— A new report by the International Trade Centre (ITC) shows BSOs in developing countries how to engage meaningfully with businesses in the agricultural value chain on climate change issues and offer services that are better targeted, better designed and more effective. The report identifies climate-smart practices and technologies, alternative land uses and value-added products as market opportunities. It lists many of the potential goods and services that support climate resilience.
— "It broadens the way we think about rights, in ways that can transform societies and our global community," he told delegates, adding he hoped the plan would inform world leaders coming together for the Summit of the Future in September. Titled “Human Rights: A Path for Solutions”, the statement's message 5 is: Governance must be responsive: through full participation and by ending impunity.
— The accusations against a handful of staff in an agency of 13,000 employees operating in Gaza alone have already had a devastating effect on civilians. UNRWA provides essential government services in Gaza, including running 278 schools for 280,000 children and 22 primary healthcare centres, while also providing food to the approximately 2 million people who have been under siege by Israel since early October.
At least 16 donor countries, including the top two contributors — the US and Germany — have frozen funding to UNRWA over the allegations and have been dubbed the "suspenders" in the corridors of UN headquarters in New York. About $440 million in funding is at risk. UNRWA will run out of money by the end of February if donors continue to withhold money.
The UN announced on Monday that it had appointed Catherine Colonna, France's former minister of foreign affairs, to lead the Independent Review Group to "assess whether the Agency is doing everything within its power to ensure neutrality and to respond to allegations of serious breaches when they are made." The group will begin work on February 14 and submit an interim report to the secretary general in late March with a final report — which will be made public — expected by late April 2024.
— France, UNRWA's fourth-biggest donor, has not suspended its voluntary contributions to the agency. Israel has not yet shared its full intelligence dossier with either UNRWA or the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), the UN legal body tasked with carrying out the internal investigation.
A six-page summary of the Israeli dossier leaked to a handful of media outlets and seen by FRANCE 24 provides the names of the 12 UNRWA staff members accused of participating in the Hamas attacks, ranging from kidnapping Israelis to helping to carry out the massacre at the Be'eri kibbutz. Two of the accused are dead and another is unaccounted for.
The dossier alleges that the first man on the list of the accused, an UNRWA school counselor, entered Israeli territory to kidnap an Israeli woman with the help of his son. The accusations say they are drawn, in part, from "intelligence information, documents and identity cards seized during the course of the fighting." The dossier estimates that there are around 190 Hamas or Palestine Islamic Jihad terrorist operatives working for UNRWA.
Donor nation Norway has refused to cut aid to UNRWA. The country's Minister of Foreign Affairs Espen Barth Eide urged other donors not to turn their backs on UNRWA, saying: "We should not collectively punish millions of people. We must distinguish between what individuals may have done and what UNRWA stands for."
Matthias Schmale, UNRWA director in Gaza from 2017 to 2021; "It can be legitimately asked why these allegations surfaced around the time of the ICJ judgment that, amongst other things, articulated the need for immediate and massive delivery of humanitarian aid, which cannot be done without UNRWA." — This article was produced in collaboration with France 24 and PassBlue.
— Simply put, our current food system is a significant contributor to health problems and climate woes. It's responsible for over 30% of greenhouse gas emissions and is linked to malnutrition and various diseases.
Despite this, the meat industry isn't on board. With accusations of an "anti-beef strategy," lobbyists are fighting back, advocating for livestock agriculture and traditional diets.