In his Annual Report on the Work of the Organization, launched forward of the high-level session of the 79th UN Normal Meeting, Secretary-General António Guterres emphasised the Group’s ongoing efforts to handle these urgent challenges.
Mr. Guterres highlighted the resilience of UN personnel, dedicated to delivering hope and assist to these in want, regardless of working below troublesome circumstances.
United Nations
Resolve: Report of the Secretary-Normal on the Work of the Group
“I’m enormously pleased with the employees of the United Nations, who’re delivering on their mandates in a fractured and typically harmful world,” he stated.
“In 2023, along with our companions on the bottom, we coordinated humanitarian response plans for 245 million individuals throughout 74 nations and delivered life-saving help and safety to just about 160 million individuals in pressing want.”
The report says that the UN additionally mobilized a file $22.7 billion in humanitarian help from donors globally, enabling life-saving programmes in Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and areas affected by pure disasters like earthquakes within the Syrian Arab Republic and Türkiye and floods in Libya, Malawi and Mozambique.
Nevertheless, these operations got here at a big human price. 2023 noticed the best variety of UN employees and humanitarian staff killed, with the overwhelming majority of casualties being employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) working within the Gaza Strip. The Secretary-Normal honored their sacrifice, underscoring the UN’s dedication to standing with the world’s most weak.
Peace and safety core to UN’s mission
Diplomacy for peace remained core to the Group’s work amid escalating international peace and safety challenges. In response, the Secretary-Normal proposed his New Agenda for Peace, which, amongst others, calls for multilateral action to handle the interlocking threats to our shared future.
The report additionally highlights that for the primary time in 34 years, the Secretary-Normal invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, bringing the hostilities in Gaza and Israel to the eye of the Security Council and calling for a direct humanitarian ceasefire and the discharge of hostages. The UN labored to stop regional escalation and advance peace efforts aimed toward ending the occupation and reaching a two-State resolution in step with worldwide regulation and related UN resolutions.
The UN additionally facilitated peace talks, supported State-building efforts and helped to guard civilians globally, together with in Sudan. As well as, the Group oversaw the withdrawal of some 13,000 personnel from its peacekeeping mission in Mali, referred to as MINUSMA, amid quickly deteriorating safety circumstances.
The Peacebuilding Fund allotted over $200 million to help nationwide peace plans in 36 nations, with a deal with gender equality. Partnerships with regional organizations, just like the African Union, additional bolstered battle prevention.
© UNOCHA/Themba Linden
A UN workforce inspects an unexploded bomb mendacity on a fundamental highway in Khan Younis, Gaza.
A name for motion on World Objectives
In 2023, the SDG Summit gathered over 6,000 contributors, renewing international dedication to the Sustainable Development Goals, only 15 per cent of which are on track to be met by the globally agreed deadline of 2030, with many growing nations going through challenges in securing the sources wanted to make sure a sustainable future.
Environmental initiatives such because the Water Motion Agenda and a landmark settlement on plastic air pollution had been key achievements in 2023. The UN’s advocacy for international local weather motion was additionally a serious spotlight of the previous 12 months, with requires fossil gas transitions, operationalizing the loss and harm fund, and ending deforestation by 2030.
Human rights and multilateralism
Human rights remained a key focus of the UN’s mission. In 2023, the UN supported initiatives to eradicate violence in opposition to girls, empower rural girls, and guarantee their illustration in constitutional processes.
The Secretary-Normal additionally raised considerations in regards to the erosion of multilateral ideas, noting the impunity with which some events to conflicts are focusing on civilians, hospitals, humanitarian help and colleges.
In preparation for the landmark Summit of the Future, the UN launched coverage briefs on points corresponding to peace, safety, and governance of synthetic intelligence, aiming to bolster the values of the UN Constitution and deal with international challenges like mis- and disinformation within the public sphere.
UN Picture/Manuel Elías
United Nations Headquarters turns off its lights to commemorate Earth Hour.
Dedicated employees
“At each step, our Group and our personnel will proceed to face in solidarity with the individuals of the world by way of these making an attempt instances, as we search to forge a extra peaceable, wholesome, equal and affluent future collectively, and a world that leaves nobody behind,” Mr. Guterres stated.
“Their resolve is to attain outcomes for the individuals of the world and to ship the assistance and the hope that each particular person deserves – and that the human household wants as we speak, greater than ever.”
