The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
Bi-weekly press briefing - 15 September 2023
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1:25:01
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PRESS BRIEFING BY THE UNITED NATIONS INFORMATION SERVICE
15 September 2023
Libya and Morocco in the aftermath of natural disasters
Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator (UNOCHA), said that nearly 3,000 lives had been lost in Morocco, but those early figures were likely to be overtaken by events as authorities and rescuers got access to the areas where many were still buried. OCHA was standing by for any requests for assistance by the Government. The focus in the first days was on finding survivors and those who had lost their lives so that the former could be aided immediately, and the latter interred.
In Libya, where an appalling catastrophe had taken place, there were speculations of up to 20,000 dead, with some 4,000 casualties being confirmed thus far. In this tragedy, climate and lack of capacity had collided to create such an immense catastrophe. Over 300,000 people had already needed humanitarian aid in Libya even before the floods. A UN disaster coordination team had been deployed from Geneva to Morocco and then to Libya, informed Mr. Griffiths. Challenges in Libya included communicating and coordinating with the two rival governments, access, assessing the scale of damages, and prioritizing aid.
Mr. Griffiths emphasized that both cases were massive reminders of the omnipresence of climate change, which was stretching governments’ capacities to the limit. A USD 71 million emergency appeal for Libya had been launched, which included mental health support, as the floods had caused unimaginable traumas.
Responding to questions, Mr. Griffiths explained that the team deployed from Geneva included experienced professionals, who had then been joined by UN staff already on the ground. When there was no coordination, chaos ensued, which led to an additional loss of lives. OCHA was in very close contact with the Moroccan authorities, said Mr. Griffiths, who expected to shortly receive a formal request for assistance in the second stage of disaster recovery. Adding a maritime access option for Libya made sense, he said.
Mr. Griffiths emphasized that both disasters required an immediate, massive response. Disaster, search, and rescue teams were trained to be on the ground within 24 hours; the roster of such UN teams was able to respond to more than one disaster at the time. In Morocco, a lot of investment had been put into disaster recovery capacities, explained Mr. Griffiths; the UN stood ready to support to the degree needed in the current phase of helping survivors. In Libya, there was a major need for equipment to find survivors, but shelter, food, primary medical care (as there was a worry of cholera), and psychosocial care were also urgently needed.
Benoit Carpentier, for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Societies (IFRC), speaking from Marrakech, spoke of the devastation he had witnessed in the country. The disaster had affected different parts of the country. The epicenter had been 75 km from Marrakech, but even villages several hundred kilometers away were affected. IFRC coordinated with local and national authorities, as well as local communities. The Moroccan Red Crescent had over 8,000 volunteers; the focus was on search and rescue, providing food and water, and psychosocial support. Hundreds of thousands of people needed shelter now; storms and cold temperatures were expected in the coming week. It would take months and even years to reconstruct and rebuild the affected cities and villages, said Mr. Carpentier. Behind all the numbers of casualties, there were individual people, individual stories and tragedies, reminded Mr. Carpentier.
Tamer Ramadan, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) country delegation in Libya, speaking from Cairo, said that the situation in Derna was complicated in terms of access and the increasing number of affected people. There was only one road leading from Benghazi to Derna, he explained. A lot of relief materials had arrived by plane from countries in the region, and the IFRC was deploying additional relief materials as well as surge teams. IFRC was providing first aid, temporary shelter, evacuation; IFRC was also providing dead body management, which was also of paramount importance. The Federation had launched a CHF 10 million to support rescue, relief, and recovery operations. Mr. Ramadan stressed that the crisis was not in Derna only, but in other places in the región, where IFRC teams were trying to assist affected populations.
Answering questions, Mr. Ramadan said that there was still hope to find survivors in Libya, but the more time passed, the les hope there was. Some people might still be cut off from communication channels to let their families know that they were fine. Division of tasks among humanitarian actors had been in place for over ten years, and the system worked well. Definite numbers on casualties would be available only upon the completion of the ongoing assessment, cautioned Mr. Ramadan; updated figures would be provided today. A lot of relief aid had reached Derna, including from the IFRC and its partners; more materials were on the way towards Derna and other cities in need.
Health risks amidst dead bodies in conflict and natural disasters
Bilal Sablouh, Regional Forensics Manager for Africa at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), speaking from Nairobi, said that dead bodies from conflicts or disasters did not cause disease outbreaks or epidemics. This misunderstanding often led to quick disposal of bodies, which meant that families were not able to do proper and dignified burials. Bodies needed to be documented and buried in labeled body bags; graves needed to be marked and listed, which would make it easier for the loved ones to conduct proper dignified burials afterwards. The work to recover and bury the dead in both Morocco and Libya would take time, said Mr. Sablouh. Those involved in the recovery of bodies could also be at risk from unexploded ordnance, which might have moved with water. ICRC with its partners would continue to work to dispel the unfounded fears of the risks associated with dead bodies.
Andrew Thomas, for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said that unnecessary rush to dispose of bodies after natural disasters or conflict 0 families of their right to conduct dignified burials.
Margaret Harris, for the World Health Organization (WHO), explained that having access to safe drinking water was one of the priorities in the aftermath of disasters. Dead bodies were not the main cause of water pollution, but they should be kept away from drinking body sources if possible; there were multiple pollutants at play in such situations. Safe and dignified burials were the priority following disasters. Ms. Harris explained that in Morocco, as elsewhere, the WHO was working closely with the host country government, which was taking the lead with the health response.
Benoit Carpentier, for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Societies (IFRC), speaking from Marrakech, said that taking care of the dead bodies and those grieving were both important, and reiterated that there was no immediate health risk as such stemming from dead bodies.
Mr. Sablouh, responding to a question, reiterated the concern about unexploded ordnance which had been moved by the floods. This was a major concern for the ICRC, and the scale of the issue was not yet known, added Crystal Wells, also for the ICRC.
Full joint statement is available here.
ICRC/IFRC/WHO Manual for the Management of the Dead After Disasters can be read here.
Tracking progress on food and agriculture-related SDG indicators
José Rosero Moncayo, Director of the Statistics Division at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said that at the midpoint to the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, the new FAO report offered a critical look at how far we had progressed thus far. Earlier this year, the UN Secretary-General had raised alarm and called for a drastic rescue plan for the SDGs. The following week, the SDG Summit in New York would look into those issues, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, escalating conflicts and raising prices around the world. The timely release of the FAO report provided food for thoughts for the decision-makers, said Mr. Moncayo.
While the world had already been off track to reach the SDGs, recent years had further reversed progress. For example, the proportion of the world population suffering from hunger stood at over 9 percent, reminded Mr. Moncayo. Meanwhile, forest areas around the globe continued to shrink. Many SDG indicators were still struggling with substantial gaps, which was one of the most salient topics to be discussed at the SDG Summit. What could not be measured could not be improved, said Mr. Moncayo. Therefore, there was a need to speed up investment in data gathering and analysis. FAO remained committed to do everything possible to rescue and bring the SDGs back on track.
More information is available here.
Mr. Moncayo explained, responding to questions, that every of the 247 SDG indicators had an agency which was its custodian.
Alessandra Vellucci, for the UN Information Service (UNIS), said that the SDG Summit on 18-19 September would be a defining moment for Heads of State and Government to deliver the bold commitments needed to urgently put the world back on track to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. With only seven years remaining for the implementation of the Goals, only 15 per cent of SDG targets were on track to being achieved. Against this sobering backdrop, the Summit would be an opportunity for all sectors of society to accelerate action on the SDGs. The ActNow challenge, run by the Department of Global Communications, aimed to surpass 100,000 individual SDG-related actions.
Today in New York, at 4 pm Geneva time, the UN Deputy Secretary-General and other speakers would hold a press briefing ahead of the Summit and the high-level segment of the UN General Assembly. The briefing would be live on UN Web TV.
Global Fund’s results report
Ann Vaessen, for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, spoke about the Global Fund’s 2023 Results Report, to be published on 18 September (when the embargo would be lifted). The good news was that in 2022, thanks to the tireless efforts, adaptations and innovations by governments, communities and partners, the Global Fund partnership had put an unprecedented number of people on antiretroviral treatment for HIV; they had found and put on treatment more people with TB than ever before; and they had distributed a record number of mosquito nets to prevent malaria. All those were better than pre-COVID results, stressed Ms. Vaessen.
Despite this progress, the world was still off track to reach the SDG 3 related to HIV, TB, and malaria by 2030. Efforts, in particular, needed to be redoubled to eliminate inequities connected to those diseases. In many countries where the Global Fund invested, progress had been made more difficult due to the interconnected crises, including climate change, conflict, and reversal of human rights in many places, including gender equality.
On a positive note, the Global Fund partnerships were uniquely placed to help accelerated progress through game-changing innovations, optimizing their deployment alongside existing tools to maximize the impact of every dollar. For HIV, the dapivirine vaginal ring – the first effective, woman-controlled HIV prevention option – provided an additional new tool to give girls and women the power to protect themselves from HIV infection. For TB, key innovations included new diagnostic tools, such as mobile X-rays and lower-cost molecular diagnostics, new treatments, such as the bedaquiline, pretomanid, linezolid and moxifloxacin combination therapy for drug-resistant TB and the new short course tuberculosis preventive treatment called 3HP. For malaria, there were a range of innovations in vector control, prevention, diagnosis and treatments that would help us combat the alarming trends in infections and deaths. For example, dual active ingredient bed nets, combining pyrethroid and chlorfenapyr, which would be available at scale from 2024, were dramatically more effective than standard pyrethroid-only bed nets, informed Ms. Vaessen.
Human Rights Council
Pascal Sim, for the Human Rights Council (HRC), said that currently the Council was discussing the rights of older persons. This afternoon, the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights would present a report on economic, social and cultural rights in the context of recovery from COVID-19. Today, at 1 pm, Alena Douhan, Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures and human rights, would present her report on the impact of unilateral measures on the right to health.
On 18 September, informed Mr. Sim, the Council would discuss the topics of arbitrary detention, slavery, promotion of democratic and equitable international order. The International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia would hold a press conference on 18 September at 1:30 pm. Further details on HRC54 can be found here.
Announcements
Alessandra Vellucci, for the UN Information Service, informed that the Committee on the Rights of the Child was concluding this morning the review of the report of Togo. On 18 September, at 11:30 am, the Committee would have a public meeting in the Palais des Nations to launch its General Comment 26 on children’s rights and environment with a special focus on climate change.
The Committee on Enforced Disappearances was reviewing this morning the report (on additional information) of the Netherlands. On 18 September, at 10 am, it would begin consideration of the report of Nigeria.
The annual session of the Conference on Disarmament officially closed today.
On 21 September, from 4 to 6 pm, informed Ms. Vellucci, next Geneva Peace Talks would take place in Room XVII at the Palais des Nations. The event would consist of several speakers sharing their inspirational stories of peace.
Teleprompter
[Other language spoken]
Welcome to the press briefing of the Information Service of the United Nations in Geneva Today.
It's Friday, 15th September.
We have a long briefing and lots of news on the agenda, but it's really my honour and my pleasure to start this briefing a little bit earlier because we have the the honour and the pleasure to have here with us Martin Griffiths, Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.
Martin will give a few into that to remarks.
He will be telling us more about the situation in Libya and then we will open the floor to questions.
He will have to leave soon.
So we'll try to get the most out of it, but then we will have other colleagues who will speak also about Libya.
So without more, do I let you open the remarks?
Thanks very much.
Briefly, I wanted to talk about very briefly about Morocco, but also about Libya.
I mean, you know, we all woke up towards the end of last week.
We all thought, I'm sure, in this room and elsewhere, that the world was sad and bad and dangerous enough.
And then we were wrong because of the terrible scenes that we have all been seeing thanks to your coverage in these last days.
And I think we all remember the Syria and Turkey earthquakes and we remember the trauma from there.
And I want to refer to that when I talk about these issues, but very briefly as an opening remarks, of course, in Morocco, nearly 3000 lives.
Let's be very clear at this stage, it's a classic aspect of sudden onset disasters.
The early figures on the deaths, terrible enough in these cases, by the way, frightening enough in these cases, are likely to be overtaken by events as authorities and rescuers get access to the rubble where so many people or the floods where so many people are buried.
So 3000 lives claimed in Morocco.
I'm sure it's an under evaluation, but it's a carefully done one by the authorities.
We, like others, are standing by for requests for assistance in both these cases and all the cases of sudden onset disasters.
You have an immediate phase, the first days where the attention is rightly on finding survivors and also finding those who have not survived and providing for their for their Interment properly and respectfully.
And then the next phase is to provide aid to those survivors, shelter, food, medical supplies, the inevitable health problems that arise.
And I'll come to in a minute.
So in Morocco, I hope, I hope we are moving from one phase to the next and that we're ready.
I spoke yesterday to the deputy foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, Lord Ahmed.
the United Kingdom is present with other aid from other countries in Morocco.
We talk about how we can work with the authorities there to do what we do best, and that is to provide search and rescue, to provide support for coordination and most importantly, tangibly through the humanitarian agencies, NGOs, as usual, in the forefront the the, the aid that is needed for the survival of the survivors in Libya.
A completely different catastrophe, as we have heard from various authorities.
1 which is appalling, shocking, I think unimaginable actually in its, in its, in its consequences.
I, I've heard that there are speculations about up to 20,000 maybe dead.
I believe there's 4000 deaths registered at the moment.
Again in Libya, where access to Derna is still so difficult, where there's a compounded problem of the problems of the dams breaking as well as the storm breaking from the, from the sea.
This is, this is a tragedy in which climate and capacity has collided to 'cause this terrible, terrible tragedy.
Derna, a city of what of 100,000 people, 900,000 people affected.
And, and this is on top of a situation in Libya where 300,000 people in Libya already needed humanitarian aid.
Now we and other agencies are already present in Libya for the humanitarian.
That's that's been happening there for some years.
We have sent in from Ocha, from my office, from Geneva here, UN Disaster coordination team, 15 people who went to Morocco and then redeployed to Libya, and also communications people, also specialists and experts.
We will be hearing from other agents, including the Federation Red Cross about that.
I think the issue for us in Libya is of course coordinating with two with the government and then the other authority in the east of the country.
Secondly, discovering the extent of the problem.
We're not there yet in Libya.
We we don't know the extent of the problem.
The floods and the torrents and the destroyed buildings and the sludge still conceal the level of need and death.
And then sustaining in that second phase, getting the right aid to the right people at the right time.
That's where coordination is so important.
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Helping key humanitarian agencies to do the job they do so well elsewhere.
But, and I'll stop on this, Alessandro, what is so deeply shocking about this is I think in the, in the both cases, and they are very different crises as we know, but in both cases, it's a massive reminder of climate and its presence.
We don't need to to anywhere in the world.
We know that we face a really, really difficult year ahead in government.
Capacities are going to be stretched to the limit as we see in both these countries.
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I'm sorry.
We have launched an appeal for Libya, flash appeal yesterday, just over $71 million.
This was as quick as we could get it out given the access we needed to make the needs assessment.
I have already spoken to some governments here in Geneva about this.
The key sectors are the ones you know well, health, medical, wash, water supply, shelter.
And this is my final point, psychosocial support.
I remember in the earthquakes how we talked about the terrible noise that shattered families at 4:00 AM here.
The flood started at 2:30 in the morning on on Monday morning.
And the trauma for families looking desperately still days after that awful event happened in the middle of the night, find if their loved ones are alive or dead.
We've heard stories of families who've lost 50 or more family members.
As I said at the beginning, Alessandra, this is unimaginable.
And we must keep our solidarity very clear with the people of Libya and Morocco.
[Other language spoken]
Sorry.
Indeed, Martin, thank you very much and thanks for mentioning the issue of climate.
And we'll speak more later of the climate emission summits convened by the Secretary General on the 20th of September.
But now I go to questions, first of all in the room, and I'll start with Catherine Tian Kong, France Van Catter, French Channel.
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Happy to have you here in Geneva with us.
Thank you for coming.
My question is, first of all, could you please repeat the name of the gentleman you spoke with?
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I I I haven't catched his last name.
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British Deputy Foreign Secretary.
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And also what you mentioned that you had 15 people that went to Morocco and if I understood well, will be redeployed in Libya or are already redeployed in Libya.
Sorry, even I can manage that.
Or you said to Lord Tarek Ahmad, the Deputy Foreign Secretary, FCDO London, who called me yesterday.
Thank you very much to Tarek.
And yes, we deployed very quickly.
I mean we've, we've had decades of experience in search and rescue based out of Geneva, as you know.
And we deployed an what we call an Undack team, disaster assistant, the coordination team, 15 people led by a very experienced ochre staff member.
We also deployed some of our own key staff from the region to help those there in in in Libya.
We had humanitarian staff already.
We have a very, very experienced humanitarian coordinator, Georges Canyon, who I think will be on the line later, who I know very well from working together in the past that we decided with the consent also of the understanding of the Moroccan authorities to redeploy that team.
And they are now in Libya and they are progressing.
I don't know where they are exactly geographically.
I was told not coming in there in Benghazi, but they're on the way clearly to the epicentre and they will help the Libyan authorities on coordination.
If you don't have coordination, it's there's chaos and that loses lives.
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Thank you very much.
I'll continue in the room, Chris and then Muhammad.
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Christopher Jean, France Press Thanks for taking my question.
I, I actually have two, one on Morocco.
Do I understand correctly that for the time being you don't have green light to go into the country with like real means of, of help?
And the second one is on Libya, if I may.
It seems that access is really difficult and there is talk, I think the mayor of Dena offered, Dena offered to or suggested to open a maritime route to go.
Does that seem plausible to you?
Is that something you're working on and what kind of means do we need?
Are we talking about, you know, French or Italian Navy having amphibious boats coming?
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I think we're expecting we, we've kept in touch in Morocco.
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We kept in touch very closely.
Our resident coordinator Natalie Fustier, who also I know very well from the Gulf has been leading the UN team in in Morocco, no existing humanitarian aid programme in Morocco before this moment.
And so we're keeping very close touch with the line ministries, the foreign ministry and so forth.
And so it was with their agreement that we redeployed our team.
As I mentioned, we are expecting and hoping, but expecting from our discussions with the Moroccan authorities that the that the request for assistance will go out within with today or tomorrow.
I mean you know, very soon because as I said, Morocco has moved, is moving from one phase to the next.
They themselves have said that it's aid to the survivors that's priority at the moment.
It's always a difficult issue operationally and sudden onset disasters.
You need to keep looking for survivors.
You need to keep looking particularly those **** Atlas mountain villages.
But the focus on survivors because we they are identified and helping them avoid the sort of medical threats that are natural in these circumstances are very important.
So we're hoping to have that in, in, in, in Libya.
Yes, I heard that the mayor said that.
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I don't know directly myself first hand the arrangements that would need to follow, but it makes complete sense.
You've got, you've got obviously maritime access.
You would ship in aid as well as and typically what you do is you don't choose one route over another, you do all of them.
You still keep coming in from the land, you can still keep finding the people who are fleeing S, fleeing S from Derna towards Aid away from the city.
So you need to support them as well.
But certainly adding the maritime option makes complete sense.
Thank you very much, Mohammed Anadul Wansi.
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As you already mentioned, we have witnessed 2 two different disaster in Morocco and Libya.
Do you think that United Nations was ready to respond to these disasters at the same time, can you praise the United Nations response?
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I unequivocally say yes to that question.
It's a good question because they are, as you say, Mohammed, they're different formed crises, but they were exactly, almost exactly the same in time, both requiring massive response and immediate response.
The the key characteristic, and we've seen it all over the world, a sudden onset disasters.
You have to be there straight away.
Disaster search and rescue teams are trained to be there within 24 hours globally and ours are included and our teams include representatives from member states, by the way, they're they're a consortium of member states.
In our teams, we certainly have more than a single team in the, the, the roster of UN disaster coordination teams that we manage through the Ocho Geneva office or support through the Ocho Geneva can certainly manage response to more than one onset disaster at a time.
We felt that it was that that redeploying to Libya was an efficiency at this time.
They were there in the region, people speaking Arabic and and being able to engage quickly and effectively.
But we're equally ready to to, to build up more coordination.
But more aid is what's really needed now into Morocco.
The agencies of of course have been in Libya all this time.
We've heard about them on in the media.
The welfare programme I I know has has a programme of assistance through local partners.
As usual, local partners are the key in both places.
And what we're waiting for in Morocco is, is that moment of the green light to start the process.
And look, let me be very clear, in my experience of sudden onset disasters, that first few days is always a days of relative confusion.
Responding to the complexity in a period of trauma is very difficult for governments, for administrations, for ministries, for local organisations.
No, nobody should be surprised by how attention is focused on other things when we want it to be about ourselves.
But the signs are very good in Morocco that we will be able to provide support and you can be **** sure we'll be ready.
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Martin, I know you have another commitment just after this, but can if we can take at least one more question, is that OK?
I have Jamie Keaton, who has been waiting on the platform for a while.
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Thank you, Mr Griffiths, for coming to see us.
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I just wanted to get you.
You mentioned green, the green light.
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Can you can hear my question?
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I wanted to just ask you about both situations.
One, very quickly, you mentioned the green light.
I mean there's been a little bit of a hand wringing and a little confusion as to why international aid, particularly UN aid was not called for right away.
You've mentioned you're waiting for the green light from Morocco and you've, you said on numerous occasions the coordination, which is your expertise.
This is your expertise.
You're the coordinator.
How I'm just how surprised were you that, that, that the call was not made to Ocha to get more involved in this, being that this is your area of expertise?
That's the first question on, on, on Morocco.
And then just very quickly on Libya, if you could just tell us exactly what the pressing needs are now.
I mean, you mentioned the search and rescue and, and under the rubble and the earthquake of, of, of Morocco, but what is the urgency now for, for Libya?
I mean, if what can be done and and what needs to be done in the very immediate thanks.
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The Morocco we, we, we stood by.
It's important that the government, which has primary responsibility and frankly has the resources needed in any country, the primary resources needed to respond to the needs of its citizens, needed to be clear on its own organisational arrangements, on getting access to its people.
And Morocco has a very distinguished history in recent years of building up very deliberately and putting a lot of investment into its response capacities.
And they were very clear with us that they needed to avail themselves of their own highly developed assets.
And they didn't need us at the beginning.
But you know, the beginning is only last Saturday and we're, we're, we're, we're, we're not that late much later now.
So we, we, I don't have any critical remarks to make at all.
We are ready to to work and we're ready to provide support on coordination.
And critically Utter is not the primary player here and critically for the agencies to be able to provide assistance.
And it is only in the recent day or so that in Morocco, the shift has been from finding survivors to helping survivors survive.
And that's when aid is of the highest importance.
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And one of the things that we need in Libya, as we saw in Syria, for example, in the Syrian earthquake in February, is the need for equipment to find people in the, in the, in the floods and the sludge and the, the damaged buildings in Derner and its environments.
But also we need those priority areas are shelter, food, key primary medical care because of the worry of cholera, because of the worry of taint, you know, particularly in Libya, the worry of of lack of clean water.
That's a huge ****** to the lives, particularly of children, which is why UNICEF and and and others are there, but also so the the the clear core business of humanitarian response, food, shelter, healthcare, but also in a disaster like this and Libya as well as Morocco, but Libya is going to be a huge issue is psychosocial care.
As I said, Alessandra, in my remarks, and as I've seen in the privilege I've had of going to some of these places of tragedy damage, the trauma.
The unimaginable way in which people are required to get up in the morning and deal with a family which is 3/4 of which have lost their lives in a situation in which all their property has been torn away, in which they have no money, they don't know where to sleep, how are they going to get food.
The psychosocial trauma in these moments of crisis are the hidden story.
That needs so much attention.
And humanitarian agencies are well equipped to deal with this.
We've, they've all seen it everywhere before, But they're going to, we're going to see it very, very importantly, I think in Libya, because of the specific nature of this complicated moment on that Monday morning at 2:30 AM, with the storm bursting and the dams breaking and taking the lives of God knows how many people we eventually discover.
Let's pause a moment just to think of them.
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Thank you, Martin.
I'm sorry for the journalists who are queuing with questions, but Martin really has to go and we really thank him for having being here and come back whenever you want.
You're always very welcomed by our journalists.
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Thank you, Jens, just for the journalist.
Let me tell you that there are more people who are going to speak about Syria and we also have you have them on the agenda and also we have say and Madaya who's the Chief of mission in Libya of UNHCR with Matthew and they are on the line.
So we will continue speaking now about Libya and ask Margaret and Andrew, I don't know if you want to also come on the podium, but we have three agencies now.
We're going to talk to you about a a Libya related issue, although it is a little bit larger because we're speaking here about health risks and dead bodies from disasters and conflicts.
And of course, Libya is very much what comes to mind, especially after what we have heard from Martin.
So to speak about this, we have our Margaret Harris, Dr Harris from WHO Andrew is here for ICRC, sorry for IFRC, with Doctor Tamir Ramadan with the IFRC head of country delegations in Libya.
He is connecting from Cairo, Egypt.
And we also have from ICRC Bilal Sablu, the regional forensic manager for Africa.
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And Crystal is also on the line if we need to answer any, if she needs to answer any question.
And as I said again, UNHCR is not actively briefing, but their Chief of mission is on the line to answer questions if needed.
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As as Martin said before, we also have Mrs Ganyon on the line, Georgette Ganyon.
We hope to have a full-fledged press briefing for her maybe next week and but she has been connecting 2 together with Mohammed Al ASI who's our communication person in UNS meal.
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Terms Oh he's not I was given of his name on this on this list.
OK, that's fine.
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Him now, given that it follows on quite nicely.
From OK, so maybe we'll start if it's OK with Margaret and with Bilal.
So let's let's start immediately with Tamer, with Doctor Ramadan to hear just about Libya and then we go to the dead bodies and I'll go to questions.
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Sorry for the mistake.
Thank you very much.
And let's go to Doctor Ramadan.
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Thank you very much.
And I'd like again to thank you for availing another slot to discuss the situation in Libya and what I foresee is doing hand in hand with the Libyan Red Crescent on the ground.
Actually, the situation in Derna is is given more complicated when we talk about the access, in particular when we talk about the increase in number of affected relation.
The access to the city is now very challenging because there is only one Rd that leads from Benghazi to Derna.
There are a lot of of humanitarian actors on the ground who are trying to provide aid, but coordination is key in this response.
What we have done recently and that we've received a lot of relief aid materials from neighbouring countries and sister national societies.
3 planes came from Turkey, one came from Egypt, one came from Emirates, one came from Kuwait and another 2 came to come from Saudi Arabia.
IFRC is deploying 2 flights very soon to from Dubai to to Benghazi, all of relief item materials as identified by the Libyan Red Crescent.
We are deploying also search teams of technical expertise and capacities to be working hand in hand with the Libyan Red Crescent in the assessment in the limitation of the operation and rescue, rescue operations and implementation of all the plants.
Of course, like our colleague from OCHA mentioned, the the needs are more or less the same and the response is also more or less the same.
We are providing first aid, health, health services, evacuation shelter, temporary shelters.
Of course, we are still in the development of of proper shelter.
And in this regard, I I will be very much interested to coordinate and cooperate with the UN agencies who are working to avoid application and ensure maximum benefit for the beneficiaries.
What in addition serves to the services the Libyan Red Crescent is providing is the dead body management, which is very much important in this crisis.
Dead bodies are in the streets as we saw in the in the focus of the media.
Again, Red Crescent has its specialised trained teams to deal with with these cases, but not in this massive amount of of bodies to deal with.
So we are donating body bags and donating also deploying on the ground expertise to support them.
What I wanted to highlight that IFRC has launched an appeal of 10 million Swiss francs over one year and a half, almost aiming at supporting the rescue and and the relief operations, but also the recovery phase that will soon follow.
And it will need, it will need a lot of resources and a lot of efforts and coordination.
Of course, also I'd like to highlight that that the crisis is not in there now only there are five more cities in Libya affected by the the Stone.
Derna is the most affected, but also our teams are deployed in SUS, in Al Baida, in Jihad and trying to affected the population there.
We don't want to talk about people in other cities and only focus on them.
That will be all from my side.
If you have any questions I will be happy to respond.
Thank you very much.
[Other language spoken]
I know that Emma and Nick were hoping to ask these questions to Martin and that was not possible.
But Emma, I'll give you the floor if you want to ask any question to Doctor Ramadan or maybe other colleagues who are involved in the in the Libya operations.
[Other language spoken]
MFR, sorry, sorry.
MFRT is our correspondent from Reuters.
Yeah, sorry, it was from Martin.
But I, I was wondering, do you still have hope for finding people alive in Libya at this stage?
And I would also like your thoughts on coordinating aid.
What experience have you had with the challenges of dealing with the two sides and and has that really delayed aid efforts?
[Other language spoken]
Yeah, thank you for your question.
The hope is still there.
It's always there to find people alive.
However, if time passes with no signs or no communication, this might be not a very good sign.
However, due to the cut off communication, maybe some people are away from the the places that they should be and they are not able to communicate with their relatives or their beloved ones to announce that they are safe.
Hope is still there by time it's dimensioning or decreasing, but we will always have hope and faith to fight people alike.
For your second question about the division and if it's affecting the relief operations, the division has been there for more than 10 years now and I'm confident to say that it had never affected the humanitarian operations of the Libyan Red Crescent or IFS.
We do have very good relationship with both governments, authorities on both sides and they know that we we do have our role as humanitarian, neutral and impartial organisation.
So they have never handled or or blocked our operations more in this regard.
We hear that the government in the West is deploying medical convoys and and supporting is to the affected people in the in the east.
And this is a very good sign in my opinion.
This is the time for solidarity, not for anything else.
Thank you very much.
Let's go to the another question on the platform.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Good morning and thank you for the question.
You mentioned that more cities than just Dern are affected.
I wonder if you could give a sense of the overall population in the affected region that and, and the kind of support that will be needed longer term also for that broader population.
And secondly, following up a little bit on Emma's question about the two governments.
I just wondered is, is there a central coordinating body just now?
And this is a question perhaps also for Doctor Tamara and and Georgia Ganyon.
Who are you actually dealing with?
And in the recent past, there has been concerns or been reports from Libyan media of, of armed groups who have, you know, run interference with humanitarian aid deliveries around the country.
So I wonder if you're having any experience of that at this point.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you for your question.
And I'll start with the second point, with whom do we coordinate?
We coordinate with the authorities assisting in the area we are working in.
That means the authorities of the government in the east.
And this is well known and appreciated by the government in the West and and Libya is a very special context that the communication and coordination at the field level may be sometimes more efficient and the more important than the the biggest or the coordination on the on the bigger level.
For your question, if there is a central coordinating body or something like that, not up to my knowledge and and it's not implemented or not in place.
There is a higher committee for the crisis on the level of the government in the east that have representatives from all organisations supporting the crisis in the east and they are controlling that that front.
Thank you very much.
And again, if any of the colleagues who are online want to intervene, just raise your hand.
I'll go to Christian Eric, DPA.
[Other language spoken]
Doctor Ramadan, my question is on the figures.
Since you have the most teams on the ground, I think, can you give us an update on what you hear from your teams?
How many people have died and are still missing?
And my other question is, has any of the material that was donated and has been sent by plane, has that actually arrived on the ground in these 5 cities?
[Other language spoken]
About the numbers, we do have many sources of numbers right now and you can see it on the media.
So the definite numbers will be available upon the finalisation of the assessment on the ground.
Then it will be available to to publish and to share with all the media.
Right now talking about numbers, while the people that the groups or the teams in the crowd are still doing their assessment, account and registration, it will not be definite or or accurate.
Your second question about the aids or the materials has then has they been arrived to the field?
[Other language spoken]
And in there it was kind of a chaos because a lot of relief aid has arrived with the city from many different organisations, including IFRC and its partners and other contributors to the crisis.
In the beginning it created a lot of chaos where they or how they are to be used or to whom it will be delivered or distributed.
Right now there is new system put in place to register the beneficiaries and prioritise who will be receiving aid.
But yes, the materials, a lot of them are on the ground, a lot of them are on the on the way to Libya and a lot other materials to come to Libya in the future.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Christian, you have a follow up.
Yes, sorry.
I, I have to come back to the numbers because on Tuesday you told us that 10,000 people were missing.
I wonder whether we revised that figure now.
I understand that it's difficult to say, but we had a figure 2 days ago.
So it would be good to know now or three days ago whether this figure has been surpassed or has to be revised down or whether you can say anything about that.
[Other language spoken]
Yeah, last night we had a call with the teams of the Libyan Red Crescent.
They will be publishing their final, not final, the second report by midday.
So the the numbers, of course, they they have changed, but we, we cannot really say how many are now missed or or killed or stranded.
Maybe by midday today there will be different numbers from the teams of the crowd.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much.
Let's stay with a Oh, Jeremy, you.
I had seen your hand and then it had disappeared.
So you have a question for Doctor Ramadan.
Yeah, my hand disappeared.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
I was hoping that someone could answer me in French, otherwise English would be fine.
But something that has been said about the, the, the dead body management, I understand that contrary to, to what people tend to think, it's, it doesn't pose a health risk.
I would like you to, to maybe elaborate more on, on, on this issue, maybe in French if you can.
And is there any difference between the situation in Libya and in Morocco from that point of view?
And you are lucky, Jeremy, because we're going to have a full point on the briefing on that.
And indeed, as yours was the last to end up for Doctor Ramadan specifically, I will now go to that point.
Indeed, as Jeremy said, there's been quite a lot of reporting about that bodies in the streets of Libya and the possible health impact that they could have, like the impact they could have, don't have.
So WHOIFRC and ICRC have issued a statement this morning, I believe, and we have Margaret, Andrew and Bilal online to tell us about it.
So I'll start with Margaret.
I don't know about the French, but maybe we will do something in French afterwards.
Maybe somebody can answer in French.
[Other language spoken]
Sorry Jacques, me, my French, I can answer in French but it's pretty horrible.
I think it will be better in English, frankly.
We've given my accent etcetera.
Yes, you're right.
Dead bodies per SE are not, especially after a disaster like this are unlikely to be a health risk.
People have died because of the massive flood or the earthquake, not because of an epidemic prone disease.
So therefore as such.
However, there are certain things, for instance, faeces from the dead body can contaminate the water if not handled properly.
So This is why proper management is critical.
The other thing I'd really like to say, and I should have started with every person who has died has left behind a raw wound, has left behind grieving people and this is what matters.
Our deepest condolences to all those people.
So the reason it's very, very important to manage the safe and dignified burial of people who have died under all circumstances is to ensure that you know who they are, where they are, especially in the catastrophe.
Fear of this size, it's the families may not know where they are, but at least those managing can document it properly if it's not rushed.
It's a very, very big job, as we've heard, and we'll hear more from my colleagues, but the essential health facts are that people who have died in a catastrophe like this, their bodies do not generally represent a health risk.
It is more important to manage the safe and dignifying burial because what we're looking at is the health, the physical health, but also the mental health of the survivors.
We've got hundreds of thousands of people who need physical but also mental health care so that they can get back on their feet and get their societies back on their feet.
I think I'll hand over to my colleagues now.
Thank you very much indeed, as as Martin said before about the mental health of the victims.
So I'll go now to Bilal, who is coming to us from Nairobi.
Bilal Sublu, you are the regional Forensic Manager for Africa via CRCI.
Give the floor on this subject.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much.
[Other language spoken]
And 1st, we, we express our deepest condolences for all the families.
So the communities in eastern Libya today are surrounded by deaths and destruction.
Bodies are littering the streets, washing back up on shore and buried under collapsed buildings and debris.
In just two hours, one of my colleagues counted over 200 bodies on the beach near there as the best toll from Storm Danielle Mount.
I want to counter and unfounded fear that dead bodies from natural disasters, conflict or other mass casualties events cause disease outbreaks or epidemic.
We see this too often strongly reported in the media and even by medical professionals.
This is not without consequences.
What we see as forensic specialist working on the ground in the wake of disasters like Storm Danielle and during armed conflict is that this month, misunderstanding often pushes people to hastily bury the body and make it more likely that people will go missing, leaving their loved ones in anguish for years to come.
The sheer number of bodies makes responding to the forensic needs in Derma and surrounding area already extremely difficult.
My fear is that this misinformation will make this work even harder for the Libyan Red Crescent volunteers and authorities who are on the forefront of managing the dead in the wake of this devastating disaster.
Bodies need to be documented and buried in labelled body bags.
Graves need to be mapped so that there is record of who is buried there.
The efforts make it possible for loved one to later recover a body and have the closure of a private barrier.
They help prevent people from going missing forever.
The ICRC today sent a cargo flight from Geneva to Benghazi with over than 5000 dead bodies to help authorities and Libyan at Crescent for volunteers in the dignified management of the dead.
This comes after depleting all the stock that we had in country in recent days.
The work to recover and buries the dead will take time and can be dangerous.
As the recovery effort continue, other supplies like pickaxe, hard hats and equipment to uncover bodies from rubble will be needed.
Those involved involved in the recovery of bodies could also be at risk from injury from unexploded ordinance which moved with the float water.
We will be doing whatever we can to help this effort with supplies and Technical Support.
The ICRC team, along with our Red Cross and Red Crescent partners, will also be working to dispel this unfounded fears and misunderstanding so that communities can mourn the deceased loved one without fear and can have the closure that they need and deserve.
Just a short while ago, together with my colleagues from WHO and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent, we distributed a new release with further facts about dead bodies and public health.
Thank you for your time and I'm available for any questions you have.
Thank you very much, Bilal.
And last but not least, IFRC indeed you wanted to tell us about this release.
Yes, I'm just here representing Gwen EMA, who is our senior officer for public health and emergencies and head of emergency operations for the Moroccan earthquake response, and I'm going to read a quick statement from her.
An unnecessary rush to dispose of bodies of those killed in disasters or conflict deprives families of the opportunity to identify and mourn loved ones while providing no public health benefit.
Dignified treatment of dead of the dead requires appropriate time to identify the deceased and mourn and perform funeral rites in accordance with local cultural and social norms.
Thank you very much, Andrew.
So I'll start with the question, but we will also, just just as a heads up, we will also hear more on Morocco from Benoit in a moment.
OK, so let's start with the room I see Katrina for for our colleagues.
Katherine Fiencon is our correspondent of Francois Cat, French Channel.
[Other language spoken]
Good morning to all of you.
Could I kindly ask Mr Bilal Sablou to send his notes as quickly as possible.
It will help us answer you to what you just read.
I would like to come back to the question of my colleague, the previous question about the bodies and the situation of the bodies, the difference between Morocco the the result of an earthquake and the result of floods.
How do you handle that?
OK, I know that you're more in the field in Libya, but could you explain us what the risks are, the different risks and the differences of the risks?
[Other language spoken]
Who wants to pick this up, Margaret?
So maybe I've been right.
You're speaking about Morocco later on, but if you want to intervene, just just raise your hand.
So I'll start maybe with Margaret.
Essentially, as I said, in a in a catastrophe like this, people are are going about their normal lives and most of them, vast majority are healthy people whose lives have just been cut short.
Whether it's in an earthquake, when you're crushed beneath rubble, or in floods like this.
Now, there is one difference.
In floods, you've got a lot of standing water.
It doesn't mean the dead bodies pose a risk, but it does mean that the water itself is contaminated by everything.
So you really have to focus on ensuring that people have, have access to safe water.
And Martin Griffiths really emphasises that the water and sanitation work, but it's not.
And it, you can get some contamination from the contents of the bodies, of the, of the guts of the body.
So you can get a risk of diarrhoea or diseases, but it's not the dead bodies that are the main cause of that risk.
It's everything else that's in the water.
It's the mud, it's the chemicals from the houses.
It's so in other words, it's, it's not about getting the bodies out of the water and then saying fine.
It's not drinking the water and ensuring you have a safe water supply.
Very clear, Margarets.
And that's the other people interviewing.
OK, So that's good.
[Other language spoken]
Yes, you have a follow up.
What are the risks for bodies when there's an earthquake?
What are the the priorities?
So I think it's the same thing, but I think I refer to my colleague, our colleague in Morocco because he's dealing specifically with that.
But again, the same thing, safe and dignified burial.
The important thing is to identify the people, know where they are.
The biggest risk, honesty is the enormous scar you leave in people, the living, if you don't do what my colleagues are describing.
And I really want to say I've been in so many disasters and seen what they do.
This is the hardest, the grimmest, the saddest work and they do it day in and day out and really appreciate the work of our colleagues in ICRC and IFRC.
[Other language spoken]
Let's go to the specific monsoon Katrina.
Thank you on the on the dead body management, yes, I mean, I fully agree.
We, we, we have to focus on on making sure we find all the bodies, but we also take care very much of the people that are grieving their lost ones.
So as it was said before, there's no health risk as such.
It's a bit different probably than than in, in Libya because of the one is kind of related to water with the floods and, and one is we're in a very dry context here in Morocco before the moment that the that the the management should be the same, which should be managed, you know, safe and dignified, dignified burials, making sure we support people that have lost their loss months.
That's the main focus.
Thank you very much, Benoit.
Talking to us from Marrakesh in Morocco, we have before Geneva Solutions.
Yeah, actually this was a question for for Margaret.
So just sort of going back to what was discussed earlier.
And I just wanted to understand a little bit how the coordination comes is when it comes to offering, you know, contact with the, the governments in these countries.
And given the, the issues that there has been in terms of access, has The Who been reaching out to, to the authorities in, in Morocco?
Is it each of the agencies that is trying to, I don't know, offer their their services to, to these governments?
Or is there sort of a focal point in terms of, you know, somebody from say security from OCHA that's reaching out to to the governments?
Well, I'll speak to WHO.
So we've got country officers in both countries that have been working a long time.
And as I think you know, WHO works very closely with the Ministry of Health.
And the first thing we do is go to our counterparts in the Ministry of Health and say what can we do?
And that's been happening from the get go in both countries.
Now the overall UN response of course is managed by the resident coordinator and Orcha coordinates the humanitarian response.
So I'll, I'll let them speak for what they do.
But we are of course part of that.
But because we are health and we work very much with the Ministry of Health and we have been in both countries for a very long time with strong country officers, that's how we were able to work very quickly right from the start.
[Other language spoken]
And giving given the access issues in in Morocco, I mean what has, how have you been working in, in that sort of situation in terms of trying to be there?
Early we have been there for us, the we have been able to do the work as but of course it's always directed by the country.
The country is sovereign and we work with the Ministry of Health.
They're in partnership.
Indeed, and we'll hear more from Benoit in a second.
[Other language spoken]
I'll take those.
Then we will listen from Myanmar and then we will go to the other speaker.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much.
I I wanted to know what the scale of the mass burials and the mass cremations were.
Do you have any anecdotes from what you've been seeing on the ground?
And you know how many have been buried in that fashion or cremated in that fashion?
[Other language spoken]
Who wants to take this up?
Do we have numbers?
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
So maybe I can ask Tamir if he has any information on that?
I'm not sure if Tammet's still there, but if we can take that question and come back to the journalist who asked it.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much.
OK, So let's go to the next one, Dina, Dina Bisaba.
Yes, thank you, Alessandra.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
We read yesterday in the news release that in Derna there is a danger of unexploded ordnance and abandoned munitions stores.
Do you have any more information about those stores, maybe some numbers?
And how risky is the situation?
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
He is not connected anymore.
So who would Bilal?
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much for for the questions.
Yeah, we, we are working with our specialist in ICRC and we are now evaluating the situation and developing different guidance and providing we'll, we'll, we'll be providing support to the national society and the authorities in, in, in this place.
As I mentioned in my speech that yes, there is this risk now because many of this ordinance, they were washed by, by the water.
And this is one of the concerns that we are now addressing in, in, in, in Derna with with our specialist ICRC and with our partners in the movement Red Cross, Red Crescent and the Federation and in coordination with.
And I see Crystal Wells, ICRC spokesperson here in Chinivals wanted to intervene.
Crystal.
Hi, thank you very much for this question and I hope you all can hear me and see me OK.
This is a major concern today for the International Committee of the Red Cross.
I think what we have to remember with regards to Libya is this is a country that suffered from obviously years of conflict and violence and the ripple effects of that protracted conflict.
We don't have a full scope right now in terms of the level of weapon contamination in the area, but it's something that our teams will be looking into because it obviously can create additional risk for communities, for first responders, and as my colleague Bilal pointed out, for those who are doing the very tragic and sad job of trying to recover the remains of those who died.
Thank you, Crystal.
I have a question from Jamie Keaton, Associated Press, and then we will go to Binma.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
My question was for Mr Ramadan.
Is he in a longer on the call?
Oh, he's gone, Mr Ramadan, but Andrew can take note if you want to ask his or maybe you send your your question directly to, to, to him, to Andrew.
[Other language spoken]
I was really just trying to figure out if and maybe somebody else will have these numbers, but the number of bodies that have been so far buried.
I mean, I know Cristiano was trying to get the numbers from Mr Ramadan earlier, but maybe he'd be specific about the numbers of.
I think Andrew said that he was taking this question back and and come and come to you with an answer, right?
I'm not sure whether we'll have an answer, but we will certainly come back to you and give you whatever we have.
Thank you very much.
OK, So Benoit, let's hear from you for the rest of your briefing on on Morocco.
If you could do indeed some parts in French, you would be very welcome.
Thank you very much.
I'll try to switch my brain in between.
So I'll start in English and you'll let me know when you want to switch to French.
Well, I'm not going to go back to much in the numbers that have been mentioned by Mr Griffith earlier.
I can talk to you a bit more about what I see here since I've arrived and, and we're talking devastation in many, many villages.
I was in the field yesterday quite far away from, from Marrakesh.
It's about 280 kilometres and the villager was in half of it was completely flat, in another probably half of it was the houses were damaged and that's a 30,000 people town.
We're facing here a disaster where it's not centralised in one place.
It's hundreds and hundreds of villages that are scattered in the mountains.
Some will be like the one I went to yesterday, 30,000 people.
That's not a village, that's a little town.
We're talking about sometimes little village that has 10 or 100 people.
So we're working very, we're working here with the Moroccan Red Crescent and their volunteers and they're basically their job now is to try to make sure we have a coverage of all these villages.
So they're working very closely with the local authorities.
I was hearing about the coordination.
So we have coordination at all levels to, at national level with the authorities, regional level, but also at commute community village level to try to map out all the needs from the populations from the small villages to the towns that have been affected.
The, I've heard many times the epicentre is 75 kilometres away from market, it's 75 kilometres radius and and more.
The village I was in yesterday was 280 kilometres away from Rakesh.
It was very heavily affected.
So the logistics, the logistic aspect of this operation is going to be crucial.
Again, the volunteers here of the Moroccan request and as are they are from those communities.
I mean Moroccan request and has 8000 volunteers across the country.
So obviously not just in that region and that all that is only the ones that are mobilised normally as a volunteers, but there's been an influx of solidarity and people wanting to, to to volunteer to support people that have been affected.
So the, the operations for the last weeks have been obviously the search and rescue operations, first aid, psychosocial support, which has been flagged many times, which is crucial, providing food and water.
But the needs that are now coming is shelter.
There's hundreds of thousands of people that are still without a roof on top of their head.
They need shelter.
They need mattresses to be able to sleep on under blankets, warm clothes on Tuesday next week, expecting storms and rain and people are still sleeping outside.
In the coming weeks in the mountains.
It's going to be 0 to -10°.
We need to make sure all these people have something, a roof, some kind of roof on top of their head.
It's going to take weeks, months, years to be able to rebuild because we're not talking repairs.
[Other language spoken]
So this is the situation at the moment.
The we're deploying teams here for water and sanitation and hygiene, which is one of the crucial point in this response as well.
And the logistic emergency unit that will be deployed in, in the coming, coming days.
And then we'll do a more global assessment to see what are the other needs.
We will have flights of goods coming in the country in the coming hours as well.
Just before I stop, I would just wanted to because behind the numbers and we've heard a lot of a lot of numbers, 3000 deaths and we don't know if it's going to be a final number, but between behind, sorry, all these numbers, they are individual people and these people are the ones we and we will need your help to relay to continue talking about these emergencies.
We tend to disappear from the news in the wild, all these villages and the people in these villages.
Yesterday I met with a person called Syed.
Syed is 39.
He was not in his village when the earthquake struck, but when he come back, When he came back, two of his three children named Mohammed, men men.
Hassner was 11 and Ibrahim was five, were pulled out of the rubble by his father.
And we're both dead.
These are the stories of the people that we hear in every single villages.
And we need to make sure we keep on telling their stories and we support them in the long run and not just in the first month after the emergency.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Benoit.
I don't any hands up for questions.
So I like to thank all those who have been participating in this briefing.
And yeah, thank you very much for following up with the questions of the journalists.
I go now to my right.
We have the pleasure to welcome Mr Jose Rossello Moncayo, who is the Director of the Statistical Divisions of FAO, who will tell us about the launch of the tracking progress on Food and Agriculture related SDG indicators.
2023 reports of FAO please.
Hello and good morning to to everyone.
So as you all know, we are in the midpoint of the 2030 Sustainable Development agenda and the clock is ticking in order to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
So this edition of the FAO report that is entitled Tracking Progress on Food and Agriculture Related SDGS Indicators offer a critical look on how much we have progressed so far on the Food and Agriculture related SDG targets.
Earlier this year, the UN Secretary General sounded the alarm on the SD GS, declaring them to be in deep trouble and calling for a drastic rescue plan.
And next week, world leaders will gather in New York for the second SDG Summit.
And this summit will take place in one of the most challenging moments in recent time, moments in which we are still dealing with the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, also with the impact of armed conflicts happening around the world with **** inflation and along with escalating effects of climate crisis.
And we just heard testimony of that in the, in the, in the previous, in the previous interviews.
For this reason, the SDG Summit has triggered enormous expectation for a comfort concrete action plans to reverse the current downhill trends and kick start a new drive to achieve the SDG goals.
In this sense, the timely release of this FAO report provides an opportunity for decision makers to have an evident based discussion on how to transform agrifood systems in a way that bring us closer to achieving the SD GS.
So what are the main conclusions of this year edition?
And let me begin by saying that while the world was already off tracked from meeting the SD GS even before the year 2020, the past few years have seen multiple shocks that have further stalled or even reverse progress across the several targets that are related with the SD GS on Food and Agriculture, the world overall has made no improvements on achievement.
The SDG 2 of 0 hunger.
And shockingly, the proportion of the world population that suffers from chronic hunger in 2022 was about 9.2% compared with the 7.9% in 2015.
And the latest estimates of FAO were still putting the global hunger figure between 691 million and 783 million people.
In addition, investments in agriculture have stalled, there is no progress in conserving animal genetic resources, and forest area across the globe continues to shrink.
Only a few areas we have noticed positive trends, for example, in the conservation of plant genetic resources on water use efficiency and also in the adoption of instruments to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.
To add to this green picture, FAO assessment is necessarily incomplete as many SDG indicators are still struggling with substantial data gaps.
Data gaps in terms of geographical coverage, timeliness and also disaggregation.
And this is one of the silent topics that will be discussed at the SDG Summit.
Simply, we cannot achieve what we cannot measure and recent analysis by several partners have shown that for every dollar that is invested in creating data systems, we have a now economic reco return equivalent to 32 U.S.
dollars, which is an astonishing multiplier effect.
Therefore, there is the need to speed up investments in data generation and capabilities, in particular in less developed countries, to be able to guide transformative change.
I encourage all of you to read the new FAOSDG progress report and let me close by emphasising that the FAO is committed to make all the efforts that are possible and feasible in order to rescue the SDGS and delivering our collective promises for the people and the planet.
Thank you for your attention.
And my team and I are here during this morning, the whole morning, and we'll be happy to answer your questions about this topic.
Thank you very much, Mr Moncayo.
And I'll give you a little bit more information also on the SDG summit later on.
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[Other language spoken]
So I just wanted to know, are these efforts to to boost up, boost up data collection, is that being coordinated here from Geneva?
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Thank you for your for your question.
In the UN system, all these type of effort that have to do with collecting SDG indicators and also to promote the capacities of countries to produce and report on SDGS are under the umbrella of the United Nations Statistical Commission.
All, I mean every single one of the 231 SDG indicators has an specific custodian agency that is responsible and is responsible for advancing on the methodologies of these indicators.
But also and more importantly to promote activities of capacity development at country level for countries to to do this.
So there is a very well coordinated effort in which every single one of the United agencies that are custodian of these indicators work.
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Other questions in the room, Katrina, I saw your hands moving now.
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Any question on the platform?
I don't see any.
So thank you very much, Mr Moncayo, for this.
Interesting insights in the report and it gives me the opportunity to remind the journalist that on the 18th and 19th September in New York, Heads of States and governments will come together for the SDG Summit.
With only seven years, as we have heard, I mean, remaining for the implementation of the goals, only 15% of SDG targets are on track to being achieved.
And it's against the sovereign backdrop that the SDG Summit will be an opportunity for all sectors of society to accelerate actions towards the implementation of SDGS.
Before that, today at 10 AM New York time for PM here, the UN Deputy Secretary General, together with Akim Steiner, Administrator of UNDP, Serwin Hart, Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General of Climate Action, and the Assistant Secretary General for Policy Coordination and Interagency Affairs of DESSA, Francesca Spatolisano.
They will all come together for a press briefing as a preview of the SDG Summit and the **** level week of the 70th session of the General Assembly.
As I said, this is today, 4:00 PM Geneva time.
Of course, it will be in New York, but you can follow this live on UN Web TV.
We have already sent you information about the **** level events of next week.
But I just would like to speak about SD GS to inform you that head of the SDG Summit, the UN Department of Global Communications, which as you know we belong, has launched a challenge which is called the Hashtag Act Now Challenge this one to mobilise 100,000 actions for the SDG across the world.
We are already on track to exceed this number.
But we would really like you to talk about this as the challenge.
We run until the 17th of September.
Each time that we the time goes by, we will focus on one of the four NOW action area, which are the actions for a healthy planet, for a world working together, for a better economy and for a just society.
So I really invite you to download the app and contribute to that or speak about it.
And of course, we will keep you informed on the events of next week.
But this is today at 4:00 PM, as I said.
So let's go ahead now with our last two speakers that as I always say, and it's true and they're not definitely the least.
So I'll start with Anne Bassen and can you come to the podium, please?
So, and as you know, it speaks for the Global Fund.
Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria and you have something about climate change and conflict.
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And we have also some good news which I think is important to share sometimes too, although it's good news with a caveat of course.
So we are also about to in a very timely manner publish our results Report 23, We are the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The report is going to publish on to be published on Monday.
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So I won't give you all the statistics, all the very interesting results, but I will give you the three key findings.
And as we said very timely moment SDG Summit, there will be more about it later.
And also the UNGA is for the first time going to really focus a lot on health with three **** level meetings on health, one on pandemic preparedness, one on tuberculosis and one on universal health coverage coverage.
So first of all, the good news, let's let's start with that, is that in 22, the Global Fund partnership has regained momentum in the fight against the three diseases, HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.
We had had big setbacks from COVID-19 and now we can say that we put more people than ever on antiretroviral treatment, ARV for HIV, that we found and put on treatment more people than ever with TB and that we distributed a record number of mosquito Nets to prevent malaria.
So overall, most of our prevention and treatment programmes exceeded pre COVID-19 pandemic results.
And we're very proud to say that.
So, so important to say, it's not only the Global Fund, but the Global Fund partnership, governments, civil society activists, those very, very heroic survivors, people who are working on the front line.
Number 2, second finding, second trend.
Despite this remarkable turn around in programmatic results, you will not be surprised probably to hear that we are not on the right track.
We're off track, off the trajectory to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 3 of ending AIDS, TB and malaria by 20-30 across all three diseases.
But, and that's important to say, especially when it comes to TB and malaria, we will not achieve the 2030 target unless we take extraordinary steps.
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We must become smarter in how we invest and we must also redouble our efforts.
And that's very important to end the stark inequities that fuel these diseases.
We've seen during the COVID-19 pandemic that even with the best vaccines produced, you know, the fastest, if their inequities and people don't have access to these vaccines, it's not much use.
So why are we so off track?
Well, Jose has already mentioned some of these reasons.
COVID-19 has not been the only obstacle on our Rd.
In many countries in which the Global Fund invests, the fight against the three diseases is is made much more challenging by a combination of interconnected and colliding crises, including, of course, climate change.
We've seen Cyclone Freddie in Mozambique and Malawi that has made it much more difficult to fight malaria, and also that has increased the rate of malaria infection conflict, which makes, of course, our operations much more difficult.
Ukraine, Afghanistan, Yemen, and more lately also the so-called Sahel spring economic stresses and debt crisis.
And for us also very importantly, an alarming erosion of human rights, the stalling and reversing in gender equity in many countries in which we operate, the deepening inequities within and between countries.
But #3I promised I'll be short.
We should not be daunted by these multiple crises.
If we are to achieve the SDGS, we need to accelerate progress.
It's the same that my colleague from FIO said, and the Global Fund partnership is uniquely placed to do this.
In the last three years since COVID-19 hit us, we have demonstrated that we can adapt and we can save lives when conflict or disaster strikes.
A Global Fund partnership is uniquely placed to accelerate the equitable deployment of game changing innovations so that those who need them get them rapidly.
And let me give you a few examples of these innovations.
For example, the broader deployment of pre exposure prophylaxis or Prep, including the new long acting injection form could have a significant, significant impact in reinforcing HIV prevention in **** risk groups.
But also very interestingly, the dopavirin vaginal ring for HIV prevention gives girls and women the power to protect themselves from HIVTB.
You might not know there's still one person every two minutes dying of TB.
Key innovations including new diagnostic tools such as mobile X-rays and lower cost molecular diagnostics, but also new treatments such as the six months oral treatment regimen for drug resistant TB.
And that's huge because these these treatments are very difficult.
Six months, they used to be 18 months.
So imagine when you have to take very difficult treatments for your mental health etcetera for 18 months and a new short course TB preventive treatment called 3 HP.
Lastly, for malaria, which still kills a child under 5 every minute, there are a range of innovations in vector control, prevention, diagnostics and treatment that will help us combat the alarming trends in infections and deaths.
For example, dual active ingredient, insecticide treated mosquito Nets.
Dual active ingredient, They are much more efficient than the other mosquito Nets and they will be made available at scale from 2024.
They're dramatically more effective.
So we're using market shaping tactics to increase access to treatments and preventive tools.
We have recently managed to reduce the price of cutting edge WHO recommended HIV treatment to 54 U.S.
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Imagine the miracles that we can make with this.
We invest in health systems, health system strengthening laboratories, infrastructure, but even more importantly, we've seen this also through the COVID crisis.
We invest in community health workers.
We estimate that 2 million people are on the front line to fight the three diseases.
These are the people who do the actual work and we couldn't communicate these results if it weren't for them.
Let me finish with two real life examples.
We have the results report here under embargo, but I will give a few copies.
We can see her Adelaide with her indoor residual spraying team.
They have been spraying houses just after Cyclone Freddy hit in Mozambique.
These are the people who are really on the front line.
And this sex work in South Africa is jumping up because she's just gotten a negative HIV result.
And again, community health workers are doing a fantastic job.
She could have this test done in a discreet way inside her house so that she doesn't have to fight stigma because these are the obstacles that are really on our roads.
Stigma and the fact that some people, even if you have the best innovation, some people might not have access to them.
Thank you very much for your attention.
The report is full of interesting infographics, case studies, and of course, our team is also available for any questions.
We also make pictures available so you know where to find us.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you and thanks for your patience.
This has been been a longer briefing, but thanks.
This was really interesting.
And as you said, we will hear more about health next week at the 78th session of the General Assembly with the three **** level meetings you've mentioned.
Questions to Anne in the room.
I don't see any or in on the platform.
I don't see either.
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Yes, and please distribute the material.
I I keep seeing on the chart and this is also for FAO.
If journalists are asking on the chart, if you can send the information.
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Normally when you go first this time you go last for an update on the Council Pascal SIM Mercy.
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Just to remind you that right now, Claudia Mallard, the independent experts on the Rights of Older Persons, is giving an interactive dialogue to present her latest report, which focuses on the violence against and ***** and neglect of older persons.
She will also present her reports on her latest visit to Nigeria, Bangladesh and the Dominican Republic.
And this afternoon, around 4:15 PM, Deputy **** Commissioner Nadal Nashif will present the OHCHR report on economic, social and cultural rights in the context of the COVID-19 recovery.
Just want to remind you that in this room at 1:00 PM, the Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures, Alina Duhan, will present a report on the impact of such measures on the right to health, as well as on the report on a recent visit to Syria.
And on Monday, the Human Rights Council will hold interactive dialogues with three special procedures mandate orders, starting with the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that will present its annual report, as well as reports on its recent visits to Botswana and Mongolia.
It will be followed by an interactive dialogue with a Special Rapporteur on slavery, Tomoya Obocata, whose latest reports focuses on homelessness as a cause and consequence of contemporary forms of slavery.
He will also present a report on his recent visit to Costa Rica and Mauritania.
And we will conclude the programme on Monday with Livingstone Sewan Aya, the independent experts on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order.
His report addresses the representation and participation of youth in international governing body.
He also has a report on his recent visit to Georgia.
And one last point regarding investigations mandated by the UN Human Rights Council.
As you probably saw yesterday afternoon, the independent International Fact Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran issued a press release on the one year anniversary of Jinnah Masamini's death in custody.
The press release is on the Fact Finding Missions web page.
And this coming Monday at 1:30 PM in this room, the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia will be giving a press conference regarding their latest reports to the Human Rights Council.
My colleague Todd Pittman will moderate this press conference.
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Thank you very much.
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Any question for the Council?
Don't see any in the room or online.
So thank you very much.
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I have a few announcements.
First of all, as I was saying before, we have this press conference by all the people I've listed today as the preview of the SDG Summit we've sent to the media advisory.
In the media advisory you also find some information and a lot of links to the other **** level events of next week in New York in the framework of the 78th UN General Assembly.
And there are also media contacts for those who would like to get in contact with our colleagues in New York on the SDG aspects of the activities of next week.
Here in Geneva we have heard about the European and the Human Rights Council.
We also have the Committee on the Rights of the Child.
That is concluded in this morning, it's review of Togo.
And next Monday, the committee will have a public meeting in the Paladin as soon to launch the General Committee comment 26 on children's right and environment with a special focus on climate change.
The Committee on enforced disappearances that open this week, it's 25th session, is reviewing this morning the report on the Netherlands.
And next Monday morning at 10 AM, we'll start the report of Nigeria, the countries to be considered stopping here.
The others have been examined from the 11th of September.
You'll find more information on that on our website.
The OHCHR is giving today at 1 PMA press conference on the impact of unilateral coercive measures on the right to health, as we have heard, Professor Alina Durham.
And then I wanted to remind you that on the 21st of September, we will hold here at the Paladinacion the 11th Geneva Peace Talks.
This 11th edition is focusing on the International Day of Peace of official theme, which is actions for peace, our ambition for the Global Goals as of course it coincides with the SDG Summit in New York.
You may remember the format of this particular event.
It's a this is a series of short 8 minute talks where speakers share their vision and stories of peace with the audience.
It will be held, as I said, on the 21st of September at 4:00 PM from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM, followed by a reception.
You're kindly invited and that will be in room 17 of the Paladination.
But of course, you can also follow this online.
I think I told you everything I had, yes.
And so I'll, I'll see if there are questions for me.
I just forgot to mention that today is the International Day of Democracy, incredibly important.
We sent you the message of the secretary general.
Any, any question not in the room, not on the platform.
So I wish you a very good weekend and see you next week.
And don't hesitate to ask us if you have any question, including on the events happening in New York.
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