YouSaid · the spoken record

Achim Steiner

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21

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2021-05-19

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2021-05-19

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1

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un-security-council

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1. “We believe that building forward better from COVID-19 requires long-term investment in conflict prevention and “investing in hope”, and that development investment in vaccine equity, a green economy and good governance will deliver results. In the wake of COVID-19, Africa has been at the heart of a surge of innovation — everything from sequencing the virus’ genomes in Ghana to using digital finance in Nigeria to get cash transfers and social protection to people in need. The challenge now is to sustain this surge, giving peacemakers, the innovators and the entrepreneurs — even and especially in conflict and crisis contexts — the “oxygen” they need to create new solutions with which to visualize and realize their bright future. As ever, the entire United Nations system will be on hand to help.”

   2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

2. “UNDP does none of this alone; we work with the Peacebuilding Support Office on strengthening core government functions; with partners including the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and the United Nations Environment Programme on climate-related security risks; with the International Labour Organization, the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on solutions for the record number of people forced from their homes, including as a result of climate change. We look forward to the Council’s continued support in taking this work forward. Working with our partners from the United Nations system and beyond, UNDP has been a proud partner of Governments across Africa for decades.”

   2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

3. “At the onset of the pandemic, violent extremist groups in Africa seized the opportunity to spread misinformation aimed at sowing discontent. In response, UNDP scaled up support to 22 countries in Africa with a development preventative approach. In Somalia, for example, UNDP trained 240 religious leaders to help counter misinformation. UNDP has established the Sahel Governance Promise, to be implemented over the next five years, in support of 10 Sahel countries identified by the United Nations Integrated Strategy for the Sahel as the most fragile countries and likely to be impacted by climate change.”

   2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

4. “To address this crisis, UNDP has launched a Regional Stabilization Facility, building on our experience in stabilization in countries including Iraq and Libya. It has already supported Governments and affected local authorities to re-establish trust and law and order, opened up new channels for cross- border trade, improved security conditions for affected communities and enhanced access to livelihood options. UNDP is working with the Governments of Mali, the Niger and Burkina Faso to replicate this experience in the tri-border area of Liptako Gourma. Supporting stabilization in these border areas brings communities together to fill the vacuum that enables radicalization and violent extremism, especially among young people.”

   2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

5. “From all our experience on governance and resilience, with more than 50 per cent of our expenditure and 9 of our 10 largest country programmes in fragile and crisis contexts, we determined that, when you want to address the root causes of conflict, investing in development works. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, following the mediation efforts of civil society and local Government, supported by UNDP, young people formerly involved in conflict were nearly 40 per cent more likely to want to pursue vocational training or employment. Today COVID-19 threatens to reverse hard-won stability gains, including in the Lake Chad basin region, and to expose vulnerable communities to a heightened level of economic instability.”

   2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

6. “Through our work with human rights and anti-corruption institutions, we helped Government systems to be more transparent, accountable and responsive. In Angola and Zambia, for example, through the Global Focal Point for the Rule of Law system, law enforcement officers were trained online on how to uphold human rights standards in policing during a state of emergency. We examined why people exit armed conflict, including in Chad and Nigeria, and how to support their transition to civilian life, and took new approaches to building reconciliation and reintegration into peace agreements in the Central African Republic, Libya, the Sudan and South Sudan.”

   2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

7. “And now to my third, critical, point: the importance of good governance as a building block of a fair and just social contract. UNDP has a strong history of working closely with other development, humanitarian and peace actors to help societies tackle development emergencies, prevent problems from escalating and build resilience to navigate the challenges yet to come. Last year, in the Republic of the Congo, we trained journalists on women and children’s rights and on resolution 1325 (2000), on women and peace and security, to enhance their capacity to work with international human rights instruments. We supported 10 countries in Africa to carry out elections, including through the provision of technical support to election management bodies.”

   2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

8. “Three quarters of the nearly 800 million people worldwide with no access to electricity live in sub-Saharan Africa; while, as a result of the pandemic, 100 million more Africans can no longer afford sustainable energy options. As co-Chair of UN-Energy and the High-Level Dialogue on Energy, I join with the Secretary-General and a growing number of voices in calling for a year of action on energy towards clean, affordable energy for all by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050 to stop climate change. As we prepare for September’s high-level dialogue on energy and the twenty-sixth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Glasgow, I hope that all Member States will join together in support of this call.”

   2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

9. “One challenge will be to connect African innovators with the potential opportunities that the African Continental Free Trade Area may open up — a challenge that UNDP’s Accelerator Labs network — the world’s largest and fastest learning development network, about one third of which sits in Africa — is already working on with local innovators and entrepreneurs. And UNDP has signed a new strategic partnership with the African Continental Free Trade Area secretariat “to promote trade as a stimulus for Africa’s socioeconomic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis and as a driver of sustainable development.” For Africa, a sustainable recovery must be powered by sustainable energy.”

   2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

10. “In the Sahel region, this partnership has already trained over 5,000 young people, including the provision of seed capital to over 2,000 young people. A new UNDP study found that the recently launched African Continental Free Trade Area will drive sustainable economic development throughout the African continent, so long as it is accompanied by respect for human rights and environmental protection, particularly for women and youth. To help harness this massive potential, the new UNDP Borderlands Centre in Kenya will serve the 270 million people living in Africa’s border regions.”

    2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

11. “We are supporting Governments to translate their nationally determined contributions into new green jobs and more ambitious efforts to tackle poverty, ensure equality for women and girls and build resilience to future shocks. In the Sudan, our Solar for Agriculture programme has created jobs, especially for women and youth. Unemployment can fuel deep-seated tensions in regions such as the Sahel, Central Africa and the Horn of Africa — the same places where there is incredible potential to create new green jobs through carbon capture, energy trading and environmental protection. To this end, UNDP has partnered with the Tony Elumelu Foundation to strengthen the capacities of some 100,000 entrepreneurs in Africa over the next decade.”

    2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

12. “Today UNDP is supporting 26 countries in Africa to develop and implement integrated national financing frameworks — in cooperation with the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and other parts of the United Nations system — to ensure that financing for the COVID-19 recovery is fully aligned with the SDGs and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. South Sudan, for example, is using the process of integrated national financing frameworks to strengthen national peace and planning dialogues and promote gender budgeting. Cabo Verde is using the frameworks to develop a blue economy platform with the stock exchange. At the same time, through our Climate Promise, we are supporting 39 countries in Africa to make their nationally determined contributions more ambitious in line with green COVID-19 recovery efforts.”

    2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

13. “These are not one-off interventions, but investments in systemic change that are robust enough to help countries face future health crises. This brings me to my second point, which is the importance of building forward better with a greener economy. Financing will be critical to achieving these goals. Our teams across Africa contributed to the development of over 40 country- led socioeconomic response plans, generating new insights to guide public policy decisions in a time of unprecedented complexity. They propose to invest some $60 billion in helping Africa to build forward better and greener from the pandemic so that recovery drives progress towards the SDGs.”

    2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

14. “And yet less than 1 per cent of debt servicing in 2021 would cover the cost of 1 billion vaccine doses under the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access initiative. As the United Nations lead development agency, UNDP is working with Governments, the United Nations family and other partners to support vaccine preparedness and deployment under the leadership of the World Health Organization and UNICEF. UNDP’s development offer focuses on strengthening systems and governance to promote equity, resilience and sustainability in COVID-19 vaccination efforts across Africa. In Equatorial Guinea, for example, UNDP is supporting the Government to put in place a digital system to strengthen vaccine distribution and supply chains. In Chad, Libya and Mali, UNDP is helping to establish e-health systems.”

    2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

15. “By pushing the ratio of external debt to gross domestic product in Africa to an alarming 65 per cent, COVID-19 is constraining the fiscal space and making it much more difficult for Governments to make strategic investments.” This week’s conference on debt relief in the Sudan, convened by France, is an excellent example of how world leaders can come together to support the Sudan — in this instance in its historic political and economic transition — relieving the burden of debt to unlock development resources and unleash private sector potential as part of building peace. In Africa the pandemic has triggered $5 billion in capital outflows and widened the continent’s development financing gap to $345 billion.”

    2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

16. “As of mid-May, the majority of African countries had less than 1 per cent of their populations vaccinated. More support is urgently needed. Financing should not be the barrier. UNDP analysis shows that crushing debt could undermine the ability of African countries to fight the pandemic and build forward better from COVID-19, including their efforts to get vaccines into arms.”

    2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

17. “According to UNDP research this year, approximately six out of every 10 people who will become poor across the globe will live in Africa. Already, some 40 million Africans have been pushed back into extreme poverty. As the technical lead of the United Nations socioeconomic response to the pandemic, UNDP is focused on saving lives and livelihoods. Our analysis shows that an SDG push now — combining bold policy choices and investments in governance, social protection, digitalization and the green economy — could lift millions of Africans out of poverty by the year 2030. One of the first and most important steps of an SDG push in and for Africa is to ensure vaccine equity. Africa’s fragile and conflict-affected regions will get left behind unless decisive action is taken now.”

    2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

18. “And thirdly, as good governance is a building block of a just and fair social contract, what can be done, and what is being done, to support State capacity, heal communities and create an inclusive future, especially for women and girls? Permit me to take each one in turn. A successful recovery will require keeping the pandemic under control. Currently, African countries account for a small fraction of the world’s reported COVID-19 cases and fatalities relative to its population. This is partly due to the laudable efforts of many African Governments and institutions early in the pandemic. However, the small percentages mask the crippling financial, social and political implications of COVID-19 on the continent.”

    2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

19. “Building forward better will require local and global actors across the closely integrated disciplines of humanitarian response, development and peace to work together to address the root causes of conflict, as is the focus of this Security Council debate today. I will focus my remarks on three critical questions today. First, as a successful recovery will require keeping the pandemic under control, what is the situation at present, including when it comes to vaccine equity, fiscal space and the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19, and what could the next steps be? Secondly, as peace and sustainable development go hand in hand, what opportunities do we see around the green economy for countries and regions most affected by conflict to build forward better for people and the planet?”

    2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

20. “And it is the continent of youth: over 70 per cent of the populations of many African countries are under the age of 30, a dynamic labour force with the potential to enhance development outcomes for decades to come. Yet much of this immense potential is yet to be realized. Peace, security and development are intricately linked in Africa. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the African Union’s Agenda 2063 will require overcoming complex legacy issues and the challenges that compound them — political instability, weak governance institutions, burgeoning inequalities, a rollback on human rights and, now, two of the greatest challenges of this generation: the climate emergency and the unprecedented coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.”

    2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source

21. “It is a great privilege to speak on the topic of peace and security in Africa. Allow me to take this opportunity to congratulate His Excellency Mr. Moussa Faki Mahamat on his re-election as Chairperson of the African Union Commission. The United Nations, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), will continue to work closely with you as Africa builds forward better from this devastating pandemic. Africa is a continent of unparalleled promise. It is home to nearly a third of global mineral reserves, nearly two thirds of the world’s arable land and Earth’s second-largest rainforest — in the Congo basin. Forty per cent of the world’s solar energy potential, which will be fundamental for a global green energy transition, lies with Africa.”

    2021-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/490 (2021) · source