They shared their experiences during an event this week at the UN headquarters to mark 20 years of the Peace Building Commission (PBC).

The intergovernmental council body supports emerging countries of conflicts in fields such as governance, justice, reconciliation, construction of institutions and sustainable development.

Pain and promise

“” The history of Liberia is pain, but also of promise“Said Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf in a video message.

“A nation once kneeling by a prolonged conflict is now a testimony to what is possible when the national will is equal by international solidarity.”

In August 2003, the Liberian government, two rebel groups and several political parties signed a peace agreement in Accra, Ghana, after 14 years of civil war.

Build a new Liberia

“Knowing that Liberia could not come back to what it was, we had to build a new nation based on new structures of governance of inclusion, transparency, justice and hope,” said the former president and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Critical institutions such as the central bank, the judiciary, the anti-corruption commission and even civil society organizations were to be restructured or built from zero. And women played a central role in peace efforts by leading advocacy, mediation and community reconstruction.

“Above all, too, The way from Liberia to Peace could not be walked alone“She said.

Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf stressed the essential role played by the international community through the UN and its peacekeeping mission AmilRegional Cerceas Bloc, the African Union, the European Union and other entities.

“A work in progress”

She also expressed her gratitude to multilateral and bilateral partners – including PBC – whose technical, financial and moral support has thrown the foundations of peace which enjoyed today.

“The peace of Liberia remains a work in progress,” she said. “We are still faced with challenges – economic fragility, bottlenecks of governance and aspirations of a young population of the population. But we have also traveled a long way. ”

PBC has supported peacebuilding efforts in more than 30 countries and regions, for example by supporting the democratic transition in Gambia and collaborating with Timor Leste to advance stability.

His “intervention and determination at a critical moment is not only manifestly historic, but serves as a cardinal reference point for preventive diplomacy and international solidarity,” said Gambia Minister Mamadou Tangara.

Increased conflicts

Rosemary Dicarlo, under-secretary general of the United Nations for political affairs and peacebuilding, pointed out that the event took place at a time when conflicts become more and more numerous, more prolonged and more complex, and as negotiated regulations become even more difficult to achieve.

“” In this context, the role of the peace consolidation committee remains critical and more necessary than ever“She said.

She underlined the Pact for the futureAdopted by UN member states last September, which recognizes the central role of civil society, women and young people, and the value of United Nations partnerships with regional organizations and international financial institutions.

“Above all, the pact has decided to strengthen the peace’s consolidation committee,” she said. “Our task is to translate this ambition into practical progress.”

Still relevant today

Dicarlo said that the PBC “should be equipped, strengthened and empowered to help the Member States interested in developing and implementing national strategies for prevention and strengthening peace”.

He should also have more systematic and robust links to other United Nations bodies and processes, such as the Security adviceAnd get more deeply involved with regional organizations, international financial institutions and other key partners.

“The Commission is no longer a new institution, but its relevance and its potential are not reduced at a time of increasing need. We must equip it to invest to fully deliver its mandate. ”

Speaking during the regular Friday press briefing in Geneva for humanitarian agencies, she warned that, as richer nations make profound expenditure reductions, international aid and national health systems are faced with serious disruptions.

Dr. Chalkidou has highlighted recent decisions of the United States, several European governments and EU organizations to freeze or reduce health assistance.

WHO Forecasts indicate that the world’s health investment is Likely to fall up to 40% this year, down $ 10 billion, against just over 25 billion dollars in 2023. The estimated $ 15 billion spent on health aid would lead to the figure at the lowest level in a decade.

Impacts in developing countries

This shortage of funding creates an emergency for health financing in many developing countries – especially in sub -Saharan Africa – which depend on external aid to finance their health systems.

In many countries, health programs financed by the United States have been the main source of external aid, With up to 30% of current health expenses in countries like Malawi and around 25% in Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

Since 2006, external aid per capita in low -income countries has systematically exceeded internal health expenses.

Many sub -Saharan nations are confronted with soaring loads – some people spend twice as much on debt service as on health – to make resources’ reallow.

The consequences are serious: Dr Chalkidou has referred to an investigation by which showing that countries today report the disturbances of health services “not seen since the peak of COVID 19».

Solutions

To combat this crisis, which urges countries to reduce dependence on aid, to increase income through the improvement of taxation, including health taxes such as tobacco and alcohol – and work with multilateral banks to guarantee low interest loans for profitable health investments.

Who also plans to attend the next International conference On the financing of development in Seville, where world leaders should address the health financing crisis and, hopefully, make new commitments.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, sounded the alarm on Friday, World Refugee DayIn a message of Syria.

He declared that the abject failure to put an end to conflicts – including in Sudan, Ukraine, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gaza – continues to create immense suffering.

Difficulty looking for a shelter

“However, the innocent people running for their lives while the bullets fly and the missiles are unjustly stigmatized, which makes it more difficult to escape danger and find a place to recover and rebuild,” he said.

Their situation is still aggravated by brutal cuts with humanitarian aid, affecting millions that desperately need help.

“” At this critical stage, it is essential that we reaffirm our solidarity with refugees – not only with words but with urgent action“He said.

He added that inspiring examples already exist, countries that continue to welcome and welcome refugees, to local communities which “open their houses, their workplaces and their heart”, as well as “the countless individual acts of kindness and compassion that reveal our common humanity”.

Share

Grandi said that the international community can and must support these countries and communities by sharing the responsibility of protecting refugees, calling in particular the action of richer states, development banks, businesses and others.

The High Commissioner spent the day in Syria, where some 600,000 people returned from neighboring countries after 14 years of war. Overall, more than two million Syrians have returned home and their communities since the fall of the Assad regime last December.

“In a region that has suffered so much violence – and even suffers from it now – we are nevertheless presented on the occasion of helping Syrians reach stability and prosperity. We must not let him pass“He said.

Mr. Grandi met Syrian families who have spent more than a decade as refugees, whose deep joy to be among the faces and the familiar environment recall the desire for refugees for the house.

“Now more than ever, we must support ourselves with refugees to keep their hope for a better future alive,” he said.

“I met a little boy who was injured by a tank shell on one of these sites on the last day of me leaving Gaza – I learned that this little boy had died since these injuries,” said a UN children’s funds (Unicef) spokesperson James Elder. “This testifies both what is happening on these sites and what is not happening with regard to medical evacuations. »»

A recent online video featuring an Abed al-Rahman dying by 13 years that Mr. Elder met during his mission in Gaza has been seen thousands of times since its publication on June 6. In the clip, Abed explains that he asked for pain relief for his shell injuries, but none is available.

Addressing Amman journalists, Mr. Elder explained that hospitals partly destroyed, including Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, continue to treat injured children, despite a shortage of medicines and medical supplies.

“Humanitarian aid is much more than food in a box; These are oxygen kits, they are fans, they are hygiene packs; These are drugs, they are incubators, “he said. “It is all these things that the United Nations did a few months ago. »»

Mr. Elder added that the parents that children need oxygen have left the hospital “due to the fear that Nasser would be attacked again. As doctors told me, if you have a child who needs oxygen and they leave without oxygen, they will die, over time, in a tent. “

Despair, famine

The disastrous shortage of the most basic survival aid linked to Israeli restrictions continues to create despair and famine through Gaza.

“I spoke to a grandmother in tears saying: How am I perhaps to go to these sites?” Mr. Elder explained. “I have met young men who have been and have never returned with anything for seven times. So there is a total lack of equity. There is a total lack of sites. You cannot distribute help in a militarized area, in a combat zone, by a part of the conflict. ”

Those who are most sensitive to the lack of drinking water, food and fuel, the lowest gas are the weakest: young pregnant women, the elderly and the amputees, said Mr. Elder.

It would be impossible for them to browse the long distances necessary to recover rare supplies from controversial aid centers.

Mortal choice

“You have half a million people faced with famine with a deadly choice to be forced in very small pockets where most people cannot access what is officially known as combat sites,” said Unicef ​​spokesperson. “We know children [who have been] killed on these sites.

Meanwhile, malnutrition and its impact on weakened immune systems of people continue to wreak havoc, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) warned.

“The latest reports indicate that 610 patients have been admitted due to serious malnutrition complications,” said WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier. “But what does that mean?”

“This does not count the many who were too weak to reach any point, which are too weak, which cannot be transported because the roads are blocked, because there are no ambulances, or because hospitals, some of the health centers of health have been bombed and bombed and are constantly bombed and bombed. »»