October 2022

Financing Climate Solutions via Sovereign Debt Reduction: A webinar raising awareness on a key issue for COP27

On 25 October 2022, QUNO and the Catholic Climate Covenant co-hosted a webinar on sovereign debt reduction. COP27 is promising to be heavily focused on concerns about financing climate change mitigation and adaptation. Sovereign debt reduction is increasingly being spoken about as a "solution" to climate financing. Experts spoke on important questions that must be considered when discussing this subject.

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October 2022

QUNO hosts authors from ‘Light in Gaza: Writings Born in Fire’

On 25 October, QUNO New York hosted Jehad Abusalim and Asmaa Abu Mezeid, two of the authors of the newly published anthology ‘Light in Gaza: Writings Born in Fire’, for an intimate conversation at Quaker House with QUNO staff and members of the UN Israel-Palestine NGO Working Group.

With the situation in Gaza often framed purely as a military or humanitarian issue, this conversation provided an opportunity to hear about people’s experiences under occupation.

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October 2022

Quaker Statement on the Peace Testimony and Ukraine

Quakers are a people who follow after peace, love and unity. Our peace testimony is our witness to the Truth as we experience it. 

Our testimony manifests as a cumulative set of actions, continually tested and added to over centuries.  These actions are diverse in form, but have been broadly united by: 1) Refusal to kill, 2) Relief of suffering, 3) Building the institutions of peace, and 4) Supporting peacebuilding and removing the causes of war. 

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September 2022

QUNO NY Representative speaks on International Day of Peace panel

On the International Day of Peace, which is held every year on 21 September, QUNO NY Representative, Kavita Desai, joined the Global People’s Assembly panel discussion, Peace and Conflict Prevention - Reflections on International Day of Peace. The session, held virtually, brought together civil society organizations (CSOs) to discuss the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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September 2022

QUNO delivers intervention at the 57th session of the IPCC

QUNO attended the 57th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which met from 27-30 September, in Geneva.  Climate scientists and Government Representatives discussed the organization’s budget and work programme, and complications due to the delayed production of the 6th Assessment Synthesis Report and elections of a new IPCC Chair.

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October 2022

Transformation for Racial Justice: Nothing can be changed until it is faced

On 3 October, QUNO Geneva engaged with the work of the Human Rights Council on systemic racism.

Speaking in the first dialogue with the Expert Mechanism on Law Enforcement and Racism, Director Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge drew on her own experience of police violence in apartheid South Africa. Welcoming the work of the Expert Mechanism and the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Nozizwe went on to say:

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September 2022

Building Toward Migration Justice with all the Tools in the Toolbox: Complementarity Between the Global Compact for Migration and the Convention on Migrant Workers

On 27 September, speaking at the Committee on Migrant Workers Day of General Discussion on the convergence between the Global Compact for Migration and the Convention on Migrant Workers, our Human Rights and Refugees Representative, Laurel Townhead, highlighted the value of using the respective strengths of these instruments and their follow up mechanisms. Laurel said: 

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August 2022

QUNO NY calls for more effective youth inclusion in the General Assembly

On 30 August, UN Member States and civil society representatives came together to discuss and identify ways to strengthen youth engagement in the General Assembly (GA). Kavita Desai, one of QUNO’s Quaker UN Representatives, spoke on behalf of the Civil Society-UN Prevention Platform, which is co-facilitated by QUNO’s New York office and the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). The Platform works to support the UN’s prevention agenda through strengthening coordination and information sharing between civil society organizations and the UN.

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August 2022

Brief analysis of the International Migration Review Forum Progress Declaration

The International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) Progress Declaration was adopted by consensus on 20 May 2022. It was then endorsed by the UN General Assembly by consensus. This consensus adoption demonstrates a significant maturing in migration multilateralism in the UN grounded in human rights.  There were a series of Explanations of Position at the time of the adoption including from Members States that made clear that they wanted more from the Progress Declaration in terms of human rights.

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