Day 23(1/25/18) *Geneva/United Nations*

Day 2 of United Nations talks!

Welcome to day 23, a busy day at the UN filled with plenty of very interesting talks. So, let's begin!

Speaker: Lawrence Fioretta, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

Top 3 things to know:

1. The UNHCR was created after WWII and was only supposed to exist for 3 years, but thankfully has existed ever since!

2. Currently, there are 22.5 million refugees worldwide, and 40.3 million internally displaced people (meaning they’re people who have been forced to flee their homes, but have not or cannot cross out of their country’s border)

3. There are three pillars that the UNHCR tries to use in order to best help refugees: 1)voluntary repatriation (once the person’s home country is guaranteed safe, they send them back home) 2) Local integration(settling the person into an asylum country, hopefully establishing school/work/community) and 3) 3rd country resettlement(moving the person to another country that’s different from the initial asylum country where they are guaranteed support and safety for a prolonged time).

Something surprising/worrisome:

• The number of new refugees in the US this year is half that of what it has been in previous years. Also, the current view of refugees by citizens is on average very negative in the US, more negative than it has been in years past. I wonder if this is because of the new president’s idiotic reform on immigration and his anti-refugee, anti-international ideologies. It’s embarrassing to be associated with him, since we are a group from the US, and therefore we are essentially representing the country. In nearly all of the UN agencies we’ve visited, there are some comments about the US and often they have something to do with how the US is lacking in carrying its weight in the UN. It’s inexcusable, and I hope that he can get out of office as soon as possible so fewer people have to suffer because of his ignorance.

Something hopeful:

• Mr.Fioretta emphasised that really the only sure-fire way to end the refugee crisis is to end conflict, and that that is a large goal of the UN, not just the UNHCR.

Speaker: Rolando Gomez, Human Rights Council (UNCHR)

*Mr.Gomez was kind enough to let us watch his presentation in the room where the UNCHR actually meets(!), which as you can sort of see in the photo above, had a very unique ceiling! It was sort of like a 3D topographic map, but upside down, so it was suspended from the ceiling….I really liked that room 😊

Top 3 things to know:

1. The goal of the UNCHR, the branch that started in 2006, is not “naming and shaming”, but rather playing as a team to help everyone collectively improve. This means that there are countries on the committee that may have serious violations of human rights, but the UNCHR still encourages them to stay on the committee so that they can improve and help other countries improve as well.

2. Every 4.5 years, 14 of the member countries are put under the “Universal Periodic Review” (UPR) process, in which their country is in the spotlight of the entire UNCHR. This way, each country gets individual attention from the committee, and each member country learns from the unique “case study” type environment.

3. Each day, 6000 children die of water-related disease. This is a serious violation of human rights because many of these deaths are preventable, and humans deserve the right to healthcare and clean accessible water.

(#4)…sorry, I have to add one more….The president of the UNCHR changes every year, and each year it’s from a different region of the world. This is so that each country has the opportunity to be in charge and also to encourage the idea of teamwork…so that it’s not just one person in charge of everyone, but rather, it’s everyone keeping each other in line!

Something surprising:

• The UNCHR, unlike most UN organizations, only requires an 80% majority for something to be stamped as “approved” by the committee. Most UN organisations require a unanimous agreement.

Something worrisome:

• The most worrisome part for me was just the fact that this committee still has so much work to do…even with their impressive team-approach to tackling human rights issues, each country clearly has something to give but also something to learn. Since they review 14 countries every 4.5 years, it seems like they’re running a never-ending race, especially since the recommendations they make are not legally binding in any way. I’m still so impressed with this branch, however, it just scares me that it is such a seemingly impossible issue to resolve.

Something hopeful:

• NGOs (non-governmental organisations) have designated seats at the meetings, and while they do not get a vote, the UNCHR highly encourages comments and presentations from them. I really liked this idea since it emphasised the use of representatives of victims, and avoids the separation between bureaucratic decision-making and on-the-ground applications of those decisions.

Speaker: United Nations Fund for Children (UNICEF)

Top 3 things to know:

1. The UNICEF views children as children first, and their secondary roles are whatever else is in their situation at the moment (refugees, students, siblings, etc.) This is very important, because it keeps the focus on seeing children as innocent people who have a long time until they should have the responsibilities of adults. By having “child” as identity #1, UNICEF can encourage its workers and others to remember that children should not have to grow up early just because they are in a situation that might encourage them to, and thus keeping them from important development that has to occur during the years of being a kid. 

2. Thanks to this UN agency, child mortality is 50% of what it was in 1990 when it began.

3. A child with malnutrition is 9x more likely to die than a child with proper nutrition. This is likely because of food insecurity but also because of immune system weakness brought on by poor nutrition. So if a child is malnourished and drinks dirty water, for example, he/she is less 9x less likely to be able to recover from whatever pathogens were in that water. It breaks my heart to think that children, loved so much by their parents, families, friends, must have to endure this reality because of no fault of their own…simply because of the geographical region where they live. 

Something surprising:

• There is an education curriculum that UNICEF made especially for war zones. It is a curriculum that anyone in a community can teach in any location, not only professional teachers in a classroom. This way, when children are in a location where it is unsafe for them to get to a school or if the school has been destroyed, they can still learn and prepare for their futures. The subjects they learn are math, reading, english, and first aid.

Something worrisome:

• According to the speaker, UNICEF only gets about 60% of its requested funds each year from the various funding agencies. The annual request comes from a prediction of how much money it will take to sustain the current programs that UNICEF is running worldwide. So, even if it plans to start no new programs, does this mean that each year 40% of UNICEF efforts are being forced to cease existing? What does that mean for the children those programs are helping?

Something hopeful:

• UNICEF has a large focus on psychosocial support for children. By acknowledging the kind of PTSD and developmental issues that can be a result of living in insecurity, UNICEF targets the mental health of the children through education(they can let their minds focus on something other than just the reality around them, and learn about a future career/situation they might one day be in) and counseling.

Speaker: Bobir Tukhtabayev, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

Top 3 things to know:

1. UNESCO has 1,073 protected world heritage sites. This means that if there’s any conflict in an area of a world heritage site, UNESCO contacts both fighting sides and encourages them to remember not using any of the protected site as a location for conflict.

2. UNESCO has 4 pillars: education(of everyone but especially children), science(its advancement, integrity, and implications on policy), culture(and protection/preservation of the expression of many cultures across the globe), and communication(of information to other parts of the world)

3. The entire board meets every 2 years. This was a bit surprising to me since the other UN agencies we had heard from meet at least every year it seemed. I wonder if perhaps UNESCO has “pillar” meetings (see #2 for each pillar) more often, since they all seem like they could be their own sub-agencies. 

Something surprising/hopeful:

• Even if a country is not a part of UNESCO anymore, it will still protect the existing world heritage sites of that country. The only key is that it will not approve of any new sites if the country is no longer a member. 

Something worrisome:

• 1 journalist is killed per week worldwide, simply for trying to communicate truth across or within borders.

After all of those great talks at the UN, I was feeling a little bit more as if I was going to have a cold than yesterday, so I went on a quick trip into town with some of my classmates to get souvenirs but then went to bed pretty early. I hope that by tomorrow I'll be a bit better...my shopping spree consisted of buying lots of vitamin C, so hopefully that'll help! Either way,  I'm sure tomorrow will be quite enjoyable, as we'll get to hear from the UN Development program and the UN environmental protection branch-looking forward to it:) 

Goodnight!

-Anna

UN Refugee buildings. There's a palm tree in the tall building!