This Week @UN: IOM’s controversial hire; Gaza aid profiteer wants a UN meet-up; Trump’s Human Rights Council problem.
Plus: Gaza’s deepening death spiral; US drops UNESCO; water & peace in W. Africa; Pacific Islanders’ victory; malaria-free Timor-Leste; France’s breakthrough on Palestine.
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• Our #1 story this week: IOM Makes a High-Level Hire as Thousands in the Agency Lose Jobs, scoop by Damilola Banjo
• #1 story this month: Mike Waltz Wants US Aid Tied to Voting Loyalty in UN, by Damilola Banjo
• BREAKING: UN Staff’s “No-Confidence” for Guterres: The UN Office in Geneva staff union voted for a motion of no confidence in Secretary-General António Guterres as well as Undersecretary-General Guy Ryder and their UN80 reform initiative. The motion was adopted without opposition during the union’s extraordinary general assembly on July 24. “The staff have no confidence in UN80, Secretary-General António Guterres and Under Secretary-General Guy Ryder,” the motion reads.
Staff members cited the lack of transparency, consultation and “strategic vision” behind the UN80 plan as key reasons for the vote. The initiative, launched in March to address the UN’s deepening financial crisis, proposes a 20 percent cut in posts systemwide by 2026. However, staff representatives said that the proposal lacks evidence that it will resolve the UN’s current operational and liquidity problems.
Farhan Haq, UN deputy spokesperson, said the Secretariat is engaging with staff members through the designated channels on UN reform. “Undoubtedly, we have difficult decisions ahead of us,” Haq told PassBlue in an email on July 25. “Management and staff need to work together to mitigate the negative impact of those decisions on our colleagues and to navigate the current challenges in the interests of assuring a stronger and more effective UN.”
PassBlue has reported how job cuts across many UN agencies have affected mostly junior staff, while senior personnel get promoted or hired to new roles. Ian Richards, president of the union, said that UN80, meant to make the organization more effective, has so far achieved only what he termed a “top-heavy and bloated” UN.
“It hasn’t gone unnoticed that while most staff being cut are in junior positions, all USG positions are being preserved and the same will most likely be the case for ASG positions,” Richards told PassBlue. “Staff are also upset that in the midst of a financial crisis, the Secretary-General was found to be promoting staff in his own office.” The staff union said it will send the motion to Guterres and UN member states in the coming days. — DAMILOLA BANJO
US-UN Tracker
• Get Lost, SDGs: In a conspiratorial-toned speech read at a UN forum advancing the Sustainable Development Goals on July 24, the US rejected the declaration agreed by fellow member states to push the poverty-eradicating goals toward their 2030 deadline. Among the list of criticisms, the US said the goals “advance a program of soft global governance that is inconsistent with national sovereignty and adverse to the rights and interests of Americans.” (The US forced the forum to put the declaration to a vote, casting a no ballot along with Israel.)
From PassBlue this week:
• IOM Makes a High-Level Hire as Thousands in the Agency Lose Jobs, by Damilola Banjo
• The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Asks the UN Relief Chief to Meet About Collaborating, by Dulcie Leimbach. Relatedly, Tom Fletcher, head of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), sent a letter on July 24 to Johnnie Moore of the Israeli-US backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), saying, “I welcome dialogue on how to reach as many people as possible and alleviate widespread suffering, without causing harm.” Moore replied, “I look forward to our meeting personally and to seeing your operations team and our team collaborating on the ground.” Yet, the GHF persists in castigating the UN humanitarian-aid system.
• Trump to Human Rights Council: ‘I Wish I Knew How to Quit You’, op-ed by Michèle Taylor & Allison Lombardo
Top UN news:
Monday, July 21
• Spokesperson’s briefing: A World Food Program (WFP) convoy carrying aid from Israel into Gaza encountered “large crowds of desperately hungry civilians,” 67 of whom were killed by Israeli fire, said UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, a day after the Israeli military issued a new displacement order that cuts through four neighborhoods in the northern Gazan city of Deir al-Balah, forcing 50,000 to 80,000 people to evacuate or risk death. Several primary health and medical clinics are included in the latest order, as is a major desalination plant, but Dujarric said UN staff are remaining in the city, which is a UN base for storing and dispatching equipment.
Additionally, the WHO’s staff residence in Deir al-Balah was attacked three times on July 21 as well as its main warehouse. Israeli military entered the residence, forcing women and children to evacuate on foot toward Al-Mawasi, amid active conflict, according to the WHO. Male staff and family members were handcuffed, stripped and interrogated on the spot and screened at gunpoint. Two WHO staff and two family members were detained. Three were later released, while one staff remains in detention.
Updates, July 23: 109 aid groups warned that “mass starvation is spreading across the Gaza Strip, with colleagues and those they serve wasting away.” Commenting on Israel’s “punitive measures” against OCHA staff to further restrict their visas into Gaza, Dujarric said the steps will “only add to the obstacles preventing us from reaching people facing hunger, displacement, and deprivation.”
July 25: A UN spokesperson said that in Gaza, “systems and services are on the verge of collapse, as we have been telling you for days now,” noting that the local health authorities announced that nine Palestinians had died from malnutrition in the past 24 hours in the Strip and that the trickle of supplies making it into the enclave are “nowhere near adequate to address the immense needs.” Fletcher, the head of OCHA, sent a plan to UN member states outlining how to “stop the horror, the constraints placed on humanitarian operations in Gaza . . .” Stéphanie Tremblay, a UN associate spokesperson, said the proposal to air-drop aid into Gaza by foreign countries was welcome but that the “most efficient” way to bring in supplies is by road.
More on Gaza:
• More Than 100 Organizations Are Sounding Alarm to Allow Lifesaving Aid Into Gaza
• Anthony Albanese, prime minister of Australia, tweeted that “Israel’s denial of aid and the killing of civilians, including children, seeking access to water and food cannot be defended or ignored.”
• The Palestinian Center for Human Rights “condemns in the strongest terms the Israeli Occupation Forces’ (IOF) resumption of widescale and deadly attacks on the Gaza Strip, including mass killings of hundreds of civilians, among them women and children, and the issuance of evacuation orders.” The center said it is “part of a broader crime of genocide. . . . ”
Tuesday, July 22
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Audrey Azoulay, head of UNESCO, said in a statement that she and Guterres “deeply regret” the US‘ decision to “withdraw once again” from the Paris-based organization, which has “stepped up efforts to take action wherever the agency’s mission could contribute to peace” in the past years. Asked whether the UN will accommodate US concerns that UNESCO has pushed a “biased” and “globalist” agenda, Dujarric said he “[doesn’t] really understand what a globalist agenda is” and that the UN’s comment to every member state is: “Participate if you want to change things.” Artists at Risk Connection’s statement on the US withdrawal.
Wednesday, July 23
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Guterres’s Peacebuilding Fund approved a $7 million investment in “water management, climate security and peacebuilding” at the borders of Mali, Mauritania and Senegal, which will be jointly managed by the three countries, with UNICEF and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). It is the largest project in the fund’s history and will be implemented over the next two years.
Thursday, July 24
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Guterres welcomed the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) “historic” advisory opinion that states parties to climate change treaties have binding obligations “to ensure the protection of the climate system and other parts of the environment from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.” Guterres called the opinion, which resulted from a movement initiated by young Pacific Islanders, a “victory for our planet, for climate justice, and for the power of young people to make a difference,” to which “the world must respond.”
• The World Health Organization (WHO) said that Timor-Leste is now “malaria-free,” calling it a “remarkable achievement” after the country led a nationwide response after gaining independence in 2002.
Friday, July 25
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Asked about President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that France will officially recognize the state of Palestine at the UN General Assembly in September, a UN deputy spokesperson said the move is a “bilateral and sovereign decision” that is a step toward the “realization of the two-state solution.” (France and Saudi Arabia lead a conference at the UN on the two-state path to peace for Israel and Palestine on July 28-29, but the US is not attending.)
ICYMI:
• Maryam Bukar Hassan, a Nigerian Poet and Advocate, Designated a UN Global Advocate for Peace
• “Unconscionable US Plan to Destroy 97 Million Contraceptives”: MSF press release
• Trump is Building a Machine to Disappear People, op-ed in New York Times by Jeff Crisp, a contributor to PassBlue
• Data Helps Prevent Gender-Based Violence in Sierra Leone, Carter Center report
• Israeli Right-Wing Settlers Hold Gaza Annexation Conference, Middle East Eye
• Joint Statement on Gaza From AFP, AP, BBC News and Reuters
We welcome your comments on this article. What are your thoughts on hunger in Gaza?
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.
Was the initial list of speakers for the General Debate included in this issue? I looked at twitter also, did not see the chart.