Source: United Nations (video statements)
Press Conference by Jean Martin Bauer, WFP’s (World Food Programme) Director of Food Security and Nutrition Analysis, provides an overview of WFP’s report entitled, “A lifeline At Risk”. Ross Smith, WFP’s Director of Emergency Preparedness and Response, focus on the six countries that are at most critical risk this year as a result of funding cuts
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Noon Briefing by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.
Highlights:
UN80
Gaza
Occupied Palestinian Territory
Yemen
South Sudan
Sudan
Mozambique
Ukraine
Haiti
Carbon Dioxide Levels
International Day of Rural Women
UN80
This morning, the Secretary-General briefed the General Assembly on the progress of the three workstreams of his UN80 initiative. Taken together, he told the Member States, the measures of the three workstreams will produce a much more coherent, impactful, and cost-effective UN system as a whole.
The Secretary-General focused on the third workstream on structural changes, which was detailed in his recent report, “Shifting Paradigms: United to Deliver.”
He said that his vision for the United Nations system is clear: Entities that work together as one to deliver better, overcoming fragmentation, eliminating duplication, improving funding models and maximizing synergies.
Regarding peace and security work, he said he proposes to consolidate and reconfigure teams at Headquarters, as well as special political missions in Yemen, Cyprus and Central Africa, to eliminate duplication and increase coherence in our support to Member States.
He warned that humanitarian action is on the brink of collapse.
To respond to challenges, he said that we have established a New Humanitarian Compact between UN humanitarian agencies, which is a six-point blueprint to deliver better, restore trust in multilateral action and maximize the impact of every dollar that is given to the UN.
He said we will cut coordination bureaucracy, integrate the supply chains of the principal humanitarian agencies, propose to scale up the use of common services, strengthen our joint capacities to leverage data and align responsibilities to reduce programmatic overlaps in the fields of food, mobility, beneficiary data, health and nutrition.
On development work, Mr. Guterres said that we propose to conduct a thorough assessment of the potential benefits of a merger between United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), to create a stronger engine for sustainable development, with greater reach and scale. Similarly, we will conduct a thorough assessment on the benefits of a merger of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and UN Women and their respective mandates and capacities.
GAZA
In a statement issued today, Tom Fletcher, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, said that earlier this week, the UN was able to kick off our humanitarian scale-up after months of frustration and blockages, but yesterday, the UN has faced further setbacks to that implementation, adding that the UN is now tested to see whether it can ensure that these do not prevent the progress on which President Trump, the UN Secretary-General and so many leaders have insisted.
As Hamas have agreed, they must make strenuous efforts to return the bodies of all deceased hostages. The UN is gravely concerned by the evidence of violence against civilians in Gaza that we are witnessing since the ceasefire took effect.
As Israel has agreed, Mr. Fletcher added, they must allow the massive surge of humanitarian aid, thousands of trucks a week, on which so many lives depend, and on which the world has insisted. We need more crossings to be open and a genuine, practical, problem-solving approach to removing the remaining roadblocks, being physical or bureaucratic. Throughout this crisis, he said, the UN has insisted that withholding aid from civilians can never be a bargaining chip.
OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that they are trucking water and supporting wells and desalination to reach 1.5 million people in Gaza, noting that the needs remain immense. UN partners are also supporting the production or delivery of hundreds of thousands of meals and bread bundles every day.
Full Highlights
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/noon-briefing-highlight?date%5Bvalue%5D%5Bdate%5D=15%20October%202025
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Noon Briefing by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.
Highlights:
WFP Report (Guest Speakers)
UN80 Initiative
Gaza
Full Highlights
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/noon-briefing-highlight?date%5Bvalue%5D%5Bdate%5D=15%20October%202025
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Press conference by Roberto Benes, UNICEF’s Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, on the situation in Haiti.
Source: United Nations (video statements)
OCHA Spokesperson in Gaza Olga Cherevko said that since the ceasefire took effect, the United Nations and partners have moved swiftly to scale up the delivery of humanitarian assistance across Gaza. “It’s all hands on deck,” she said.
Olga Cherevko, OCHA Spokesperson in Gaza spoke to reporters via video link.
She said, “after months of devastation and suffering, the bombs have stopped falling. And with that silence came an opportunity and a responsibility to act.”
“We have wasted no time,” the OCHA Spokesperson said, highlighting that the UN’s scale up plan for the first 60 days tested and proven to work, “is in full motion.”
Cherevko said, “In the past three days, thousands of tons of humanitarian aid and other supplies have entered Gaza, including cooking gas, which entered on Sunday for the first time in over seven months.”
“We’re offloading and collecting critical supplies and accessing areas which we weren’t able to reach for months. With 190,000 metric tons of assistance in our cleared pipeline,” she added.
The OCHA Spokesperson also said, “Our medical teams are resupplying hospitals and field clinics that have been running on empty. We’re delivering fuel to power by bakeries, desalination plants and hospitals again. We’re repairing roads and checking them for explosive risks and helping displaced families prepare for the winter months.”
“Every truck, every piece of bread, every box of medicine that crosses into Gaza carries with it a message of hope for a better tomorrow,” Olga stressed.
She reiterated that the humanitarian needs “remain immense.”
“The ceasefire has ended the fighting, but it hasn’t ended the crisis,” the OCHA Spokesperson said, explaining, “displacement, destroyed infrastructure, lawlessness, damaged roads, unexploded ordnance and the collapse of basic services are just some of the challenges.”
She said, “Scaling up response is not just about logistics and more trucks. It’s about restoring humanity and dignity to a shattered population.”
Olga also said that the UN is working around the clock with all parties to ensure predictable, safe and sustained access.
“But let me be clear,” she said, “Humanitarian aid alone will not be a substitute for peace. The ceasefire must hold. It must become the basis for a broader political effort that brings the end of cycles of violence and despair.”
Asked about the danger of unexploded ordnance, the OCHA Spokesperson said, “We have, of course, our teams on the ground who do assessments, and they assess the various roads, the locations, and they go to make sure that the ordnance is clearly marked and that they’re also awareness for the communities to make sure that they know not to touch them and not to be around them and so forth.”
Asked reports of delaying the scaling up of humanitarian aid coming into Gaza, Olga said, “We have received this is communication from the Israeli authorities. And of course, we continue to encourage the parties to adhere to the agreements that have been set out in the ceasefire parameters. And we certainly very much hope that, the bodies of the hostages are handed over and that the ceasefire continues to, to be implemented.”
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls Reem Alsalem said, “Surrogacy as a practice, as an industry must be abolished.”
Reem Alsalem briefed journalists on her report about the ‘different manifestations of violence against women and girls in the context of surrogacy, focusing on the drivers of the practice and on the human rights implications for the females involved.’
She said, “The consequences of surrogacy are so grave and harmful and result in large scale violations of the human rights of surrogate mothers and their children that surrogacy as a practice as an industry must be abolished.”
She continued, “The violence that surrogate mothers and girls are experiencing in surrogate arrangements takes many forms. I speak about economic violence, psychological violence, physical and reproductive and in fact, in many situations, surrogate mothers experience life threatening situations, they are trapped in situations of slavery and are also subjected to practices that can amount to torture and inhuman and degrading treatment.”
She noted, “Often the concept of consent is weaponized in order to justify the surrogacy industry saying that it is these women and girls that consent fully and voluntarily to engage in surrogacy, and that we have to also respect the bodily autonomy and the decisions of these women and girls. However, as I also say in the report, consent is invalid when it is used to justify exploitation, abuse and violence.”
She added, “Not to mention that many of these women are actually not aware of the harm that they’re about to experience before entering into surrogacy arrangements, don’t even necessarily understand the contracts and the details of it, and there is a wide imbalance and asymmetry of power between these women and the surrogacy agencies and the commissioning parents.”
She also said, “The commodification of the reproductive functions of surrogate mothers is also deeply dehumanizing. In fact, even the terminology that we use, describing them as ‘ovens,’ despite describing them as ‘gestators,’ describing them as ‘wombs to rent’, points to this also deep-seated sexism and dehumanization that facilitates the surrogacy industry.”
She stated, “There are hardly any background checks on commissioning parents. These background checks typically are typically nonexistent or minimal, because what matters is the buying powers of the commissioning parents.”
She reported, “Regulation and legalization have not proven to reduce demand. They have not proven to safeguard surrogate mothers and children against abuse and exploitation. On the contrary, from the little evidence we have of countries which regularize some forms of surrogacy, it actually leads to increased demands. It leads to also an increased commodification and harmful stereotypes about women and girls about their reproductive functions, and therefore it also increases the risks of further abuse and exploitations.”
She highlighted, “First of all, we must end the demand for surrogacy. And to end the demand, we must criminalize the purchase of children through surrogacy. So that means commissioning parents. It means also anyone who profits from the surrogacy industry, which is the clinics, which is the intermediaries. And we must also, therefore prohibit advertisements that encourage and groom women and girls to become surrogate mothers or to sell even their eggs.”
She stressed, “These women are victims. They should not be criminalized for engaging in surrogacy, they must be treated as victims.”
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Noon briefing by Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.
Highlights:
Secretary-General/Travel
Occupied Palestinian Territory
Gaza-Mine Action
Global Humanitarian Funding
Ukraine
UNIFIL
Deputy Secretary-General/Travels
Libya
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Guest Today and Tomorrow
SECRETARY-GENERAL/TRAVEL
The Secretary-General is now on his way back to New York, after he attended the Sharm El Sheikh Summit for Ending the War in Gaza.
During the conference, the Secretary-General had conversations with a number of key interlocutors regarding the UN increasing its humanitarian efforts in Gaza.
OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY
Turning to the situation in the Gaza Strip, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs tells us that since the ceasefire plan came into effect, the UN and our humanitarian partners have been able to move more freely across parts of Gaza from which Israeli forces have withdrawn, without coordination with Israeli authorities. This improved access has allowed partners to scale up the response to the most urgent needs.
Yesterday, the World Health Organization said that within 24 hours of the ceasefire, an emergency medical team was deployed to Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza city, and eight trucks carrying medical supplies entered the Strip, including insulin, lab supplies and essential medicine.
WHO teams also reached the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis to retrieve cancer and other life-saving medications, as well as intensive care unit equipment — including incubators, ventilators and patient monitors — and transferred them to Nasser Hospital, also in Khan Younis.
The UN and our humanitarian partners have also installed a solar panel for a desalination unit in Deir al Balah, as well as new telecommunications hardware to improve connectivity for affected people and humanitarian operations. Efforts to clear debris from roads, particularly those leading to crossing points, are also underway.
Since yesterday, the Israeli authorities facilitated four UN-led missions to collect medical, health and shelter supplies from the Kerem Shalom and Kissufim crossings.
The UN and our partners are also assessing people’s needs in areas that had previously been inaccessible so that we can adjust our response efforts.
Today, an OCHA team visited one of these areas, the Al Kateeba neighbourhood in Khan Younis. They reported extensive destruction, with large amounts of rubble visible throughout. Our partners have begun clearing main roads to facilitate movement and humanitarian access within the area.
The UN and our partners will continue scaling up operations under our 60-day response plan to reach as many people as possible with life-saving assistance.
Much more can be done, and for this to happen, as we said, we need more crossings to open, as well as the sustained entry of fuel and cooking gas; security guarantees for convoys; basic infrastructure to be restored; protection of humanitarian workers; the facilitation of NGO access, including through ensuring they are not de-registered; and the rapid injection of funding to support humanitarian operations.
GAZA-MINE ACTION
And we have an update from our colleagues at the United Nations Mine Action Service on the severe threat from unexploded ordinance in Gaza. As hundreds of thousands of displaced people and humanitarian workers move through affected areas following the ceasefire, the risk of encountering these deadly remnants of war is high.
UNMAS and its partners are working tirelessly to protect communities and stand ready to facilitate humanitarian scale-up and mitigate explosive ordnance risks.
Since October 2023, UNMAS has identified more than 550 explosive ordnance items in areas they have been able to access, though the full extent of contamination in Gaza is still unknown.
Partners are also delivering risk education for communities since 2023, especially children, and training humanitarian and construction workers to operate safely. Their work is critical to saving lives and enabling aid to reach those in need.
Additionally, Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Officers evaluate debris along roads and within damaged buildings to determine whether areas are safe to clear. Their guidance and technical expertise are crucial for mitigating explosive ordnance risks during these high-risk operations.
Full Highlights: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/noon-briefing-highlight?date%5Bvalue%5D%5Bdate%5D=14%20October%202025
Source: United Nations (video statements)
Briefing by Miroslav Jenča, Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia and Americas, Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations, on Threats to international peace and security – Security Council, 10015th meeting.
Assistant Secretary-General Miroslav Jenča today (10 Oct) stressed “the need for all efforts to counter transnational organized crime to be conducted in accordance with international law, including the UN charter,” and called on the United States and Venezuela to de-escalate and “avoid any actions that may threaten international peace and security in the region.”
Jenča told a Security Council requested by Venezuela in respond to The US military buid-up in the Caribbean, that “the United Nations recognizes the devastating impact of violence driven by transnational organized crime, which affects production, transit, and destination countries alike, tearing at the fabric of communities and undermining development and stability across the region.”
Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya, who presided the meeting, said, “the American propaganda is asking us to believe in the existence of the mythical Cartel de los Soles, the Cartel of the Suns, which allegedly is moving tons of cocaine from Venezuela to the USA, and the head of which is none other than the president of the Bolivarian Republic, that the US does not like.”
Nebenzya said this was “an excellent subject for a Hollywood blockbuster, in which the Americans would once again save the world,” but added that “these assertions are not underpinned by facts at all.
US representative John Kelley said, “the United States has reached a critical point where we must use force in self-defense and defense of others, based on the cumulative effect of these hostile acts against the citizens and interests of the United States and friendly foreign nations.”
US President Donanld Trump, Kelley said, “has determined the United States is in a non-international armed conflict and has directed the Department of War to conduct operations against them, pursuant to the law of armed conflict and consistent with article 51 of the UN charter.”
He said Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro “is a fugitive from American justice, and the head of the vicious narco-terrorist Cartel de los Soles.”
Moreover, Kelley added, “it is the action and policies of the illegitimate Maduro regime that pose an extraordinary threat to both the region and the national security of the United States.”
Venezuela’s Ambassador Samuel Reinaldo Moncada, for his part told the Council that “we are facing a situation in which it is rational to anticipate that in the very short term, an armed attack is to be perpetrated against Venezuela.”
Moncada said, “the United States government conceals its crimes under the guise of self-defense. In so doing, it murders civilians without providing information as to their identity, without, proving the nature of the cargo aboard the vessels, and without providing any evidence on the imminent nature of an armed attack against US forces. This is not self-defense. These are extrajudicial killings.”
Outside the Council, talking to reporters he said, “we still have time to tackle the situation and to bring sense into the United States government and use peaceful means; means that the UN Charter offers, in order to resolve any situation by diplomatic and political means. Otherwise, we are walking towards a catastrophe that may destroy the whole region for generations.
Asked about the Peace Nobel Prize, awarded to Venezuela’s opposition leader María Corina Machado, Moncada said, “my reaction is that I was really hoping that she would win the physics Nobel, the Nobel of Physics, because she has the same kind credentials for the Nobel of Peace, the Peace Nobel. I mean, I guess that next year maybe she wins the Physics Nobel.”
Source: United Nations (video statements)
UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for the Great Lakes region Huang Xia said that the agreed ceasefire between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda “is not being respected.”
Addressing the Security Council, Huang Xia said, “Significant progress has been recorded on the diplomatic front. Thus, a real hope has arisen for the establishment of a ceasefire, which would open the way toward a lasting and definitive settlement of the conflict in the east of the DRC. First of all, American facilitation made it possible, on June 27 in Washington, to sign a Peace Agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda.”
He noted, “While all these African and international peace efforts are commendable and promising, they have, to this day, not lived up to their promises: the agreed ceasefire is not being respected. After a brief lull, the parties to the conflict have strengthened their positions and resumed military operations. The humanitarian situation remains catastrophic.”
He warned, “The alarming situation on the ground, marked by a shift of the front lines toward South Kivu, poses the risk of a regional flare-up that would annihilate all the peace efforts made.”
He then called upon “those most directly concerned — namely, the brotherly countries of the region — to resume direct and frank dialogue, and to take all necessary measures to put an end to this war once and for all.”
