At
UN, Deputy SG Amina Mohammed Meets
Swedish Princess & Ghana
Prez, Reforms This Month?
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
June 8 – When UN Deputy
Secretary General Amina J.
Mohammed on June 8 met with
Ghana's President Nana Addo
Dankwa Akufo-Addo (here)
and then Victoria the Crown
Princess of Sweden, Inner City
Press went to cover both. Inner
City Press covers
Ghana at
the International
Monetary Fund
(which on June
7 answered
Inner City
Press'
questions
about Egypt
and then South
Sudan); Akufo-Addo's
speech at the
UN was about
the Ocean
Conference and
SDG 14. The
wall of DSG
Mohammed's
conference
room has a
large DSGs
poster, which
she pointed
out to the
Swedish
Princess.
Periscope
video here.
It's said the
proposed
reforms to the
UN's
development
system will be
announced this
month - Inner
City Press has
been asking
about them -
and perhaps
belatedly
improvements
to the UN,
including an
end to Press censorship
and
restriction,
can begin. The
DSG's chief of
staff has been
directly informed
of the
problem, along
with others on
the south end
of the 38th
floor. We'll
have more on
this - and
less substantively
this, the
presence of
Daim candies
from Sweden in
the DSG's
conference
room, even for
the large
Ghana
delegation...
Back on March
16, when Mohammed
provided
a briefing on antimicrobial
resistance along with Margaret
Chan of the World Health
Organization on March 16,
Inner City Press asked about
the problem of overuse of
antibiotics, and how WHO and
the wider UN system will seek
to address the looming budget
cuts. "As a UN System," was
the answer, once the specifics
of the proposed cuts become
more clear, and striving for
greater efficiency including
at the local level. Amina
Mohammed said in the
developing world there is much
self-medication, due to the
high costs of hospital. In the
so-called developed world too.
As Inner
City Press live-tweeted Amina
J. Mohammed's briefing, a
reader chimed in about AMR
in the developing world.
Video of the press conference
would have been useful, but
since Inner City Press was summarily
evicted
from its UN work space
thirteen months ago it has no
access to the UN in-house feed
or high-speed download. This
has yet to be addressed.
Back on
February 28 when Amina
Mohammed was sworn in, a
delegation from Nigeria and
her family accompanied her.
Less than two hours later she
did her first media question
and answer session as DSG, and
Inner City Press asked her
about the Green Bond she
worked on as Nigerian Minister
of the Environment, and if in
her new role she will work on
the issue of Security Council
reform, to try to make the
Council more representative. Video
here.
Mohammed
said the Green Bond can get
the private sector involved,
and that reform of the
Security Council along with
Secretary General Antonio
Guterres could help the agenda
of preventive diplomacy. It's
needed. Transcript below.
The
fact that Mohammed took
questions within hours of
taking office is a good sign,
and even at the stakeout in
front of the Economic and
Social Council chamber Inner
City Press encouraged her to
keep holding such Q&A
session. Ironically, Inner
City Press is currently restricted
unlike other correspondents
from staking out ECOSOC and
even the General Assembly, by
a no
due process eviction
order by outgoing Under
Secretary General for
Communications Cristina
Gallach. It should be
reversed, immediately. The UN
should treat the Press fairly,
and start providing more
rather than less Press access.
Watch this site.
Transcript (also
on YouTube,
here)
Inner City Press:
I saw that you worked on the
Green Bond in Nigeria, and I
wondered whether you think
that that is a model that
other emerging markets can use
to secure [inaudible]
projects, and also do you view
it as part of your mandate to
work on the issue of Security
Council reform, in the sense
of making it more
representative, and having
more countries represented on
it? Thanks.
DSG Amina Mohammed: Well, on
the Green Bond, I have to say
it was an exciting initiative
to use, to leverage, the
implementation of the NDC. The
first thought was: how do you
do that, beyond the budget,
and to bring this whole
integration at country level.
So, the sovereign Green Bond
which will be the first ones
issued at the end of March in
emerging countries is very
exciting, and I think that the
model that should be taken
there is that countries
themselves need to go through
a process that strengthens
integration and that they
institutionally can then rise
to the opportunities of other
financing coming into the
international Green Bond
market. And that is huge. It
has also brought in a lot of
the private sector into this,
in a way, I think, that is
constructive and gets
government providing the
enabling environment but the
private sector really taking
things to scale. It has to be
about jobs and our economies
improving in Africa, so yes, I
do think that that is
important.
On the second question on
security reform, that is
something that I will work to
support the
Secretary-General. I
think he has given me a huge
amount to deliver on. I think
that Security Council reform
is a critical part of what we
do in the next few years and
somehow we have to balance
that if we to address the
prevention agenda. Thank you
very much.
***
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