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UN High Commissioner For Human Rights - Pandemic Report
“Central role of the State during pandemics and other health emergencies is to mount a robust health response while upholding human rights” says top UN human rights official
At the opening session of today’s UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the UN High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet presented a report on the central role of the State in responding to pandemics. One of the report’s key message is that failure to meet human rights obligations undermined the resilience of health systems as well as health emergency preparedness, response, and recovery efforts.
“The report highlights that the central role of the State during pandemics and other health emergencies is to mount a robust health response while upholding human rights”, said Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. “It also stresses that ‘the resilience of health systems and national economies has been undermined, to a great extent, by the failure to adequately invest in meeting human rights obligations.”
The report offers concrete recommendations on how to recover better with human rights-based recovery efforts.
“The loss and distress have been immense”, said Michelle Bachelet. “As of last week, there had been over 176 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported globally to the World Health Organization with over 3.8 million deaths. The pandemic continues to pose an extraordinary threat to societies worldwide, both as a public health emergency and a socioeconomic crisis with far-reaching consequences”.
In addition to the incalculable loss in human lives, the economic cost of the pandemic has been catastrophic.
“Around 255 million jobs are estimated to have been lost during 2020, nearly four times the figure of the global economic crisis in 2008”, said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Bachelet. “Women have been more severely affected than men in all regions and all income groups. The estimate is that the pandemic may have pushed up to 150 million people into extreme poverty by the beginning of 2021. Global hunger is also on the rise. Over 130 million people became more vulnerable to undernourishment last year”.
Informal sector workers, most of whom are women, have been hit particularly hard. In some regions they have lost up to 81 per cent of their income in the first months of the crisis. According to the report, marginalized groups have been affected the most by the pandemic.
“The impact on women and girls, older people, people with disabilities, LGBTIQ+, people deprived of liberty, among other groups, has been particularly severe”, said Ms. Bachelet. “Overall, the pandemic has either disrupted or reversed hard-won progress on achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals”.
Vaccines had become a new frontier on the road to equality as developing countries had received only 0.2 per cent of doses of all administered COVID-19 vaccines, taking the world further away from achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
Ms Bachelet reminded that ”vaccines against COVID-19 must be considered as a global public good. The universal and equitable access and distribution of vaccines is likely the strongest determinant of whether and how soon we can control the pandemic”. She added that “if radical steps are not taken to protect economic, social and cultural rights and support low-income countries, the outlook remains bleak”.
In the interactive discussion that followed the report presentation, speakers emphasized that COVID-19 impacted not only the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights, but also civil and political rights - the pandemic must not be used as a pretense by governments to create undue restrictions on democracy or commit human rights violations.
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- Exterior wide shot, Palais des Nations flag alley, nations’ flags flying, a sunny day.
- Wide shot, meeting room at the UN in Geneva
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: “The report highlights that the central role of the State during pandemics and other health emergencies is to mount a robust health response while upholding human rights. It also stresses that ‘the resilience of health systems and national economies has been undermined, to a great extent, by the failure to adequately invest in meeting human rights obligations’.”
- Medium shot, podium with speakers filmed from behind
- SOUNDBITE (English) - Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: “The loss and distress have been immense. As of last week, there had been over 176 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported globally to the World Health Organization with over 3.8 million deaths. The pandemic continues to pose an extraordinary threat to societies worldwide, both as a public health emergency and a socioeconomic crisis with far-reaching consequences”.
- Medium shot, delegate in the meeting room
- SOUNDBITE (English) - Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: “Around 255 million jobs are estimated to have been lost during 2020, nearly four times the figure of the global economic crisis in 2008. Women have been more severely affected than men in all regions and all income groups. The estimate is that the pandemic may have pushed up to 150 million people into extreme poverty by the beginning of 2021. Global hunger is also on the rise. Over 130 million people became more vulnerable to undernourishment last year”.
- Medium shot, attendance in the meeting room
- SOUNDBITE (English) - Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: “The impact on women and girls, older people, people with disabilities, LGBTIQ+, people deprived of liberty, among other groups, has been particularly severe. Overall, the pandemic has either disrupted or reversed hard-won progress on achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals”.
- Medium shot, attendance in the meeting room
- SOUNDBITE (English) - Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: ”Vaccines against COVID-19 must be considered as a global public good. The universal and equitable access and distribution of vaccines is likely the strongest determinant of whether and how soon we can control the pandemic. If radical steps are not taken to protect economic, social and cultural rights and support low-income countries, the outlook remains bleak”.
- Wide shot, meeting room
- Medium shot, Michelle Bachelet at podium
- Medium shot, Michelle Bachelet writing at podium
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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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