Welcome to This Week @UN: Saving UNRWA; Kiribati’s water paradox; signs of UN Security Council reform? Plus: Kosovo; rape in war; US; Haiti; Sudan.
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PassBlue’s top story this week: Serbia Is Resisting a UN General Assembly Plan to Mark the Srebrenica Genocide
This month: Which Woman Should Be the Next UN Secretary-General? Our Survey Results
From PassBlue this week:
• UNRWA 2.0: How the Agency Serving Millions of Palestinian Refugees Can Survive, by Dulcie Leimbach
• Kiribati May Be Surrounded by Water, but There’s Not Enough to Drink, long-form article by Anastasiia Carrier
• Who Knew? Reform Is Happening in the UN Security Council, op-ed by Hasmik Egian
• Meet Vanessa Frazier, Malta’s envoy to the UN: Our latest podcast episode
• Sigrid Kaag, the UN humanitarian/reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, told the Security Council on April 24 that a “paradigm shift” is needed in the six-month war “to continue to meet the immense needs of the civilian population” safely. In proposals to Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Cyprus, she described how to “accelerate and streamline” the delivery of goods into Gaza, she said. Using dry language — steering clear of politicization — Kaag also noted to the Council the imperative for a “sustained flow” of “the right quality and quantity of assistance” as well as focusing on “volume, predictability and sustainability of diversified aid. . . . ” She reiterated that the top UN agency operating in Gaza, UNRWA, “is irreplaceable and indispensable” and “must be allowed to deliver on its mandate.” She also listed the steps Israel has been taking since April 5 — forced by US President Biden — to improve aid flow by opening more crossings into Gaza, for starters.
As to the much-publicized US-led maritime corridor from Cyprus, Kaag said preparations for building the floating port and pier off the central Gaza coast are “advancing.” The UN has “outlined the parameters under which it can play a meaningful role in the distribution of aid via this corridor” — reinforcing that the organization aims to be involved in the corridor but under the right circumstances, as Kaag negotiates with the US and Israel on such crucial details as security for offloading and distributing the goods into the enclave. (Israel will apparently carry out inspections of the goods in Cyprus).
Kaag, a former Dutch government minister who is praised to the hilt by the US, has pivoted quickly to leading the UN’s humanitarian aid coordination in Gaza, negotiating with parties to the war and others in the region (Jordan, Cyprus), to the chagrin of some top UN officials, one person familiar with the situation told PassBlue. Despite her metric-driven, clinical approach to alleviating the biblical level of suffering in Gaza, Kaag softened her tone in an interview this week, saying, “The healing of the soul is intrinsically personal, and I think it’s very hard to even for us on the safety of the outside world to even start to comprehend what people have been going through.” — DULCIE LEIMBACH
Top UN news:
Monday, April 22
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Caroline Ziadeh, the special representative of Secretary-General António Guterres in Kosovo and head of the UN mission there, told the Security Council that a lack of “adequate communication and dialogue” has obstructed discussions on “long-standing issues” “between Pristina and Belgrade or between the Kosovo Serb communities and the Pristina central authority.” In the meeting, which focused on the UN interim mission in Kosovo (Unmik), Ziadeh stressed that “the full implementation of the EU-facilitated agreements has become an ever more pressing priority, [to] help alleviate the continuing series of crises in Kosovo.”
Tuesday, April 23
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Pramila Patten, the special representative of the secretary-general (SRSG) on sexual violence in conflict, delivered Guterres’s annual report on the topic. It recorded almost 3,700 UN-verified cases of conflict-related sexual violence committed in 2023, a 50 percent rise from 2022; 95 percent of the victims were women and girls, and record levels were recorded of both “lethal violence used to silence survivors in the wake of sexual assault” and “internal and cross-border displacement.” The document highlighted “the systematic assault on, and erasure of, women and their rights,” in Afghanistan, and in a section dedicated to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, it noted “reasonable grounds to believe” that conflict-related sexual violence happened during Oct. 7 and is happening in the war in Gaza. The briefers elaborating on the report scolded the Council, saying that member states “cannot condemn the perpetrators of sexual violence in our speeches, while continuing to fund and arm them through our supply chains.” SIPRI’s latest data on the top global exporters/importers of weapons:
Wednesday, April 24
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Asked about the escalating situation at college and university campuses in the United States (and elsewhere), where pro-Palestine student protests nationwide have led to hundreds of arrests, Guterres’s deputy spokesperson, Farhan Haq, said the UN’s “basic position […] is the respect the right of people to conduct peaceful protests.” On reports that “Jewish students partly don’t feel safe to come anymore,” as a reporter mentioned, Haq said the UN is aware that “these protests [could] have been used essentially as an excuse for different individuals to engage in hate speech, antisemitism or otherwise. And we stand against all such hate speech.”
Thursday, April 25
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Stéphane Dujarric said the organization has “taken note” of a letter from Ariel Henry announcing his resignation as prime minister of Haiti and “welcomes” the installation of a transitional presidential council. Haiti’s finance minister, Michel Patrick Boisvert, will act as interim prime minister. Guterres renewed his call for the “swift deployment of the Multinational Security Support mission to Haiti” to help the national police take back control of the capital, Port-au-Prince, from gangs. So far, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin, Chad, Jamaica and Kenya have notified Guterres in writing, as requested by Security Council Resolution 2699, of their intent to contribute personnel to the support mission. It’s unclear when the intervention forces will arrive.
Friday, April 26
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Ramtane Lamamra, Guterres’s personal envoy to Sudan, “is engaging with the parties in an effort to lower the [escalating] tensions” between the armed groups in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, who have disrupted the UN’s humanitarian operations into the country. “El Fasher serves as an important point to reach other parts of Darfur,” Dujarric said, “[so], as you can imagine the impact [these] tensions is having on our humanitarian efforts.”
• Updates from the UN on the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) investigations into the allegations by Israel that some personnel of UNRWA were involved in the Oct. 7 attacks: 19 staff members are now accused, including 12 in the original list provided by Israel in January (they were fired immediately by the agency); plus 7 since. Of the 12, 8 “remain under OIOS investigation” and 1 case was closed, as no evidence was provided by Israel. Additionally, 3 cases were suspended (the information given by Israel was insufficient). As to the 7 new cases, 1 has been suspended for lack of supporting evidence. The other 6 are under investigation by OIOS. The investigators have traveled to Israel to talk to authorities and plan another visit in May.
Don’t Miss It
• The US has named Lise Grande the new Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues, succeeding Ambassador David Satterfield and his team “to urgently address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” Grande was most recently president of the US Institute of Peace. She has also served as UN official, working in Yemen, Iraq and elsewhere in the region.
• When the UN was young: An academic looks at “Stewards of Internationalism: United Nations Tour Guides, Gender, and Public Diplomacy, 1952–1977”
• Unesco’s new report on gender “warns that algorithm-driven, image-based content, especially on social media, can expose girls to material ranging from sexual content to videos that glorify unhealthy behaviours or unrealistic body standards.” The exposure “can have particularly detrimental effects on girls’ self-esteem and body image.”
We welcome your comments on this article. What are your thoughts on the independent UNRWA review?
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Arthur Bassas is a researcher and writer who graduated from St. Andrews in Scotland, majoring in international relations and terrorism. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., and speaks English and French.
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