Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria & other topics - Daily Press Briefing (6 March 2024)

Noon briefing by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.

Highlights:
Guests tomorrow
Afghanistan
Deputy Secretary-General
Lebanon
Syria
Haiti
Sudan
South Sudan
Bolivia
Financial contribution

GUESTS TOMORROW
We will have a guest tomorrow at the briefing and that will be Kanni Wignaraja, the Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific of the UN Development Programme (UNDP). She will be here in person. She will also be joined by the UNDP Resident Representative for Afghanistan, who is in Kabul, Stephen Rodriques, and they will be talking about the socioeconomic situation in Afghanistan, Kanni has just returned from there.

AFGHANISTAN
Also on Afghanistan, you heard the Security Council briefing from Roza Otunbayeva, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative. She spoke to you as well at the stakeout, so I won’t go back into all that she told you and the Council.

DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL
Our Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, arrived in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates earlier today.
Upon her arrival, she held a number of bilateral meetings with senior Government officials, including with the Minister of State for Financial Affairs, Mohamed bin Hadi Al Hussaini, and the Minister of State for International Cooperation, Reem Bint Ebrahim Al Hashimy, as well as the President of COP28 Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber.
In her meetings, Ms. Mohammed stressed the importance of accelerating action for the Sustainable Development Goals. She acknowledged the UAE's second Voluntary National Review. Furthermore, Ms. Mohammed congratulated the country on a successful delivery of the ‘UAE consensus’ at COP28, despite a challenging geopolitical situation.
She then encouraged the UAE to leverage commitments made to address the triple planetary crisis.
Yesterday, Ms. Mohammed was in Lebanon. She attended, together with Under-Secretary-General Guy Ryder, the Arab Regional Forum on Sustainable Development. She also had a meeting with the acting Prime Minister, Mr. Mikati of Lebanon and the Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib.
She is departing UAE very shortly and coming back here.

LEBANON
Staying in Lebanon, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs tell us that they are deeply concerned about the continuing hostilities affecting civilians and civilian infrastructure along the Blue Line and beyond.
This includes an Israeli airstrike on a health centre in Odaisseh, in the south of Lebanon on 4 March. Three volunteer paramedics were killed. The World Health Organization condemned this incident, urging an immediate halt to attacks on civilians and health care in Lebanon.
WHO reported that, since 7 October 2023, seven attacks on health care facilities in Lebanon have been reported, resulting in seven deaths.
Our OCHA colleagues in Lebanon warn that the humanitarian situation on the south of the country remains dire, with more than 90,000 people internally displaced and at least 42 civilian casualties reported because of the fighting.

Full remarks: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/noon-briefing-highlight?date%5Bvalue%5D%5Bdate%5D=06%20March%202024