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STORY: UN / GA COVID-19 RESPONSE DAY 2
TRT: 5:23
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 04 DECEMBER 2020, NEW YORK CITY
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, UN headquarters exterior
DECEMBER 2020, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, General Assembly Hall
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“The pandemic has shown what humanity is capable of at its best, and worst: Inspiring acts of compassion and self-sacrifice; breathtaking feats of science and innovation; and heart-warming demonstrations of solidarity; But also disturbing signs of self-interest, blame-shifting and division.”
4. Wide shot, General Assembly Hall
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“With positive results in recent weeks from vaccine trials, the light at the end of the tunnel is growing steadily brighter. Although the path ahead remains treacherous, we can begin to glimpse the end of the pandemic. But let me be clear: we simply cannot accept a world in which the poor and marginalized are trampled by the rich and powerful in the stampede for vaccines.”
6. Wide shot, General Assembly Hall
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“A vaccine will help to end the pandemic. But it will not address the vulnerabilities that lie at its root. There is no vaccine for poverty, no vaccine for hunger. There is no vaccine for inequality. There is no vaccine for climate change. Once the pandemic ends, we will be left with even greater challenges than before it started.”
8. Wide shot, General Assembly Hall
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Humanity has overcome many plagues and pandemics before, and we will overcome this one. We will overcome this one. But we cannot – and we must not – go back to the same exploitative patterns of production and consumption, the same disregard for the planet that sustains all life, the same cycle of panic and neglect, and the same divisive politics that fuelled this pandemic.”
10. Wide shot, UN officials in General Assembly Hall
11. SOUNDBITE (English) David Beasley, Executive Director, World Food Programme:
"2021 is literally going to be catastrophic based on what we are seeing at this stage of the game. And because, we spend 19 trillion dollars - that money may and will not most likely be available for 2021. Economic contraction, as Mike was talking about, is taking place and the needs have doubled."
12. Wide shot, UN officials in General Assembly Hall
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Achim Steiner, Administrator, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP):
"It is extremely expensive to be poor in a pandemic. It is extremely expensive to be poor in a pandemic, whether you are a household, or a least developed country, a small island developing nation, or a business person who actually is about to lose everything you have work for your whole life."
14. Wide shot, UN officials in General Assembly Hall
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Mark Lowcock, Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, United Nations:
"What we are going to see is poverty increasing for the first time in more than 20 years, the human development index falling, life expectancy will fall, hunger will grow. If David and I and all our colleagues can get to the end of 2021 avoiding major famines, that at this stage would be a major achievement. We have hundreds of millions of children out of school, and in particular we have a horrible, horrible plague of violence against women and girls. One of the - to me - most shocking consequences of the pandemic has been the evident deterioration of the behaviour of men - the behaviour of men - towards women and girls. All the stress and anxiety and frustration is, I'm afraid, being taken out in a very shocking way against women and girls all around the planet."
16. Multiple screens, officials
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees:
"Being on the move for people that were fleeing conflict, persecution, discrimination was lifesaving, but in a situation in which moving threatened the lives of themselves and others. This was the great paradox of the pandemic, that moving became a risk, but move was also lifesaving for people seeking safety."
18. Wide shot, General Assembly Hall
19. SOUNDBITE (English) Michele Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights:
"One of the problems that I see, when we're talking that countries need to develop a response to the crisis, and particularly the recovery response, is that they don't have enough data. I mean, data is segregated but very little factors. And what we have seen? We have seen that the most affected ones by the virus, by the COVID-19; but they are not only by the COVID-19. It's not that they have something genetic, something particular, it's that because these groups are systematically being discriminated. So, they are really being left behind, and so they are much more vulnerable."
20. Wide shot, General Assembly Hall
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Ghebreyesus, said humanity has overcome many plagues and pandemics before, and “we will overcome this one,” but stressed that “we cannot – and we must not – go back to the same exploitative patterns of production and consumption, the same disregard for the planet that sustains all life, the same cycle of panic and neglect, and the same divisive politics that fueled this pandemic.”
Speaking at a high-level event on the pandemic, Tedros said In the past 75 years, the UN has had many successes, and many challenges, but none more than COVID-19, which has strained the very fabric of multilateralism.
He said, “The pandemic has shown what humanity is capable of at its best, and worst: Inspiring acts of compassion and self-sacrifice; breathtaking feats of science and innovation; and heart-warming demonstrations of solidarity; But also disturbing signs of self-interest, blame-shifting and division.”
Dr Tedros said many countries have succeeded in preventing or containing widespread transmission of COVID-19 with proven public health tools. He said these countries have proven that with science, solidarity and sacrifice, this virus can be tamed. However, he noted that where science is drowned out by conspiracy theories, solidarity is undermined by division, and sacrifice is substituted with self-interest, the virus thrives.
The WHO chief said, “With positive results in recent weeks from vaccine trials, the light at the end of the tunnel is growing steadily brighter. Although the path ahead remains treacherous, we can begin to glimpse the end of the pandemic. But let me be clear: we simply cannot accept a world in which the poor and marginalized are trampled by the rich and powerful in the stampede for vaccines.”
Dr Tedros warned that a vaccine “will help to end the pandemic, but it will not address the vulnerabilities that lie at its root.” He stressed, “There is no vaccine for poverty, no vaccine for hunger. There is no vaccine for inequality. There is no vaccine for climate change. Once the pandemic ends, we will be left with even greater challenges than before it started.”
World Food Programme Executive Director David Beasley said the number of people facing starvation had already increased from 80 to 135 million in the last four years, and COVID-19 raised of the number of people who are marching towards starvation to 270 million across the world.
He said, "2021 is literally going to be catastrophic based on what we are seeing at this stage of the game. And because, we spend 19 trillion dollars - that money may and will not most likely be available for 2021. Economic contraction, as Mike was talking about, is taking place and the needs have doubled."
Beasley said if humanitarian agencies get the funding they need, they can avert destabilization, famine and migration. He added that the humanitarian community would not be able to fund everything, and such will have to prioritize.
Achim Steiner, Administrator of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said the human development index will go down for the first time in 30 years. He said this has been a vital year in trying to demonstrate why the world has a UN system and why the political end of the UN may not tell the whole story.
Steiner noted that every government, nation, and society is confronted by extraordinary pressures. He said the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging across the planet, yet the initial attempt to mobilise funds is already running out domestically and internationally.
The UNDP Administrator said the international response has not been commensurate with the reality on the ground. He added, "It is extremely expensive to be poor in a pandemic. It is extremely expensive to be poor in a pandemic, whether you are a household, or a least developed country, a small island developing nation, or a business person who actually is about to lose everything you have work for your whole life."
Steiner said some one billion people could be living in extreme poverty by 2030 if the right choices aren't made now, but the opposite is equally possible.
UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said the global humanitarian overview showed that 235 million may not survive next year in the absence of humanitarian assistance marking a 40 percent increase from last year, the largest ever seen.
SOUNDBITE (English) Mark Lowcock, Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, United Nations:
"What we are going to see is poverty increasing for the first time in more than 20 years, the human development index falling, life expectancy will fall, hunger will grow. If David and I and all our colleagues can get to the end of 2021 avoiding major famines, that at this stage would be a major achievement. We have hundreds of millions of children out of school, and in particular we have a horrible, horrible plague of violence against women and girls. One of the - to me - most shocking consequences of the pandemic has been the evident deterioration of the behaviour of men - the behaviour of men - towards women and girls. All the stress and anxiety and frustration is, I'm afraid, being taken out in a very shocking way against women and girls all around the planet."
Lowcock highlighted the importance of financing humanitarian and protection programmes and supporting non-government organizations.
The head of the UN refugee agency Filippo Grandi said some 80 million people are refugees or displaced – a great majority of whom are in poorer countries – and they have been particularly vulnerable to the pandemic. He said, "Being on the move for people that were fleeing conflict, persecution, discrimination was lifesaving, but in a situation in which moving threatened the lives of themselves and others. This was the great paradox of the pandemic, that moving became a risk, but move was also lifesaving for people seeking safety."
Grandi said lockdowns and other measures are devastating for everyone, but refugees, migrants and displaced persons depend on the type of employment that are the first ones to disappear in these situation. He said humanitarian do what they can to reach people in need, but what is needed is that these people are included in the social safety nets and economic relief packages that are being rolled out.
UN human rights chief Michele Bachelet said the world should not want to go back to the way it was before COVID-19, as that world was filled with human rights violations and lacks international solidarity and cooperation. She said countries with stronger social welfare systems, social protection networks, human rights protections, and universal healthcare fared better during the pandemic.
Bachelet said the virus does not discriminate, but it affected vulnerable groups more because of the discrimination they face.
She said, "One of the problems that I see, when we're talking that countries need to develop a response to the crisis, and particularly the recovery response, is that they don't have enough data. I mean, data is segregated but very little factors. And what we have seen? We have seen that the most affected ones by the virus, by the COVID-19; but they are not only by the COVID-19. It's not that they have something genetic, something particular, it's that because these groups are systematically being discriminated. So, they are really being left behind, and so they are much more vulnerable."
