The “a grim milestone” That means 20 percent of the population has been forced to flee in just 15 months, he added.
“The majority of displaced people are within the country itself – almost eight million people – and more than half of them are children,” Mr Dujarric said during his daily news conference from UN headquarters in New York.
“More than two million people have now crossed the border into neighbouring countries, often facing their own humanitarian challenges.”
Major humanitarian challenges
Mr Dujarric said the humanitarian community in Sudan was doing everything it could to scale up assistance to people in need, including those fleeing the fighting.
On Tuesday, the UN refugee agency reported, UN refugee agencyreported the delivery of relief supplies to some 2,000 displaced and vulnerable families in East Darfur.
This followed the announcement last weekend by the World Food Programme (World Food Programme) that food aid had been delivered to more than 120,000 displaced people in South Kordofan.
However, he warned that aid agencies in Sudan still face major challenges, including persistent insecurity, limited access and funding shortages.
“While funding for this year’s Humanitarian Response Plan has increased in the past week, we are still only 30 percent of the way through funding, more than halfway through the year, with $820 million received in cash so far of the $2.7 billion needed,” he said.
On behalf of the UN, he called on “those who have promised to convert those promises into money, and those who have not, to hand over their promises and money.”
UN Deputy Chief on Mission to West Africa to Assess SDG Challenges
UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed arrived in Senegal on Tuesday, the first stop on a mission to West African countries, where she will assess challenges in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and work with stakeholders to find ways to accelerate them.
Her visit follows the SDG summit was held at UN headquarters last September to accelerate progress towards achieving the 17 goals before the 2030 deadline.
Mrs Mohammed met President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and the Ministers of Finance, Economy and Foreign Affairs in the Senegalese capital Dakar.
Confirmation of UN support
“During these meetings, the Deputy Secretary-General expressed our support to the government on key transitions to achieve the SDGs, including food systems transition, renewable energy and the digital economy,” said UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric. told journalists in New York.
Ms Mohammed will meet on Wednesday with Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko and with the UN country team and representatives of civil society, including women and youth groups.
She will then leave Senegal for Conakry, Guinea, to continue her tour of the region, including a visit to Mali.
Following the visit, Ms Mohammed will travel to Ethiopia to chair the opening of the first session of the Preparatory Committee for the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development.
Ivory Coast joins UN treaty on transboundary water management
Ivory Coast has become the latest country to sign a UN treaty to improve joint water management across borders, the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) said. said on Tuesday.
The West African country is the 53rd party and the 10th in Africa to join the UN Water Treaty, officially the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes, 1992.
This step confirms the strong momentum for water cooperation in Africa. According to the UNECE, which administers the treaty, more than 90 percent of water resources are located in 63 river basins shared by two or more countries.
“The accession of Côte d’Ivoire is a milestone for multilateralism and confirms the role of the UN Water Convention as an instrument to support water cooperation for peace, sustainable development and climate change adaptation across borders,” said Tatiana Molcean, Executive Secretary of the UN NECE.
Ivory Coast has a population of about 30 million and shares eight transboundary river basins with neighbouring countries including Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Meeting the water needs of the country’s population, which is growing at 2.5 percent annually, poses major challenges, given threats such as urbanization and the impacts of climate change, including droughts and floods.
At the same time, water quality is deteriorating due to pollution from agriculture, industrial waste, illegal gold mining and untreated wastewater. Water resources are also unevenly distributed across the country, with the north and northeast particularly affected.
“In the context of increasing water scarcity and high water demand in Africa, the accession of Côte d’Ivoire as the 10th African party to the 1992 Water Convention is an important step for the continent,” said Claver Gatete, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).
The Parties to the Convention will meet again in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in October.
