XUNICEF News and Views

     Kurdish photographer Younes Mohammad from the Middle East Images this year won the third prize in the UNICEF Germany’s Photo of the Year Award for his photography depicting the difficult life of children whose fathers were injured in the ISIS war. For this long-term project, Mohammed spoke with several hundred wounded Peshmerga, taking portraits of them and their families. He documented their struggle and difficult lives after the conflict. Some of the Kurdish girls and boys portrayed by Younes Mohammed are still babies, others are between four and 16 years old. “In some cases, they are simply too young to be traumatized by the scars of war, but they are already part of the story of their fathers, which will also become their own,” UNICEF said . “Mohammad has portrayed the great strength of children when it comes to dealing with the fates of their families, to accepting the disabilities of their fathers, to loving and to smiling,” it added. “He also wants to show a f...

Click here for the original article I would like to think that children today are safer from the scourges of war than they were at the end of the Second World War. But I believe the world is now a more dangerous place for children living in conflict zones than it was in 1945. And it is getting worse. Despite decades of advocacy with parties to conflict and those who influence them —as well as enhanced monitoring, reporting and response mechanisms for grave rights violations—children continue to bear the brunt of war. Each day, girls and boys living in areas under conflict endure unspeakable horrors that no one should ever experience. They are injured or killed. They are recruited to support or directly participate in fighting. The schools they attend and the hospitals they visit are threatened, attacked or occupied by armed actors. They and their communities are denied humanitarian assistance. They are exposed to violence and suffer psychological distress or trauma, the consequences of...

Jeff Sachs is brilliant, eloquent, and inspiring. But he has had a chequered career. This article provides a detailed exposé of his association with some controversial initiatives and individuals. When I was at UNICEF, we distanced ourselves from his "Millennium Villages" Project in Africa, as this initiative was manifestly not replicable or sustainable. We also expressed serious reservations about his "Shock Therapy" prescriptions in post-Soviet Russia, Bolivia and elsewhere, as these were contrary to UNICEF's advocacy of "Adjustment with a Human Face". His association with the UAE, Bhutan, China and Turkey is quite disconcerting, and possibly laden with some conflict of interest. Having said that, he was definitely an effective advocate for MDGs during Ban Ki-moon's stewardship of the UN, and continues to be a good spokesman for the SDGs. His advocacy style verges on somewhat demagogic & polemical, but few speakers match his oratory & per...

Grave violations surge against children in conflict A one-month-old baby shelters with her family in Adra after fleeing eastern Ghouta in Syria. Peace and Security Armed conflict, inter-communal violence and insecurity continued to take a devastating toll on thousands of children throughout 2021, the UN Children’s Fund ( UNICEF ), warned on Friday.  From Afghanistan to Yemen, and Syria to northern Ethiopia,  UNICEF  denounced grave violations against youngsters in both protracted and new conflicts.   ‘Dreadful disregard’   Last week, four children were reportedly  among the victims  of an attack that killed at least 35 people – including two  Save the Children  staff – in Kayah state in eastern Myanmar. In a statement, UNICEF Executive Director  Henrietta Fore   said  that, year after year, “ parties to conflict continue to demonstrat...

  UNJSPF News - December 2021/January 2022 Message from Rosemarie McClean and Pedro Guazo on the UN Pension Fund The UN General Assembly (UNGA) has adopted its 2021 resolution on pension matters, which provides strong support to the UN Pension Fund and its operations and investments agenda. The UN General Assembly has recognized and supported the Pension Board’s reform of its governance, including on ethics and changes in attendance at Board sessions.   Click  here  to read the full message. 29 December 2021  Retirees and beneficiaries: you can complete your 2022 Certificate of Entitlement with the DCE app from 1 January 2022 Retirees and beneficiaries can enroll and issue their 2022 Digital CE from 1 January until 31 December 2022.   Click  here  to read the full article. 30 December 2021  Pension Administration gets ISO 27001 Certification for 2 crucial systems, confirming best practices in cybersecurity The Fund’s Pension Administration ha...

Given the prevailing business model it will never be possible to conserve and sustainably extract resources from the ocean floor. The catastrophes that will be created in the deep sea will be out of sight out of mind. An organisation with glaring conflict of interest An inter-governmental organisation was founded on 16th November 1994 known as International Seabed Authority (ISA). It consists of 167 countries and the European Union as its members and is headquartered in Kingston, Jamaica. It is mandated under the UN’s Convention on law of the Sea. Its role is to regulate and control all mineral exploration related activities beyond the national jurisdiction in the international seabed areas ‘for the benefit of mankind as a whole’. Sounds majestic! There are two serious issues. The ISA has a status of an autonomous organisation and the UN has no oversight role. Secondly, ISA is the authority which issues environmental impact studies for all proposed explorations submitted by public and ...

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  Children and UNICEF’s work in the Middle East and North Africa   Children continued to be at the centre of events in the Middle East and North Africa. At the peak of lockdowns and closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 110 million children were not able to go to school. Every country put in place at least one online education platform but many children missed out due to digital poverty. Nearly 40 per cent of children didn’t have access to the internet or electronic devices.   Photo Caption: Conjoined twins born in Yemen medically evacuated to Jordan to undergo an operation   Too many children lost their lives including increasingly at sea in search of a better life and a future. At least 1,500 people -among them many children- perished in the Central Mediterranean this year alone. Sadly, children continued to be killed in conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Sudan and the State of Palestine. We marked a whole decade on the crisis in Syria and one year on the Beirut blast ami...