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Women and children wait for food distribution from the United Nations World Food Programme in Thonyor, Leer state, South Sudan, back in 2017.
South Sudan customs dispute taxes a long-suffering population
Even as three-quarters of South Sudan’s people face starvation, a squabble between the government and the UN over import taxes is leaving vital aid trucks stuck at the border.
The background: South Sudan’s trade ministry ordered this week that all goods trucks entering the East African country must pay a $300 tax. The measure was meant to ensure that the government got its share of revenue from imports that are often underbilled or misrepresented. There was supposed to be a carveout for UN aid vehicles, but if so, officials at the Ugandan border didn’t get the memo – at least not yet.
The bigger background: South Sudan is one of the world’s newest countries – and one of its poorest. After coming into existence in 2011 following years of war with the Sudanese government, it fell into its own civil war, which killed or displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
The legacy of that conflict – along with frequent natural disasters – persists: Seven million of the country’s 12 million people are facing hunger in the coming months. The harrowing civil war in Sudan, which just entered its second year, has exacerbated things, driving an estimated 500,000 people across the border into South Sudan, straining the country’s resources further.
Why the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals are not on track to be financed soon
The world faces a sustainable development crisis, and while most countries have strategies in place, they don’t have the cash to back them up. How far off track are we with the financing needed to support the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, ranging from quality education and health care to climate action and clean water?
Shari Spiegel, who runs the UN’s Financing for Sustainable Development Office, sat down with GZERO’s Tony Maciulis at a Global Stage event for the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings this week. She explains that the SDGs were off track even before the pandemic and that now, owing to global crises, many poorer countries have slipped backwards.
“We actually started backtracking on many of these goals as countries were under enormous stress, and particularly the poorest countries,” she said, noting that the global output of many of the poorest nations has fallen by 30% — and some, such as the Small Island Developing States, by 40%. This has led to an enormous finance divide — raising SDG financing and investment gaps from $2 trillion a few years ago to around $4 trillion today.
So how can the UN restrengthen multilateralism and, in turn, help narrow this gap? Watch here.
For more of our 2024 IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings coverage, visit Global Stage.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Greenfield-Thomas addresses a meeting of the Security Council as they consider a US-sponsored resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, on March 22, 2024.
China and Russia veto US cease-fire resolution for Gaza
Yet another Gaza cease-fire resolution failed in the UN Security Council today – though the US was not responsible for blocking it this time. China and Russia vetoed a US-sponsored resolution urging for “an immediate and sustained cease-fire” in the Israel-Hamas war in connection with a hostage deal.
Beijing and Moscow’s ambassadors seemingly took issue with the language of the resolution, contending it didn’t go far enough to demand a cease-fire. The US resolution “sets up conditions for a ceasefire, which is no different from giving a green light to continued killings, which is unacceptable,” said Zhang Jun, China’s ambassador to the UN.
Russia's ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said Moscow supported a cease-fire but decried the US resolution as a “hypocritical spectacle.” Nebenzia said it was “exceedingly politicized … to help to play to the voters, to throw them a bone in the form of some kind of a mention of a cease-fire in Gaza.”
The US, Israel’s top ally, previously vetoed three cease-fire resolutions. The latest resolution signaled a shift in Washington’s stance on the war, as the Biden administration faces domestic pressure over its support for Israel and butts heads with Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over plans to invade Rafah – a city filled with displaced Palestinians.
Playing politics? The US accused Russia and China, two of its top adversaries, of tanking the resolution for political reasons. "Russia and China simply did not want to vote for a resolution that was penned by the United States,” said US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
What’s next? Elected members of the UNSC have penned an alternative resolution that demands an immediate cease-fire, which could be brought to a vote on Friday afternoon. The US has signaled it will block the measure.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Israel on Friday as part of ongoing efforts to secure a new truce. Netanyahu remained defiant during the visit, telling Blinken that Israel can't defeat Hamas without going into Rafah and that it will move forward with the operation without US support if necessary.
FILE PHOTO: Palestinians carry bags of flour they grabbed from an aid truck near an Israeli checkpoint, as Gaza residents face crisis levels of hunger, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, February 19, 2024.
As Gazans face starvation, aid organizations struggle to help
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war is dire, and it’s being exacerbated by the convoluted array of logistical and political obstacles that aid organizations are facing.
With nearly two million people displaced from their homes and the specters of starvation and disease looming, here’s a look at the challenges aid organizations face to save lives.
Who’s on the ground in Gaza? Even before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, the economically-devastating Israeli blockade on Gaza, which is backed by Egypt, left 80% of people in the enclave dependent on international aid, according to the UN.
Between 2014 and 2020, the United Nations spent close to $4.5 billion in Gaza, largely through its agency for Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA. Qatar also provided well over $1 billion in aid to the territory before the war, with Israel’s approval.
The Red Cross, World Food Program (WFP), World Health Organization (WHO), Doctors Without Borders, and the Red Crescent have all also remained active in Gaza during the war in various capacities, but with significant limitations. The WFP, for example, recently announced it is suspending deliveries to north Gaza — where one-in-six children are estimated to be malnourished — due to security concerns such as gunfire and people attempting to break into trucks carrying aid.
A dire situation. As the reported death toll from the fighting in Gaza creeps toward 30,000, an estimated 1.9 million people — over 80% of the territory’s population — have been displaced by the war, more than half of whom are sheltering in the enclave’s south. The UN says the entire population is at risk of famine, while preventable diseases are killing people as the health system collapses.
Israel has placed severe restrictions on the flow of aid into Gaza since the war began, and the military has faced allegations of targeting aid delivery trucks. Prior to the war, roughly 500 trucks entered Gaza per day. From February 1 to 23, an average of 93 trucks per day entered Gaza, and there were seven days when 20 or fewer trucks made it in, according to UNRWA.
“This situation in Gaza is extremely dire because there is no safe place for Gazans to move from — no ‘escape valve,’” says Paul Spiegel, Director of Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health. “Furthermore, the severe restrictions of basic lifesaving goods into Gaza — fuel, water, food and medicines, combined with the attacks on health facilities — make it very difficult for people to survive.”
Meanwhile, over a dozen countries — including the US — have frozen funding to UNRWA after Israel alleged that 12 of its employees participated in the Oct. 7 attack. UNRWA fired the employees implicated and has launched an inquiry.
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s commissioner general, on Thursday warned that the agency has reached a “breaking point… at a time of unprecedented humanitarian needs in Gaza.”
If the war in Gaza escalates, more than 85,000 people could die over the next six months on top of the death toll so far, according to projections in a new report from Spiegel and a group of fellow epidemiologists. The report projected that thousands will still die even if a cease-fire is reached.
“UNRWA remains the organization with the biggest footprint and capability to deliver aid in Gaza, by far. If UNRWA reduces its services substantially, many more people will die,” says Spiegel.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres arrives at the UK Artificial Intelligence Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in Britain on Nov. 2, 2023.
The UN takes on AI
Last week, UN Secretary-General António Guterres announced the creation of a new advisory body to tackle AI. The group has 38 members, including government officials and industry executives, and will be co-chaired by Google’s James Manyika and Carme Artigas, Spain’s official in charge of AI.
In a speech at the UK summit, Guterres said the group’s first task will be “to examine models of technology governance that have worked in the past, with a view to identifying forms that could work for AI governance now and in the future.”
Those findings will be released in a preliminary report by the end of this year — with a final report expected next year. With nearly every major international body, it seems, recognizing the need for AI regulation, the UN doesn’t want to get left behind. That said, the UN has plenty of experience reining in the use of dangerous technology, such as nuclear and chemical weapons, but much less authority on the threats posed by powerful or rogue software.
Russia leaves nuclear test ban treaty in show of public posturing
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics from Stockholm.
What can be done by Europe or others to help the 1.7 million Afghan refugees that are now being expelled from Pakistan back into Afghanistan?
Well, sorry to say the answer is not very much can be done. We are delivering humanitarian aid to some extent, and the UN is there to Afghanistan, but to take care of or to help substantially 1.7 million people that are expelled from Pakistan is going to be very difficult. Relationship with the Taliban regime is virtually non-existent, so it's one of these tragedies that are happening at the same time as we have the Gaza War and the Ukraine War.
Does Europe feel less secure now that Russia has revoked its ratification of the test ban treaty?
Well, not really changing very much. What the Russians are doing is that they're doing, to the same situation as the Americans have, because the US hasn't ratified the CTBT either, but they adhere to it, and that is just as well. So, the Russians decided, and I think it's a signaling effect to some extent, that nuclear weapons are there and that they, at some point in time, might presume nuclear testing. But until they do that, and I hope they don't, it doesn't mean very much, but it shows that they are sort of playing around with nuclear weapons and with public posturing with nuclear weapons, which of course is less than good.
Television media broadcast commentaries as delegates arrive to the United Nations 76th General Assembly amid protests on September 21, 2021 in New York City, USA.
What’s on deck at the UN for Tuesday, September 19?
Our intrepid Senior Writer Gabrielle Debinski is on the ground with our colleagues from GZERO World for the latest updates. Also, if you missed our rundown of the major items on the agenda on Friday, catch up here.
Please note, leaders are listed in the order in which they are expected to speak, but the schedule sometimes runs ragged. You can find a complete schedule here.
Major Speakers on Tuesday
- Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva: By tradition, the Brazilian president opens every General Assembly debate. Lula has complained about too much focus on Ukraine at the expense of other global issues, watch for his rhetoric here.
- U.S. President Joe Biden: The only leader from a permanent member of the Security Council who is attending the summit in person, expect lots on Ukraine and appeals for development aid and climate action..
- Colombian President Gustavo Petro: The left-wing leader called for an end to the war on drugs in his first UNGA speech last year — and now cocaine exports are booming.
- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan: Often the belle of the geopolitical ball the past two years, Turkey has played a crucial role in the Black Sea grain deal and is the only NATO member with good ties to Moscow. This one is worth your time.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: With his counteroffensive making slow progress and whispers of “Ukraine fatigue” spreading across Europe and the US, the actor-turned-president is looking to make a command performance to shore up support.
Major Conferences
- Day 2 of the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development Goals
Podcast: UN Secretary-General António Guterres explains why peace in Ukraine is his top priority
Listen: The challenges facing the world today, from conflict in Ukraine to climate catastrophes across the globe, cannot be solved by one country alone. The need for multilateral solutions between nations, even between warring nations, has never been greater. And yet, as diplomats, ministers, and heads of state converge on the United Nations in New York this week for the 78th annual UN General Assembly, the UN Secretary-General fears that we are entering a time of increased global fragmentation.
"We really need stronger and reformed multilateral institutions to be able to coordinate on what is becoming a multipolar world" Secretary-General António Guterres tells Ian Bremmer in an exclusive interview for the GZERO World podcast. "I would remind you that Europe, before the First World War, was multipolar. But because there was no multilateral governance institutions at the European level, the result was the First World War."
Whether it’s the costly war in Ukraine, lurching towards its third year, or the ongoing climate crisis that, in Guterres’ words is quote “boiling” the planet, the Secretary-General and Ian discuss a wide-array of pressing global issues. And don’t forget our brave new world of artificial intelligence, which will need a new global regulatory framework of its own.
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