United Nations response to the COVID-19 pandemic

[9] Echoing his 23 March appeal to warring parties across the globe for an immediate global ceasefire, he called on those fighting in Yemen to cease hostilities and increase efforts to counter a potential COVID-19 outbreak.

[22] On 15 April, the Secretary-General pledged that the UN would stand in solidarity with Africa in the face of the unprecedented economic, social and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, from procuring test kits to promoting debt relief.

[29] On 1 May 2020, the UN Secretary-General warned the COVID-19 fatality rate for people over 80-years-old was five times the global average, as he launched a new policy initiative tor challenges faced by the elderly as a result of "the biggest public health crisis to hit the world in a century".

[38] On 28 May, the Secretary General called for greater "unity and solidarity" at a high-level funding meeting as he warned of 60 million pushed into extreme poverty; coming famines of "historic proportions"; approximately 1.6 billion people unemployed; and a 'Great Depression'-like loss of $8.5 trillion in global output.

[39] On 2 June 2020, at a virtual pledging conference for Yemen, where community transmission of the coronavirus was likely underway, the UN Secretary-General warned that the country, whose health system had collapsed, was facing a massive humanitarian crisis and was "hanging on by a thread".

[45] On 19 June, the UN Secretary-General issued a new policy brief, the World of Work and COVID-19, concerning jobs, livelihoods and the well-being of workers, families and businesses globally, as they continued to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic; with micro, small and medium enterprises in particular, suffering dire economic consequences.

[2] On 30 June, the Secretary-General called on the world to increase "financial, humanitarian and political commitments", to help end nearly a decade of major conflict and suffering in Syria, in a message to the fourth Brussels Donor Conference.

[52] On 9 July, the Secretary-General called on UN Member States to urgently address the ‘unprecedented’ impact of coronavirus on Latin America and the Caribbean, as it now had the highest rates of transmission, exacerbating the severe poverty, hunger, unemployment and inequality in the region.

[62] On 12 August, the Secretary-General briefed the UN Security Council on sustainable peace and the progress of the global ceasefire, warning that COVID-19 threatened hard-won development and peacebuilding gains and "risks exacerbating conflicts or fomenting new ones".

[65] On 2 September 2020, the Secretary-General, at one of a series of the Aqaba Process international meetings of heads of state to improve global cooperation in fighting terrorism and violent extremism, warned the world had "entered a volatile and unstable new phase" in terms of the impact of COVID-19 on peace and security.

The first, on 2 April 2020 (A/RES/74/270), on 'Global solidarity to fight the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)', reaffirms the General Assembly's commitment to international cooperation and multilateralism and expresses "strong support for the central role of the United Nations system".

[96] On 29 July, the FAO issued a 'call to action' highlighting the plight of hundreds of millions of smallholder family farmers in Asia-Pacific, who produce the majority of the world's food, and whose livelihoods are disproportionately suffering due to the pandemic.

On 18 March 2020, the ILO released projections showing that millions of people will fall out of employment due to the pandemic and called for an internationally coordinated policy response, as had happened in the 2008 financial crisis, to significantly lower the impact on global unemployment.

[104] On 8 July, the UN Secretary General states at the ILO-organized 'The Global Summit', part of a five-day virtual event that is addressing the coronavirus pandemic, that decent jobs must fuel the COVID-19 recovery to "build back better".

[105] On 23 September, the ILO reported on the occasion of the sixth edition of its 'COVID Monitor' that COVID-19 has had a "catastrophic" impact on workers, equivalent to 495 million full-time jobs lost globally in the second quarter of the year, with lower and middle-income countries suffering most.

[107] On 21 October, new ILO report warned that the COVID-19 pandemic had resulted in "government lockdowns, collapsed consumer demand, and disrupted imports of raw materials", heavily impacting the Asia Pacific garment industry.

[132] On 20 May, the High Commissioner and the Chairperson of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights issued a joint call for urgent measures to reduce the ripple effects of COVID-19 on Africa's most vulnerable, warning that hoping it would go away would not work.

[150] On 6 July, at a High-Level Political Forum to discuss post-pandemic recovery, Mr. Mher Margaryan, Vice-president of ECOSOC, announced that the future of the SDGs would "depend on our policy choices today" on the global resolve to act in solidarity.

[158] On 29 April, UNESCO, UNICEF, and the World Bank, acting as part of the Global Education Coalition, issued new guidelines to assist governments in making decisions on safely reopening schools for 1.3 billion students affected by closures.

[159] On 4 May 2020, at a UNESCO-led event to mark World Press Freedom Day, the UN Secretary-General noted that journalists are key to countering the "dangerous outbreak of misinformation" accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic, including harmful health advice, hate speech, wild conspiracy theories, and "blatant lies".

[164] On 6 July 2020, a joint United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) report warned that the world could expect to see other animal-to-human transmission by diseases and stated that there was still time to prevent further zoonotic pandemics.

[115] On 3 April, in a joint statement, the UNHCR, the IOM, the OHCHR and the WHO stressed that "refugees, migrants and displaced persons are at heightened risk of contracting the new coronavirus disease" as health systems threaten to be overwhelmed.

[190] On 11 May, three senior UN officials in the Middle East, including from UNICEF and the UN Human Rights Office, jointly called for the release of Palestinian children from Israeli-run prisons and detentions centres, due to the risk of COVID-19 infection.

[192] On 15 May, UNICEF in the Democratic Republic of the Congo warned coronavirus restrictions affecting vaccinations could result in a resurgence in deadly childhood diseases like "polio, chickenpox, measles, yellow fever, hepatitis B, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and meningitis".

[196] On 26 June, UNICEF warned in a new report that the number of malnourished children in Yemen could reach 2.4 million by the end of 2020, due to huge shortfalls in humanitarian aid funding amid the coronavirus pandemic.

[200] On 3 September, UNICEF in a new report warned that the world's richest nations must protect child well-being in terms of COVID-19 fallout, with children suffering from mental health concerns, obesity and poor social and academic skills.

[202] On 15 October, releasing new statistics, UNICEF estimated that 40 per cent of the global population, or circa three billion people, do not possess home hand-washing facilities, despite soap and water being vital in combating COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.

On 27 March 2020, the Executive Director of the UNFPA pledged support for those suffering from invisible impacts of the pandemic, including women and girls with disrupted access to life-saving sexual and reproductive health care.

[219] The WFP has warned of a massive increase in food insecurity in multiple regions, and especially in Africa, including due to famines and a lack of school meals, as a result of the pandemic and is coordinating a major UN response.

[231] On 6 August, the WFP and governments announced that a flight carrying "protective masks, ventilators and other essential medical supplies for COVID-19 response" had landed in Papua New Guinea, commencing a humanitarian air service for the Pacific region.