Welcome to the press briefing of the UN Information Service here in Geneva.
Today is Tuesday, 7th of July.
I'd like to start immediately by welcoming our colleagues from WHO who are calling in, Tariq from Geneva, I guess, and Doctor Ann Ancia, who is The Who representative to the DRC and who is coming to us from Bunya for an update on the Ebola situation in the DRC.
You have received just one word of housekeeping.
You've received the agenda for today.
I'm not sure exactly when Guy Ryder, our UN and the Secretary General for Policy will come to the room.
So we will try to play around this, this visit because he has very little time, but he has been willing to talk to you.
So we will try to do our best in terms of agenda.
I don't know if you want to talk first or you will go directly to Doctor Ansia.
I think we can go directly to to Doctor Ansia to give us an update on the overall situation in the Democratic report could become Doctor Ansia.
Today I will provide an update on the Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundy Bonjour virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The outbreak unfortunately continues to expand and it's true scale has not yet been fully established.
As of fall of July, the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has recorded 1561 confirmed case, including 506 deaths and 254 recoveries.
In DRC, more than 10,000 contacts are being monitors with an overall follow up rate of 82%.
Treatment centres have been established and providing approximately 700 beds across 22 facilities, with efforts underway to add 300 additional beds.
Despite encouraging progress, however, we continue to face major challenge.
Existing treatment centres are operating at around 90% occupancy, placing significant pressure on the response.
I visited treatment centre in and around Bunya, Beni, Boutembo, Katwa and I made frontline workers responsible for patient care, contact tracing, investigating alerts and sanitising, sensitising and mobilising communities.
I witnessed first hand the dedication of staff who continue to serve their communities despite enormous challenges, and I really wish to salute the engagement of each and everyone involved in this response.
Population movements, persistence, insecurity and the fragility of the health system continue to complicate efforts to bring the outbreak under control.
Humanitarian needs remains substantial, particularly regarding civilian protection, access to food and access to health services.
We see still other disease such and malaria and measles continue to spread.
Under the leadership of the government, the coordinated response is progressively taking shape.
Laboratory capacity is increased from 30 tests per day in Kinshasa to more than 2000 tests daily thanks to den decentralised laboratories established in the affected provinces.
The latest of these laboratories just opened in Bunya to relieve pressure on the main laboratory and accelerate diagnostic and effective case management.
A clinical trial began on 7th of July to identify effective treatment against Bulibunja virus disease.
The trial will have will evaluate 2 promising therapies, a monoclonal antibody MBP 134 and the antiviral R.E.M.
Desiveir these drugs will be administered alone or in combination to assess their potential to improve survival among people with the Bundy Bunge virus disease.
More than 1200 treatment dose are available and the platform trial design allows additional therapies to be incorporated as new evidence emerge.
There is also efforts that are ongoing for a prophylactic trial led by the National Institute for Biomedical Research and its partners.
Early diagnostic and access to high quality supportive care remain critical.
Close collaboration with affected communities is also essential to breaking chains of transmission.
I would like to firmly reaffirm that the people and the communities affected by this outbreak remain at the centre of our response.
WHO maintains A0 tolerance policy towards all form of sexual misconduct and is committed to ensuring that the response is conducted with full respect for the rights, the dignity and the safety of the affected population.
The World Health Organisation remains committed to supporting the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its partners in strengthening the response.
For this, WHO requires 115 million, of which 32% has been received to date.
And we are very grateful for the support and the generosity, which is already helping to save lives and protect communities.
Thank you very much, Doctor Ansia.
And I see that Tariq wrote in the chat that your notes have been distributed to the journalist.
So I'll open the floor to questions now and I see Reuters.
One on healthcare workers, I understand that some of them are on strike over pay and I was wondering what impact that was having, please.
Also, are there any survivors amongst them of the Bundibudio strain and do they have immunity and can they treat patients more safely as a result?
And secondly, I'm hoping you might have an update on Ebola in some of the displacement camps.
Is that under control now or are people panicking and spreading the virus further?
Anything you can say about Ebola and camps?
Yes, maybe I will start with with the ID.
PS They are effectively cases in IDP camp and at WHO.
In collaboration with the government and with the partners, we have formed a specific team that is actually looking at addressing the cases inside the IDP camps to ensure as well that we respect their culture.
As you know, it has been a little bit difficult at the beginning.
Some members of the response were not able to enter the camps, so we also worked very much with our team that is working on risk communication in community sensitisation to work with the communities of the of the different camp.
Different camp has the are welcoming different communities and to make sure that they were understanding all the means of protection, all the means of ensuring that during break would not further disseminate into their camps.
And now we've got several partners who are entering in their camps.
And even yesterday we were supposed we we could not because we didn't have the time.
But as we were visiting the treatment centre of IMC in Bunia, we were also willing to go and visit the transit centre that they have established close to the Kinsong camp, which is here as well in Bunia.
But my team and my colleague will try to go and we've got people who are regularly going into these IDP camps.
In regards to the strike that happened effectively and now it's already 2 days ago.
Yes, there is an issue with the with the payment and it's some payment have arrived, but it is very complicated and the government had had limited opportunities to bring all the money at once in in Italy.
So they are a group of people who have not been yet paid and they were a little bit unsatisfied.
So yes, there was a beginning of a strike two days ago but the incident manager here, Professor Akili Mani really went and talked with the various representation of the health workers to talk to them to explain the challenges that government and some of the partners here had to bring the money on the ground.
There was also a discussion about harmonisation of the salary grid and, and, and therefore there was a lot of negotiation.
Most of the health workers restarted work as of yesterday.
There are still a few groups who are unsatisfied.
And for example, in the IMC camp yesterday, we could see that the people in charge of infection prevention and control were still were still sitting there because they were still trying to negotiate their their salaries.
So the discussion are ongoing, negotiation are ongoing.
There is very good communication and we are trying to understand everybody's challenge so that we can make sure that payment are not an obstacle, that people can be rewarded for their dedication, the engagement, the risk that they take.
We understand that frontline workers are having a lot of risk and we are really willing to support with the best that is the best this weekend.
Just just following up on the on the health workforce, how are there enough of them?
Is that contributing to the to the issue?
Are they sort of overworked or are they is there a risk of suffering from from burnout in this?
We are really trying to to protect them and to make sure that people have have rest and and recovery as well.
As you know when we arrived in Bunya, for example, as you know the the outbreak was already there.
There were already a lot of people who were infected in, in the health facilities.
And you may remember that what we did very quickly, we took all those health workers that had been in contact with patient without protection and we, we isolate them and we give them rest and responsibility.
So we brought workers from other provinces as well to help with the with, with the work and the response of, of Ebola.
So now the workers who were off for 21 debt 21 days has come back again.
I can tell you that sometimes they're not very happy to see people from other provinces coming.
But we need to really making sure that as you say, we have enough health workers and not not later than this morning in the in the meeting that that I was in with WHO, we were talking as well of doing monitor, sorry mentoring.
So we will bring new health workers in so that they can be trained, for example, in case management.
We will for example, use the CME treatment centres here in Bunya to bring health workers from other health zone of of Ituri.
We will bring them into the the CME health centres, we will show them how to do the treatment, how to protect themselves, how to wear personal protective equipment, the respect of red zone, Green Zone, a specific way for the, for the patient, a specific way for the health workers, the specific ways for the waste management so that they can go back to their own facilities and start doing this kind of treatment.
An example, for example, last week I was, I went to visit a very specific communities in Sota, which is in the head zone of Nian Kunde Sota.
There, there are specific Acnes and they didn't want to be treated in the, the Ebola treatment centre in, in, in Nian Kunde because they, it's two different communities, two different Acnes.
So we started to establish and to open a treatment centre in Sota so that the people of this community can feel at least we brought treatment, we brought healthcare to them so that they can feel that there is.
And then we discuss how are we going to train those, those health workers and those health workers cannot be trained in the CME of Nyan Kunde, but they are being trained in the CME in Bunya because there it is much for them.
It is much more culturally acceptable.
So we are really trying now, as I said, to do clinical mentoring, to do contact tracing mentoring so that we can have more and more health workers of the province that that are being trained.
Some will be sent back to their health facility, to their health facilities because we still have people who are coming, going into new health facilities.
And we really want to impeach those health facilities to be to be infected.
We want to protect health professionals who are in those health facilities so that they know how to receive eventually new cases in their health facilities.
But it's also about sustainability, It is also about health systems strengthening.
We know that this outbreak is still ongoing.
It will not be the last outbreak in those areas in Bunya in North Kivu.
And therefore we are willing as well to train for the long haul a group of health workers who will know in the future how to better detect, how to better diagnosed, how to be the treat the population who may be affected for the next and the next and the next outbreak.
That is that that may happen in in those areas.
Yeah, brief follow up, please on the on the rate of spread, are you seeing signs that it's starting to stabilise or is it still in a in an expansion phase?
And, and if So, what do you put that down to?
It is still in the expansion phase.
Unfortunately, we would like to say it is stabilising, but frankly, we, we cannot say it yet.
And we are, we are really, really trying to, to be able to, to better understand it.
We, we are strengthening our investigation.
We are strengthening the the history of each and every case so that we can really understand, you know, the chain of transmission and, and trying really to make sure that we have isolated every suspected case, every contact case that is coming from every confirmed case that we've got.
So there is a lot of work that is ongoing.
We are also scaling up our team of epidemiologies.
We are, we are establishing an analysis cell that can, that will therefore enable for us to have a better, a much better understanding of the transmission chain and so that we can better control the, the outbreak and really understand, you know, its scale and, and, and, and its transmission.
But for the time being, transmission is still ongoing.
There are a lot of movement of population.
The governor in Ituri is really trying to walk on decreasing the movement of population in full respect of the rights of people.
And I can tell you a story that I've already said.
You know, the example is the people who are in Manguelu, walking in the gold mine over there.
There are people who came from other provinces.
There are people who came from North Kivu.
There are people who came from Chopo.
There are people who came from who really, they came alone.
They don't have anybody with them.
Maungwalu is not their communities.
When they start feeling sick, some of them want to be treated as fast as possible because they have understood the importance of early treatment.
Some others, they are not interested in being treated in communities that they don't know.
They take the route and they're trying to go back home and they get sick on the way.
Sometime they cannot reach home.
They go in a health zone that has not been yet infected.
They try to seek treatment and they start infecting a community over there.
Others are trying to go back in their community.
And it's why we see still a lot of community deaths, for example, in North Kivu, where I was last week.
And it's really those people who are coming back and they're coming back too late.
They go and die in their family.
So as I said, there is still a lot of population movement.
We are trying to minimise them.
We are strengthening point of control to try to identify suspected case, isolate them, bring them more earlier in in in the treatment centres.
We are establishing transit centres.
We are also talking of really trying to have in each and every health facility of the provinces, trying to have at least a place we we can put two suspected case and trying to call then an ambulance to come and bring them in the treatment centre.
So this is what we are working on for the time being.
But really transmission is still ongoing.
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We have with us and welcome Daniel Bunskog, who is the ICRC head of delegation in South Sudan.
He is joining in from Juba, if I understand well to tell us about the humanitarian situation in South Sudan.
Let me see if you are the.
Now we can see you and hear you.
Thank you very much for having us and good day to everybody.
So indeed, a significant proportion of the population of South Sudan continues to face severe and prolonged humanitarian consequences driven by by pervasive conflict and violence.
The impact of the conflict in Sudan with more than 1.3 million people who have arrived here since 2023, climate shocks, floodings, disease outbreaks and of course people struggling with their day-to-day economies and light years.
Since 2025 there's been an increase in in violence and and armed conflict between the South Sudan People's Defence Forces and the STLAIO, the the Sudan People's Liberation Movement.
In opposition civilians keep paying the highest price.
Unfortunately, as I sure see, we have been providing life saving surgical care for people wounded by conflict and violence.
This is one of our key operation priorities in South Sudan.
And since 2024, we have treated more than 9000 patients and done almost 30,000 surgeries.
And that's actually what I wanted to focus on in this briefing that unfortunately we're not seeing a decrease in the flow of of wounded linked also to the escalation of the rightness and conflict that I mentioned.
In the last 1 1/2 years, there's been an alarming number of wounded individuals resulting in quite high numbers in the first half of 2026, as you'll see as evacuated 260 weapon wounded or actually a bit more than 260 weapon wounded across different parts of South Sudan, which is an increase of 50% compared to the same period last year.
In Juba, the Juba Military Hospital, which Daiso C supports in partnerships since 2013 and which remains one of the main trauma referral centres.
We've also seen this number of surgeries increase by roughly 30% compared on a year, year to year comparison basis.
And actually our teams are working on on a regular basis at over 100% capacity.
So quite high pressure on healthcare teams, especially when it comes to trauma care.
Some facilities have been damaged, destroyed or looted.
This means that people wounded, but also other people needing medical care, you know, reach life saving care on time.
And this is affecting hundreds of thousands of people.
In some areas they rely on one health centre which might now not be operational, which would lead to serious consequences.
To give you some examples as well on on some of the challenges faced by patients in this in this context in this country.
So since access to care is not immediate, it takes sometimes a lot of time.
And if you are wounded in the conflict, the speed and timeliness of care is is the most important.
So we have, we've had cases where patients have have been carried for for days by, by community members, by family members to reach a location from where we can evacuate them.
Some patients even when they receive first care, the first aid, sorry they, they have to wait in in agony for for many days, sometimes weeks before there is an opportunity to for them to reach, to reach adequate health care.
And this means that a lot of preventable consequences such as amputation or or mobility impairments for life could have been avoided.
So, so these are serious issues that are affecting families and of course the people wounded for years to come.
These are life altering events that unfortunately keep, keep, keep, keep rising in the last six months.
So behind these figures we have a worsening humanitarian situation in South Sudan.
As I mentioned, this comes at a time when overall humanitarian funding is shrinking, not only in South Sudan.
Humanitarians, including ourselves, we are prioritising more deliberately our choices of response and means.
A lot of people in need are without much need of assistance.
This is of course a serious issue.
South Sudan will be marking 15 years of independence this week, Thursday on the 9th of July.
As you see has been working in South Sudan or what is today South Sudan since 14 years.
Also this year we continue working alongside health authorities and partners, especially the South Sudan Red Cross to continue providing this life saving care and evacuating patients from our to reach areas to deliver those those services to them.
And of course, there's a final point.
Healthcare is is highly important for the population is protected under IHL.
We call on all the parties to the conflict to uphold their responsibilities under international humanitarian law, especially those of civilians, of health, healthcare workers and patients.
And of course, the protection of healthcare facilities that are even more relevant in the context such as this where there is a big lack of those.
Let me see if there are questions for you in the room.
Based on what you've seen on the ground, were there to be an Ebola case in South Sudan, do you think the surveillance system there would be able to pick it up?
Thank you for the question.
I think WHO of course and our partners here in South Sudan will be more habilitated to answer that question.
What is clear is there are there are currently very, very intense efforts across the the whole humanitarian sector together with the Ministry of Health and the National Institute of Public Health WHO to coordinate efforts and to increase the readiness and preparedness of South Sudan to deal with the potential outbreak in South Sudan.
As I sure see, we, we support together with our partners from the on the movement, the international red press and record the Red Cross, red press and movement, the South Sudan Red Cross.
It's a very, it's a very important actor in South Sudan with almost 19,000 volunteers who are planning to also increase and step up their community engagement and awareness building in counties in the especially in the South of South Sudan.
There have been 15 counties identifying some on a priority, especially the ones bordering Ituri and over there where communities will be sensitised on, on behaviour, on the risks and how to.
So that that's an important element, I think was also mentioned by the previous speaker.
On the civilian weapon injuries that you're seeing in hospitals, what can you tell us about the nature of those injuries?
Are we talking sort of if being hit with random gunshot wounds, what's the overall picture that you're seeing of civilian harm and injury?
Well, it's a, it's a very wide array of, of, of, of wounds that we are treating.
But most primarily it's we're dealing with weapon wounded.
So gunshot wounded individuals, be they civilians or be they also combatants from from either side.
So we have a non distinctive, neutral and impartial approach to that.
Everybody needs life saving care and everybody's protected.
So it's primarily gunshot wounds from different parts of the country.
Some are very serious, of course, especially as I mentioned before, when somebody has not been able to reach care for a while, wounds get infected, there is a higher risk of of serious consequences and also it lessens the chance of survival.
So actually the real focus is, is the speed of intervention, which we're trying to increase as much as we can through our support and the type of of victims we're seeing are consistently wounded by some kind of firearm in in the majority of the cases.
I don't see other hands up for you, Daniel.
Continue updating us on this very dire situation.
I'll now change it with the order.
We go now to PAL Expo where we have our colleagues from UNHCR waiting in a precarious position.
So let's let's talk to them now.
And I'm happy to see they're not only math Matthew Salmarsh, but also Gisella Lomax that you may remember.
She is the Senior Advisor on Information Integrity for UNHCR.
And she'll tell us about his speech and the impact on displaced people.
Thank you, Alessandra, and good morning everybody.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is concerned about the spread of misinformation, hate speech and deep fakes that are exacerbating and inciting real world harm to refugees and to humanitarians.
Artificial intelligence is intensifying these risks to the integrity of our information ecosystems and undermining trust.
But AI can also be part of the solution if managed the right way.
AI is transforming our world and built with purpose and inclusivity.
The technology will bring opportunities and tangible benefits, including for refugees.
It can be part of the solution in addressing these complex information challenges in humanitarian contexts.
Right now I'm speaking from the AI for Good summit here in Geneva, where this morning UNHCR just convened an event with government, technology and academic experts to discuss the problem, but also positive responses.
It's critical that humanitarian and forced displacement perspectives are included in international AI governance efforts.
For example, ensuring that AI content moderation tools work effectively in volatile humanitarian contexts and in less common languages.
This means placing people at the heart of trust and safety teams and creating clear frameworks on guardrails and to counter manipulation.
This important work is happening against a backdrop of increasing information challenges.
The world's largest displacement crisis are often also information crisis.
When information is distorted, it can reduce access to jobs and education, make integration harder and threaten social cohesion.
Online rumours, false accusations, scapegoating, dehumanising speech have triggered protests and attacks.
In extreme cases, there have been links to physical violence, killings and even a factor in forced displacement.
Just last month, UNHCR communications for the International Day to Counter Hate Speech were themselves deluged with hateful comments.
The spiral of MIS and disinformation also poses risks to humanitarian operations and security.
UNHCR has noted an increase in false hostile narratives targeting our operations and staff, which also have the potential to significantly impact fundraising at a time of shrinking budgets and growing needs.
A recent UNHCR survey found that 93% of staff respondents had witnessed misinformation, disinformation or hate speech affecting the delivery of our mandate.
Women among both refugees and our staff are being disproportionately targeted, and generative AI compounds the effects at scale.
For example, harmful AI generated deep fake videos of UNHCR staff and refugees are a growing challenge.
Refugees, already reeling from traumas that cause them to flee, are being limited or prevented from accessing protection services that show their refugee status, like registration, as well as life saving assistance and other services.
This can cause unimaginable risks and even death, as we have seen recently in Libya, for example, where a wave of violent hate speech and dangerous misinformation incited hostility and abuse of refugees and affected the safety of UNHCR staff and humanitarian workers trying to support the displaced and Libyan host communities.
Dangerous examples include deep fakes of the UNHCR representative or online calls to upload the GPS coordinates of staff addresses and videos on social media describing national staff as traitors to their country.
Hate speech knows no borders and spreads rapidly online.
Communities that have been forced to flee their homes by persecution and violence, such as the Rohingya, continue to face dehumanising narratives online, even in exile.
This can also create or deepen divisions between host communities and displaced populations.
UNHCR fully believes that freedom of expression is fundamental and everybody, including refugees, should be able to access that right to receive and impart ideas and information.
This isn't about how legitimate societal concerns about migration and asylum are debated online, but it's about life threatening information risks that can lead to serious harm in humanitarian contexts.
For example, bad actors, including smugglers and traffickers can exploit digital technologies with disinformation to deceive people forced to flee and on the route with false promises of safety, legal pathways or employment, leading them into dangerous and exploitative situations.
UNHCR response is practical and highly collaborative.
With thanks especially to Switzerland, we created a community of practise on information integrity in humanitarian contexts anchored here in international Geneva.
We partner with different stakeholder groups at local and global levels.
Initiatives Initiatives such as the Global Refugee Forum Multi Stakeholder Pledge on Information Integrity, launched with Google here in Geneva back in 2023 can inspire further multilateral approaches.
Encouraging progress is happening, but it needs to be systematised and scaled.
Finally, refugees are at the heart of this work.
Local partnerships are key and help shape UNHCR Information Integrity Response Toolkit used by 2000 practitioners globally to guide practical action from risk assessments to community based responses.
It is one visible example of our collaborative approach.
The challenge is fast evolving and cannot be solved by 1 actor alone.
It is essential that refugee and humanitarian contexts are not left behind in discussions about AI governance.
Trusted information is a necessity for refugee protection, and information integrity helps save lives and maintain that trust.
Thank you very much, Gisella.
This is really important information.
I'd like to open the floor to question Anna.
No hands in the room, but I see Maya online, the brief Maya plans.
Thank you for taking my question.
Thank you very much for this briefing.
Giselle, you mentioned the Rohingya, which is a crisis that happened, I don't know, almost a decade ago, right?
But still there is, is there, the face is still lots of discrimination and, and, and bullying in online.
And my question is, how is UNHCR working in some way to control this to, to advise government or advise the social media companies?
Because I believe Facebook at one point, because it was happening, most of it was happening through the Facebook platform because Facebook is embedded in the Internet access of this communities or you could not access the Internet.
Facebook at one point even donated I believe 10 million.
Don't how how are you working with Facebook in order to support the, you know, control a bit of this misinformation campaigns that happened through their their platform.
The the connection was not good.
But I think Giselle must you have understood the question.
Yes, thank you very much for that question and I hope you can hear me OK.
I think first on on the Rohingya context more broadly.
For most of those displaced, voluntary, safe and dignified return to Myanmar remains the preferred solution to this forced displacement crisis.
However, with ongoing conflict across Myanmar and continuing persecution and discrimination of Rohingya in Rakhine State, current conditions do not support safe and sustainable return.
Until the conflict and the violence stops, country in the regions must continue to provide individuals fleeing Myanmar with access to territory, assistance and due rights and services, including protection from refoulement.
And really greater regional and international efforts are needed to achieve a political solution to the crisis and end to the hostilities and enable safe, dignified and sustained return.
But maybe looking specifically at the hate speech question, really preventing and mitigating these deeply harmful campaigns, which as I say, can exacerbate or even incite physical harm, is really a priority.
And I hope that's clear in in what I was saying today in the briefing.
We work with all stakeholders and you specifically mentioned tech companies, digital, social media platforms.
Well, they've taken important steps, but a lot more needs to be done and especially in humanitarian and conflict contexts and under resourced languages.
We engage with the whole range of tech companies and we recognise progress in some areas and continue to encourage further action.
We work with them at a practical level, at a technical level, and at a global level and an advocacy level.
One of the challenges I might point to is a significant research gap on these challenges in humanitarian contexts.
And it's really important as well that academic experts and researchers are also given a level of collaboration to be able to further fill these research gaps, enabling us to do more targeted and strategic response.
I hope that answers the question.
And I see there is also a question from John Zaracostas.
Thank you Gazella for the update.
I was wondering in that what you just mentioned in your outreach with tech companies, what are the responses that you're getting because there's been a lot of criticism that they're not doing enough to to limit all these deep fake life threatening duplication of of real individuals.
And do you have any evidence that some of this hate generated trends might be coming from COVID arms of intelligence services?
Thanks for the question, John.
I think, well, I hope I've made clear this is a growing problem.
And so no stakeholder is doing enough yet.
We need to turn the tide on this, but I do see some encouraging progress and even just this morning on the event here at AI for Good, Google was talking about some of their technologies that they're using to counter deep fakes and promote trusted and reliable information.
Our call to action is to all tech companies, AI companies and digital platforms to partner, invest and collaborate with humanitarian organisations.
We're often speaking two different languages, the language of humanitarianism and the language of AI and technology.
And the the communities that we are mandated to protect and serve and, and perhaps across the whole humanitarian sector are massive.
They can't be left behind.
And as I hope we've made clear, in war and conflicts and emergencies, these information risks are extremely sharp and can rapidly be leading to or exacerbating real harm.
We don't really focus on who the actors are.
That's not our job and role as humanitarians.
Our focus is very much on the harm, what's happening on the ground, what is the harm to refugees, what are the challenges to our operations and our staff and what can we do to mitigate it.
I think the the focus on maybe where it's coming from is really one for other organisations, but I hope that's clear that I think the harm really there underscores the urgency of the need for all stakeholders, including technology and the private sector to support, collaborate and act.
I don't see the questions for you.
Thanks very much for intervening from Palak Spore.
And before we leave this subject, let me just tell you that on behalf of ITU that AI for Good activities today feature a number of sessions highlighting how AI can help people's live.
The formal centre stage opening ceremonies will take place tomorrow and the food schedule is available online.
However, today there will be a press tour for reporters covering the AI for Good Global Summit and that will be a 4:00 PM at PAL Expo.
The reporter will meet at in room P.
This is just beyond the main security screening area, basically left of the restaurant.
And it's a different room from the press room that we use for the AI dialogue yesterday and today.
So just be there if you want to do this tour.
There will also be a press conference on building trust in AI systems, which is scheduled for Thursday, 9th of July at 3:00 PM and it's in person only.
Again, PAL Expo Room P and WSIS Forum 2026 meets continues to meets today at ITU headquarters and will move to PAL Expo on Wednesday.
The activities of WSSIS are also listed online and all the information you can get from David, Monica and their team.
And now I'd like to thank Scott for his patience and go to him.
He has an update on Venezuela and I'm told that Mister Mr Ryder is on his way.
I'd like to share some updates with you from our team in Venezuela.
Apologies that they can't bring you these updates themselves given the time difference, but if you would like to speak to any of our team directly, we can certainly organise it.
The devastation on the grounds, as we know, is immense.
Entire rows of large buildings have collapsed along the main road by the sea in LaGuardia, one of the hardest hit areas, and many other buildings are so damaged they're simply uninhabitable.
Nearly two weeks have now passed and search and rescue teams are now concluding their efforts.
Finding survivors is now sadly becoming less and less likely, however.
Teams from the Mexican and the Costa Rican Red Cross continue to recover bodies, providing some dignity to those who those who perished and closure to their families.
In terms of the humanitarian situation, needs are evolving rapidly.
While search and rescue and emergency medical care were the initial priorities, the response is now shifting.
Families whose lives have been turned upside down are are living, many of them in temporary shelters, and access to water, sanitation, healthcare and mental health support are all becoming increasingly urgent.
Over the past weekend, the IFRC deployed an emergency field hospital to LaGuardia in partnership with the Spanish Red Cross, which also provided medical staff for that clinic.
This facility can provide primary healthcare for up to 30,000 people and supports also maternal and infant care, vaccinations, epidemiological and nutritional surveillance and mental health services.
And it also has the capacity to accommodate up to 20 patients overnight.
Also, mobile clinics will begin operating in the coming days to help bring healthcare closer to to people affected by this this disaster.
And both the hospital and the mobile clinics are expected to be fully operational in the coming days.
They're they're in the process of being set up at at the moment.
This emergency field hospital will support the Venezuelan Red Cross's existing field hospital, which has been operating since the start of the crisis, and through this hospital, the Venezuelan Red Cross has treated hundreds of trauma cases in the days following the earthquakes and is continuing to provide healthcare and support to people.
The IFRC has also in recent days supported the Venezuelan Red Cross in distributing relief items in the Saint Martin Parish in Caracas, where families are sheltering after their homes were damaged.
These items include hygiene kits, cleaning kits, sleeping kits, water philtres and Jerry cans.
And this is part of 36 tonnes of humanitarian aid sent to Venezuela from the Ifrc's hubs in Panama and Argentina.
But the humanitarian situation on the ground remains extremely difficult and the IFRC is continuing to call on the international community to support our 50 million Swiss francs emergency appeal that that we launched to ensure our people in Venezuela get the the full range of life saving assistance they they urgently need.
And so those are the latest updates that I'd like to share with you all.
Thank you very much Scott.
Let me see if there are questions for you on Venezuela.
I also wanted to say that there is a comprehensive assessment of needs.
I mean you're spoken about the needs and and what we are going to this is going to be like a joint effort and we'll inform and update response plan and resource request very, very soon.
So I like now to if, if she's still connected, let me see.
Yes, Claire, you're still there.
Would you like to give your announcement what we're waiting for Mr Rider to arrive?
Thank you very much, Scott, for this update.
I will be very brief because I know you've got to PC as you schedule just to say the World Meteorological Organisation has today issued its State of Climate in the Southwest Pacific report.
It's for 2025 and it shows the, just the, the, the extent and the impact of marine heat waves, ocean acidification in the Pacific, which obviously is very, very vast ocean.
It's for 2025, but obviously given now that we do have an El Nino developing, we do expect to see, you know, more impacts, more implications for marine ecosystems, tourism, livelihoods this year.
We also talk about the, you know, extreme weather hitting the region.
Last year there was an unprecedented tropical cyclone in the state of, in the Strait of Malacca, which impacted 10 million people.
And finally, one of the other areas we touch on is, is glaciers.
We, you know, when we, when we talk about glaciers, we tend to think of the, you know, the Swiss Alps of glaciers in Europe, in, in the Himalayas, in the, in the Andes, there are tropical glaciers.
Unfortunately, they are melting rapidly and according to the report, we do expect, you know, the last tropical glacier in Papua to disappear by the end of this year or early 2027.
The report is on the homepage of our website.
You've you should have received the press release also late Sunday.
Yes, thank you very much for taking my question.
Claire, can you tell a little bit about this, how this weather systems affect us here in Europe, How is it impactful?
Could if you could just give us a bit brief overview and also if it's there someone I could talk to who is at the PAL Expo in the AI for good for a short interview on AI and whether so on, on Europe.
We've briefed with you extensively on it in the in the past couple of weeks, but I can certainly connect you with an expert on that.
And this week we are, you know, entering yet another heat wave in in Europe, Spain, Portugal experienced it at the weekend.
Switzerland has been Meteos fusap.
I've been receiving numerous weather alerts, you know, for, for heat wave, heat wave conditions again this week.
We're not expecting it to be as long or as severe as the most recent one, but you know, we are only very early in July and we still have the rest of summer ahead of us.
Yes, at PAL Expo, our Secretary General Celeste Salo is participating as is our Deputy Secretary General, Co Barrett.
My colleague, the head of communications, Nandita Surendran is is there.
So I suggest you make contact with her and I will put her, I'll put her phone number in in this chat so that in case you don't have a contact details.
Thank you very much, Claire.
That would be useful also maybe for other journalists.
If you want to, if anybody else wants to do that, let Claire know.
So Mr Ryder should be here.
They are walking down while we are waiting for them.
Claire should be still there.
So a lot of the information in the report was, comes from a year in which there were La Nina conditions and now we're moving into what could potentially be a strong El Nino.
So could you could you say a bit more about some of the impacts that that might have on conditions in the in the Southwest Pacific and for the people who live there?
Yes, we obviously we briefed on Friday on the latest global seasonal climate update which we've which we've issued the impacts and that does give you know it gives you a map of anticipated impacts both on precipitation on, on, on on temperatures.
It doesn't have a uniform impact on all Pacific islands.
We're talking about very, very big, you know, area.
Umm, so you know, some islands, uh, might get an increase in rainfall in, in La Nina, Others suppressed rainfall.
Umm, so it is, you know, there's not one overall picture.
Umm but certainly last year during the La Nina year, we did see quite severe, extreme, quite severe marine heat waves certainly hitting, you know, coastal areas of Australia and that was a La Nina year.
So typically what we would expect is worse, you know, higher ocean temperatures, potentially worse coral bleaching, marine heat waves during an El Nino year.
So it's an area which we're watching very, very closely.
The report does have a sort of case study from Australia's Bureau of Meteorology just on the marine heat wave services that they are rolling out.
And while it obviously can't prevent damage to ecosystems, you know it, it does provide, you know, local stakeholders with, you know, with scientific information on, you know, on, on, on, on the likely extent and, and the likely effects.
So thanks, Claire, for the answers to our journalists, thanks to the various speakers.
And this is really timely because I am really happy now to welcome our one and the Secretary General for Policy.
And Mr Guy Ryder, as we have told you at the beginning, he has very little time.
So he'll say a few words, a few remarks, and then we will take a few questions.
Guy, thank you very much for being with us and please go ahead.
Well, thank you very much indeed and hello to everybody.
Just very briefly to say that I'm here today to provide a briefing to our Member States on the UN80 initiative, the reform process that was launched by the Secretary General in March of of last year.
It's a reform effort to respond to well the entirety of the circumstances operating on the UN system, be they financial, be they political and in the process of advancing the initiative over the last well, it's a year and three months now.
We have worked along 3 areas of work, 3 work streams, as we call them.
1 is a very straightforward agenda of efficiencies and improvements, which is seen, inter alia, our ability to reduce the budget of the UN Secretariat for 2026 by 9.2%.
A significant reduction obtained in large part through a process of administrative approvals, efficiencies and the like.
The second work stream is about how simply, very, very simply, how the United Nations manages all of the mandates, the instructions if you like, through resolutions and decisions that our Member States hand to us and through quite an elaborate member State process work, a work group that is proceeding with this work.
We are now undertaking a really fundamental re examination of the manner in which the UN, the UN manages the creation of mandates, how resolutions are adopted, under what conditions, how we deliver on those mandates, how resources are allocated and responsibilities are assigned, how we assess those mandates for impact and decide whether or not they should be continued or retired.
It sounds rather sort of obscure, but if we're able to pull off this work successfully, it will represent, I think, a qualitative improvement in the manner in which the UN functions, its capacity to meet the expectations of member States and not less importantly, to demonstrate the impact that we are having in that regard.
And there's a third work stream which has to do with our structural arrangements and our programme alignments covering a very wide range of issues.
I'll give you sort of a feeling for them.
We're re examining the UNS country presence, re examining the configuration of our country teams.
You know, the impact of what the UN does is felt more than anywhere else in individual Member states.
So how we are organised at the member state level matters enormously.
We are looking at how we organise our humanitarian delivery.
We have a new humanitarian compact which inter alia involves creating unified humanitarian supply chains.
Think of this, 70% of EU NS humanitarian spend is on our supply chains of getting material assistance to people who need it.
So if we are able to bring together what is currently spread across different entities, procurement of humanitarian assistance, be it food, be it shelter, the global logistics of getting those things to people who need them and the in country delivery, we're creating a unified supply chain for all of that.
This can truly upgrade, both in terms of economy and of impact, and the expeditiousness of the way we're able to bring needed assistance to bear would have made an enormous difference.
We're looking at how we deal with technology, we're looking at how we deal with data.
If you want to really have access to the data and statistics produced by the UN system, and there's lots of it, you would have to consult 26 separate websites.
26 UN entities have now agreed they've signed up to put all of their information and data and statistics on one single website that might help you in your work and help many others in their work.
So it's the coming together of the UN system to do lots of things which are currently done individually.
There are a number of structural changes that we are looking at in the UN system, a couple of mergers of UN entities which attract a lot of attention.
We're assessing the merits or otherwise bringing together UN women and UNFPA, our fund for population activities and bringing together UNDP, our development programme with UNOPS, which is our operational piece on development.
We're looking at how to trans transition the mission and work of UN AIDS into the mainstream of development system.
And we're also bringing together quite a lot of small UN entities in the field of training and research into more consolidated and we believe more effective entities.
Some of the action points that we are working on require the agreement of member states.
When we look at structural changes, Member states have to come to agreement on those things.
But a lot of the work that we're doing can be done under the direct authority of the Secretary General.
And where it is the Secretary General who can decide on action to be taken, he is determined to go ahead before the end of his mandate at the end of this year and to front load as much of that before high level week in New York in September.
When it's a member state decision, we're not able to be quite so clear in terms of when decisions or indeed if decisions will be taken.
But I have to say I continue to detect a very high level of engagement from our Member states.
I think there is general understanding that change is going to happen in the United Nations system, change is happening in the UN system.
I think the choice is whether we design a process of reform to channel that change in positive directions or whether we're simply going to have change imposed upon us, probably by successive crises of a financial, political nature and something that we will be not well placed to be able to be on top of.
Secretary General has chosen the pathway of deliberate reform and that is what we are trying to carry through in the UNAT process.
So in a nutshell, those are some of the thoughts that I've been sharing with Member states today.
Thanks for sharing this with our reporter.
There are lots of questions.
I'll start with Emma Farge, Reuters.
Thanks for coming to brief us.
Just overall, do you think there are more job and budget cuts to come or the biggest ones now behind us?
And secondly, the International Civil Service Commission has been reviewing salaries and also perks like college education.
What is your current thinking about how likely those reforms are to go ahead?
Yeah, when, when it comes.
Thank you for the questions.
When it comes to the future of jobs and, and, and the budgetary situation in in the UN, obviously it's very difficult to be too definitive on these things.
The the UN Secretariat budget, and I'm looking at that mostly was reduced in 2026 by just over 9 percent, 9.2%.
The budget we're preparing for 2027, that process already under way will remain more or less at the same level.
So I mean, there are not further job reductions or budget reductions built in by design by the Secretary General.
That's not the direction that we are taking.
That said, and as you know, the UN is very heavily dependent not on the assessed contributions that go into that Secretariat budget, but by voluntary contributions of Member states.
And of course, the first thing to say about that is the decisions of member states on voluntary funding is not something that we can control or anticipate.
The most recent prognostication by the DAC, the OECD on development assistance are not encouraging.
Let me be honest, there could be further cuts in in in voluntary funding of multilateralism.
If so, we will have to, we'll have to bear that impact.
But the key issue really for the UNI think on the financial front is whether Member states do or do not meet their financial obligations, treaty obligations to pay their agreed financial contributions to the UNI think at the heart of our difficulties in recent times.
It's not the totality of the story has been the feeling that some member states don't believe they are bound by that obligation or do not act on that obligation.
And whilst that continues, and although we've had some changes in financial regulations which give us some relief from the impact of that failure of obligation respect, we'll still be dealing with a difficult situation.
But we are not planning inside the Secretariat to bring the budget down as we did in 26.
The ICSC, the International Civil Service Commission is due to produce its report this month.
I don't have the exact date.
This is not part of UN80I mean the ICSC, let me be clear, is an independent body.
It doesn't answer to the Secretariat and the Secretariat doesn't really answer to it.
A number of member states, I've made clear that they want to see some revisions in the compensation packages, be it salaries or benefits, and we'll have to see.
I can't give you any insight into what they're going to decide what the ICSC brings and reports to the General Assembly in that regard.
So I'm afraid it's a watch this space reply to your question.
OK, so let me go now to another question.
Thank you for for coming to this briefing.
I was wondering if you could provide a little bit more on how the merger proposals are going.
And is the Secretaries General still pushing for UN AIDS to sunset despite opposition?
What about clashes between the UNDP and UNOPS that we've been reading about?
And how much pressure has the Secretary received from the US towards merging and sunsets for these particular agencies and especially the agency of UNFPA and UN women, which itself may dilute political, the political mandate for women's rights?
And I'll sort of unpack them in reverse.
I have received zero pressure from the United States on any of these issues.
I have no knowledge of the United States exerting pressures for or against the mergers to which you you have referred taking the mergers 1 by 1 and, and a little telegraphically, I'm afraid, on UNFPAUN women.
There are basically two issues under discussion.
And let me be clear, what the Secretary General put on the table with UN80 was an assessment of the benefits or otherwise of these mergers.
He didn't propose mergers.
He said let's make an assessment of whether these would bring benefits or not.
And that's the process that's been under way.
And I agree these have been difficult processes.
And one thing I've learnt in UNAT is any structural change is particularly difficult in this, in this circumstance, UNFPAUN women.
1 issue is whether or not the assessment process, such as it's proceeded up until now, has given sufficient information and arguments to Member States to enable them to take a decision that a merger is a good idea.
And I think many Member States believe that they want additional information.
So the question is still open.
We have been asked the Secretariat to provide additional information.
We're in the process of providing that information and we'll feed that into the assessment process.
The second problem, and you've alluded to it when you talked about the United States, is a concern among some member States and indeed among civil society, that a merger of UNFPA and UN women might open up their mandates and lead to an erosion of some elements of their mandates, which will be considered by some member states to be contentious.
So we might have an erosion of existing mandates.
The Secretary General is very clear.
He said he would not wish to proceed with any merger process that placed existing mandates under threat.
And you know, the language he used on UN80 was very clear.
If you look at his original ideas, it would be that the merger might could only take place with a merger of mandates, meaning that the two mandates would be the integrity of the two mandates would be retained.
So those are the two questions which are still being dealt with in New York on that merger.
On the UNDP UNOPS merger, which has received a degree of comment out there, I think it's fair to say that merger for which I think prima facio there's some, there's some interesting arguments in favour.
I mean, what is interesting is that both of the entities concerned have spoken in favour of going from 2:00 to 1:00.
It's just the conditions upon which the geometry of going from 2:00 to 1 takes place which still divides those two entities.
And again, we're in the process of continuing that assessment process.
There is no question that we would want to force any type of decision on Member States, even if that were foreseeably possible, unless we have all information and all process in this assessment process duly completed.
We are proceeding and meetings have just taken place in this regard with the notion of transitioning UN AIDS, mainstreaming its mission and its activities into the development system.
And to be absolutely clear, there's absolutely no question of reneging on or retreating from the fight against HIV and AIDS.
It's just how the UN can be best placed to prosecute in changed circumstances that mission.
So that again, is a conversation that's going on.
I'm, I'm beginning to, you know, sound like all three, all three stories are the same.
They're all different, but they're all cases of continuing processes of assessment and negotiation with member states, the results of which will come in in, in in due course.
On the budget cuts that you mentioned, how many job cuts have there been so far?
And secondly, have you met with any of the candidates to be the next Secretary general to scope out their views on on this programme of reform?
But in the secretariat, I mean, one thing which I think sometimes we have difficulty in conveying, I'm sure you have this very firmly in your minds.
You know, jobs have been lost across the system in very different places under very different circumstances.
You know what's happened in the humanitarian section here, which has honestly got nothing to do with you in 80, is different from any job losses that have resulted from the UNAT process.
The UNAT process, I mean basically in terms of jobs and employment, I mentioned it.
9.2% of posts were cut from the secretariat budget for 2026.
That doesn't mean that 9.2% of the overall workforce has lost their jobs for two reasons.
There were pre-existing vacancies and they of course absorbed some of that 9.2%.
We've also made extensive efforts for lateral movements of colleagues whose jobs have gone to find a, a place elsewhere in the system.
And that process is still working its way through.
So perhaps the answer you want and I can't give you is, well, how many people actually are out of the system that is still working its way through the system.
But those those situations do exist.
But I haven't got a figure to share with you.
But that's the order of magnitude that we're working around.
And then on the on the second question, if you've met with any of the candidates to be secretary general to see what their what their views are, No one I have not met and it would not be proper for me to do.
But it won't have escaped your attention at in the public hearings, some member states did ask declared candidates what their views on UNAT and reform going forward should look like.
So I have to refer you to those hearings.
I know you have a hard exit, but can we take one more question?
Jamie Keaton, Associated Press Thank you, Mr Ryder, for coming to see us.
Associated Press I note that you mentioned that the you have not received any pressure from the United States on the question of the merger of various UN institutions and organisations.
I just wanted to ask you you, you also alluded to the fact that one of the big issues is whether or not the member states do or do not meet their financial obligations.
So broadly, beyond the question of mergers, what kind of communication have you had with the Trump administration about the UNAD reform process?
Are there signs that they are satisfied or at least engaged in this process?
And have you gotten any signal that the US funding could be restored, at least in part, over the course of your discussions?
Thanks for your question.
Look, the United States representatives in New York are very engaged in the UNAT process and they have been generally quite encouraging about UNAT.
They've welcomed what we've done in terms of budgetary rationalisation, they've welcomed what's been done with mandates and they remain engaged across the board.
There have been public statements of approval for some of the results achieved.
So there is a positivity and a genuine substantive engagement of UN representatives in New York on these issues.
And it's been described, I think, by Ambassador Waltz and others at UNAT, Deputy Permanent Representative Bartos, that it's a good start.
These are things which are approved on, approved of, excuse me, by the administration, but they want to go further in ways which are not entirely precise at this moment.
What about the prospects for funding?
The secretary general meets regularly with Ambassador Waltz.
We think we're getting our message across not just in terms of the the treaty obligations incumbent on the United States as on anybody else, but hopefully as well on the utility for US interests of investing properly in the in the UN system as well.
So these are continuing conversations.
I think that the UN80 has been a positive factor in those conversations and that engagement with the US administration.
I ask for the I apologise with the other journalist, but thanks so much for coming and briefing us on this request of the last minute and accepting it.
I've got a few a few more announcements.
Let me just conclude the briefing by giving you a final, a few final announcements.
And again, sorry for those who could not ask questions to Mr Ryder.
If, if you want, you can try to send them to me and I'll share it.
I'll share them with with this office just to tell you that the Human Rights Council is now adopting resolutions table during it's 62nd session.
The session should end tomorrow as you know, and I will not give you announcements on the human rights treaty bodies because they are not going to meet in the next weeks until the 10th of August when the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination will start again.
Same thing for the Conference on Disarmament which will resume it's 2026 session on the 27th of July.
Mr Rather spent spoke a lot about UNOPS and about procurement and other actions of this kind.
And I just wanted to on behalf of UNOPS to remind you that they have sent out the press release.
They have released it I think today.
And this is about the new report they have just published on behalf of the UN system.
The report, it's called the Annual Statistics Report on UN Procurement.
It analysis the combined annual UN spending on goods and services.
And for this particular report, they have found that UN organisation spent $22.7 billion on goods and services in 2025.
That report shows that 2025 marked the fifth highest annual total on record, remaining above pre pandemic levels, even as procurement decreased by over 11% compared to 1000 to 2024.
The decline defects, the UN sustained liquidity crisis, record member states arrears and the downsizing of several large peacekeeping missions.
And the press release has got more details on the sectors of spending and growing or decreasing expenditures.
You have received this in your mailbox and there is also an e-mail to ask For more information if needed.
I think this is what I had to ask you.
I see still Jamie and John's hands up.
I guess they were for a guy.
I can bring it to Guy later on.
Is he flying out today or is he staying?
I think a round of no, No, no, no, no, no.
I mean, it was really a fortune that I, I saw him yesterday because he participated in the global dialogue on AI and he was there the whole day.
But I could, I knew he was doing this executive briefing today at the Palais.
So I asked him if he could come and, and brief you, but he had very little time.
His agenda is packed today and I think he's leaving today.
And and by any chance can we get his presentation to the Member States this morning?
I will ask, I think the executive briefings are closed meetings, so I don't know if we can share that, but I will ask.
So if there are no other questions, thank you very much and following this briefing and I'll see you on Friday.
