility. WHO wished to see the vaccine distributed in every country of the world within the first 100 days of 2021 and health-care workers and older persons be vaccinated as a matter of priority. While the currently available vaccines had been tested on the basis of a 21-day period between the first and second doses, the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization had stated that, in exceptional cases, the gap could be extended up to six weeks, though no longer. It was very common for candidate products to be pulled; only 10 per cent of them made it through the entire process and into humans.
Geneva announcements
Jenifer Fenton, for the Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria, said the fifth session of the Syrian Constitutional Committee Small Body had convened in Geneva on Monday, as scheduled. The meetings were planned to continue until Friday, 29 January, and the Committee members would be discussing the basic principles of the Constitution. The Special Envoy would brief the media on Friday.
Rhéal LeBlanc, for the United Nations Information Service (UNIS), on behalf of the Human Rights Council, said the universal periodic review would continue throughout that week. The human rights situation in Georgia was being reviewed that morning and, in the afternoon, the UPR Working Group would adopt its reports on its reviews of Nepal, Oman and Austria.
The Conference on Disarmament was holding a public plenary meeting that morning, still under the presidency of Ambassador Marc Pecsteen de Buytswerve of Belgium.
Mr. LeBlanc added that, as announced last week by the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), the one-week submission period of candidacies for the positions in the three-member Presidency Council and of Prime Minister was under way until the end of this week. UNSMIL would then convene the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum for a vote, to be held in Switzerland during the week of 1–5 February.
The eighty-fifth session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child was under way virtually and, given the current situation, would not include any State party reviews. The next public meeting would be in the afternoon of Thursday, 4 February, for the closure of the session.
In response to recent questions about the investigation related to the former Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Mr. LeBlanc said the five investigation reports concerning senior managers had raised issues to be addressed through the Secretariat or UNRWA accountability frameworks. Accountability actions, to the extent appropriate and available, had been taken, and the matters were closed. The findings of the reports that were management related did not rise to the level of fraud or misappropriation of funds. In accordance with General Assembly resolution 59/272, the investigation reports of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) relating to the former UNRWA management had been provided to Member States. Member States that had requested such information from OIOS could do so now or in the future. Further information on the availability of OIOS reports could be found at https://oios.un.org/content/reporting.
On 26 January at 12.30 p.m., there would be a virtual press conference of the World Health Organization, at which the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) would present its interim recommendations on the use of the Moderna COVID-19 (mRNA-1273) vaccine. Speakers would include Dr. Alejandro Cravioto, Chair, Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization; Dr. Joachim Hombach, Executive Secretary SAGE; and Dr. Kate O’Brien, Director, Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals.
Also on 26 January, at 2 p.m., there would be a virtual press conference of the United Nations Development Programme on the launch of its report on the world’s largest survey of public opinion on climate change, which was under embargo until Wednesday, 27 January at 6:01 a.m. CET. The speaker would be Cassie Flynn, UNDP Climate Advisor.
On 27 January at 10:30 a.m., there would be a virtual press conference of the United Nations Refugee Agency on the release of its strategy and appeal for refugees on routes towards the western and central Mediterranean. Speakers would include Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR Special Envoy for the central and western Mediterranean situation; Alessandra Morelli, Representative, UNHCR Niger; and Jean Paul Cavalieri, Chief of Mission, UNHCR Libya.
Finally, Mr. LeBlanc recalled that the official Holocaust commemoration ceremony would take place at the Palais des Nations at noon, on 27 January, and would be webcast live at webtv.un.org and on Facebook Live (@UNGeneva). In that connection, he drew attention to the Secretary-General’s message, which referred to the pandemic’s effects on minorities. The Secretary-General said “we must address the fragilities and gaps exposed by the pandemic and strengthen our mutual bonds, based on our common humanity”. The Ciné-ONU screening of the documentary “The Albanian Code” would be held today at 5 p.m., followed by a discussion, and the innovative video project featuring interactive biographies of survivors on the exterior walls of the Beth Yaacov Great Synagogue of Geneva would run until 31 January.
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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
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- Widespread glacier loss across all regions for fourth consecutive year
- Asia and Africa are regions most affected by water-related disasters
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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.
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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