After
Outrage at
Sudan
Humanitarian
Role, It
Shifts to UN
Coordination
By
Matthew
Russell Lee,
Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
February 21 –
Amid outcry
that Sudan
would head up
the
Humanitarian
segment at the
UN's Economic
and Social
Council,
ECOSOC
President
Nestor Osorio
tells Inner
City Press he
has worked out
a
compromise.
Sudan
will cede the
Humanitarian
segment to
Pakistan, from
which it will
take over the
so-called
Coordination
segment.
Osorio told
Inner City
Press this
deal, hammered
out with each
country's
Permanent
Representative,
will be
announced on
February 28.
The ECOSOC
session
takes place
this summer in
Geneva.
Whether
this
will or should
be enough for
those who
opposed Sudan
for the
Humanitarian
segment is
open to
question.
“Coordination”
involves
the interplay
of UN system
entities like
the UN
Development
Program,
UNICEF, UNFPA
and other
funds and
programs.
What's the
difference?
But
given the
situation in
Sudan's
Southern
Kordofan and
Blue Nile
states, where
a Tripartite
Agreement to
deliver aid
was never
implemented,
chairing the
Humanitarian
segment was
for some a
step
too far. And
Coordination?
Earlier
on
Thursday after
the Security
Council held a
biweekly
closed door
meeting about
Sudan and
South Sudan,
Inner City
Press asked US
Ambassador
Susan Rice
about the
status of the
draft
Presidential
Statement
pending in the
Council. It
will be
updated, Rice
told
Inner City
Press, based
on the day's
briefing.
Sudan's
Permanent
Representative
Daffa-Alla
Elhag Ali
Osman
told
Inner City
Press there
had been some
“good news” in
the briefing
by UN envoy
Haile
Menkerios;
another
Permanent
Representative
on the Council
told Inner
City Press
that
Menkerios had
sounded
hopeful.
Earlier
this
week Inner
City Press
asked
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesman
Martin Nesirky
about deadly
fighting in or
near Abyei on
the Sudan and
South Sudan
border. The UN
has yet to
answer the
question,
despite having
a peacekeeping
mission there.
Watch this
site.
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