Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: United Nations (video statements)

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

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Highlights:
Cyprus
Occupied Palestinian Territory
Yemen
Haiti
South Sudan

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CYPRUS
Following the informal meeting on Cyprus in a broader format that was held in Geneva on 17-18 March of this year, the Secretary-General will convene on 16 and 17 July, here at UN Headquarters, the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders, as well as representatives of the guarantor powers of Greece, Türkiye and the United Kingdom, for another informal meeting on Cyprus.
The meeting will provide an opportunity to continue the dialogue and exchange views on the progress made since March. 

OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY
Turning to the increasingly dire situation in Gaza, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that overnight, Israeli authorities issued a new displacement order for two neighbourhoods in Khan Younis, following reported Palestinian rocket fire. Up to 80,000 people are estimated to be living in these neighourhoods. Approximately 85 per cent of Gaza’s territory is currently either under displacement orders or located within militarized zones – which is severely hampering people’s access to essential humanitarian support and the ability of aid workers to reach those in need.
Our colleagues working on water, sanitation and hygiene also tell us that Al Satar – a key water reservoir – has become inaccessible as a result of the order. The facility serves as the main water distribution hub for Khan Younis and a critical supply point for water coming through the Israeli pipeline in the area.
Any damage to the reservoir could lead to a collapse of the city’s water distribution system, with grave humanitarian consequences.
OCHA warns that these displacement orders continue to strain vital services and push people into increasingly smaller swaths of Gaza’s territory. Since the breakdown of the ceasefire in March and as of yesterday, some 714,000 people have been forcibly displaced once more across Gaza, with nearly 29,000 displaced in just 24 hours between Sunday and Monday.
Many existing shelters are severely overcrowded, with poor hygiene conditions – posing severe risks for public health. Our partners working on health, water, sanitation and hygiene report that across Gaza, rates of acute watery diarrhea have reached 39 per cent among patients receiving health consultations.
The increase is being driven by insufficient clean drinking and domestic water reaching shelters, worsening the dire hygiene and sanitation conditions. The governorates of Gaza and Khan Younis have the worst levels of acute watery diarrhea, due to severe overcrowding in sites and shelters.
You will recall that no shelter assistance has entered Gaza in four months, despite the hundreds of thousands of newly displaced people. Our shelter partners say that 97 per cent of the sites surveyed reported displaced people sleeping in the open. OCHA reiterates that an unrestricted flow of supplies through multiple crossing points over a sustained period of time is critical to address people’s needs and prevent the already desperate situation from worsening.
Meanwhile, the depletion of fuel stocks continues to wreak havoc on aid operations, constraining the UN and our humanitarian partners’ ability to respond.
Yet again today, an attempt to deliver some of the remaining fuel stocks to the north was denied by Israeli authorities.
The denial follows a successful delivery yesterday of diesel from the World Health Organization’s remaining stock to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City to prevent further shutdown of critical services. WHO says the facility is overwhelmed and severely under-resourced. Its beds are full, and patients are once again being treated on the floor.
Our partners working on emergency telecommunications stress that unless fuel stocks are replenished immediately, Gaza could face a complete communications blackout, severely hindering humanitarian access and coordination, and preventing affected communities from receiving critical information.
Critical water, sanitation, hygiene and healthcare facilities have already begun shutting down in some areas, including hospital equipment and services, water trucking, and water and sewage pumps. If the fuel crisis isn’t addressed soon, humanitarian responders could be left without the systems and tools necessary to operate safely, manage logistics and distribute humanitarian assistance. This would endanger aid workers and escalate an already dire humanitarian crisis.

Full Highlights:
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/noon-briefing-highlight?date%5Bvalue%5D%5Bdate%5D=02%20July%202025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWsQI3oYzuM

Source: United Nations (video statements)

Press Conference by Guy Ryder, the Under-Secretary-General for Policy on the updates on UN80.

The Chair of the UN80 Task Force, Guy Ryder, today (1 Jul) said, the “really substantive” and “policy-focused” part of the UN 80 initiative, will be the mandate implementation review, which will look into nearly 4,000 mandate documents underpinning the UN Secretariat’s work.

Briefing correspondents in New York on updates on the UN80 Initiative, Ryder said, “we have a very heavy corpus, stock of mandates in the form of resolutions and decisions from previous years and decades, which it makes sense for us to subject to detailed scrutiny, not least because they result in a very heavy load of meetings, of reports being produced, make demands both of the Secretariat and of Member States, which merits looking at with a view to improving the way that we organize our work.”

The Under-Secretary-General for Policy said, “if you have a look at the, the organigram of the UN system, you do find quite a baroque architecture. There’s a lot of entities. They’ve grown over the years in an accretional, in an incremental way. Structures are never easy to change once they’re in place, but it does seem sensible to subject this architecture to detailed scrutiny.”

He said the UN 80 initiative “is the United Nations and the Secretary-General responding to the totality of our circumstances, political circumstances, financial circumstances certainly, but also, I think, circumstances in which the effectiveness of multilateralism is up for scrutiny.”

Ryder said, “the idea is to bring the United Nations out of this process, in these rather turbulent times, in better shape, stronger in a position to confront the challenges of today and tomorrow more effectively,” adding that in the end, “this will be the measure of the success of the initiative, able to have greater impact for the people, eventually.

He said, “there are some Member States, particularly those who I think invest and contribute substantially to the system, who are encouraging the Secretary-General to boldness and ambition. They want to see this process bring significant change and improvement in the system. But I think it’s fair to say as well that there is another body of opinion amongst Members who urge a certain degree of caution.”

Ryder said, “we recognize that we have a difficult task of untangling the undergrowth of decisions and resolutions and mechanisms that we put in place to implement them,” and noted that “a similar review undertaken 20 years ago ran rather quickly into the sand. It did not produce the results that were hopeful and expected at that time.”

He said he hoped this time around, “we can avoid some of the pitfalls.”

The UN80 Chair said, “it’s quite clear that we can reach the targets that have been set, but I think what is important in the process of review that the Secretary- General is now engaging in, is that it will not result in a 20 percent – can I use a phrase? – haircut across every department. It is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Rather, the Secretary- General is reviewing the inputs. He will make his determinations on where he believes certain services, certain activities, need to be – the word I could use is protected or not subject to the full rigor of a 20 percent cuts. Those where a greater effort might be called for.”

He said, “what we’re not trying to do is pick off one mandate, because it’s expensive or in view of its resource implications. We are trying to have a more methodical, systemic review of mandates as a whole. The corpus of mandates, identify where duplications and redundancies may exist, where we can, approach implementation in a more rational, streamlined way and produce the types of proposals that we hope Member States will give favourable consideration to.”

The UN80 Task Force will present its proposals to the Secretary-General, who has already indicated the first areas where outcomes are expected. A working group on efficiencies in the UN Secretariat, led by Under-Secretary-General Catherine Pollard, delivered initial proposals at the end of June, and a report on the mandate implementation review will follow at the end of July.

This work under the first two workstreams will help inform broader thinking around structural changes and programme realignment across the UN system. Proposals under the third workstream will be put forward to Member States in the coming months and into next year, and eventually, Member States will decide how to act on the findings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrG1_oCtcP8

Source: United Nations (video statements)

More taxes on the super wealthy is not a radical idea but a response to radical inequality in the world, says José Gilberto Scandiucci, Brazil’s Minister-Counsellor to the UN. Speaking at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, he points out that the world’s wealthiest people pay, on average, 0.3 per cent of their income in taxes.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dm7Y2GI4g0k

Source: United Nations (video statements)

Press Conference: Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the UN, and President of the Security Council in July 2025 on the Programme of Work of the Security Council in July.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c-3wr9yNEs