UN Geneva Press Briefing: IOM, UN Women, UNCTAD, WHO, UNECE

Good morning. Welcome to the press briefing of the UN Information Service. We are here in Geneva and today is Tuesday, 8th of September. I would like to change a little bit the order because we have a little connection problem with the colleague of IOM in Yemen. So I'd like to start immediately by giving the floor to Sophia Caltrap, the Chief of Humanitarian Action, who would like to present us a report on the situation of women-headed households in Gaza. Sophia.

Thank you very much, dear Alessandra, and good morning, everybody. Today, UN Women has published a new report looking at the realities faced by women heading households in Gaza. Women reportedly head nearly one in four households in Gaza, an estimated 86,290 families. And this is double the pre-October 2023 rate and follows the widespread killings of Palestinians. We have been speaking to widows and to women whose husbands are missing, detained, severely injured, forcibly displaced, or whose fate remains unknown. And we found an horrific amount of collective heartbreak. Women are dealing with the grief of losing a husband and a father to their children, and at the same time facing the sole responsibility of managing the household, protecting and providing for their families, all in extremely dire circumstances and in increasingly unlivable conditions. Access to food, to safe water, to hygiene supplies and essential services is severely limited. There are restrictions on humanitarian access, insecurity, and continued Israeli bombardment. Women heading households are every day forced to make impossible decisions on how to allocate scarce resources, how to access assistance, and simply ensure the survival of those in their care. UN Women data show that women who head households are more likely to be deprived of shelter, of food, and finances than male-headed households. They are also more likely to be displaced or have their home destroyed. Nearly seven in 10 women-headed households do not have adequate shelter, compared with 55% of households headed by a male. And three-quarters of women-headed households report housing damage, compared with two-thirds of those headed by a male. Women heading households have been forced to flee on average eight times since October 2023, compared with seven times for male-headed households. And two-thirds of women-headed households urgently require cash assistance to meet daily survival needs. Recognizing and responding to realities of both women-headed households and those who are de facto heads of households are essential to ensuring that women in Gaza are seen and supported. I want to also use this moment to highlight the continued dangers women and girls face in Gaza, despite the ceasefire. 246 Palestinian women and girls have been killed by Israeli air bombardment and military ground operations in Gaza since the ceasefire agreement came into effect in October 2025. This is equivalent to six women and girls killed every week between October 2025 and 28th of July 2026. 18-year-old Rahad Ashur was killed in an Israeli strike on her way to her 11th grade high school exam in Gaza City. 31-year-old Dina Al-Madun was also killed in a strike in Gaza City. A six-year-old girl was killed in a helicopter strike on an encampment for displaced families in the Marwasi area of Khan Yunis. And a girl was shot and killed in front of her classmates in a tent school in Beit Lahia. This must stop. The ceasefire must be fully implemented. International law, accountability for violations, unimpeded humanitarian assistance that reaches those in need at scale and without obstruction, and the protection of women and girls must all be fully realized. And the needs of women and girls must be placed at the center of response and recovery, including their meaningful participation in peacebuilding and reconstruction. As UN Women, we work on the ground in Gaza with women-led and women's rights organizations supporting their efforts to deliver life-saving support for the women and girls of Gaza. Thank you very much and back over to you, Alessandra.

Thank you very much, Sophia, for the presentation of this important report. I'll open the floor to questions, if any, in the room. I don't see hands up or online. There seems to be no questions for you, Sophia, so thank you very much. The reports and the press release, I guess, have already or will be distributed today, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

So thank you.

It's been distributed, by the way.

It has been distributed. Good. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, so thank you again, and let me now go and see if our colleague is connected from Yemen. Is he connected? Can we have confirmation? Yeah. OK. So, Zoe, you want to come on the podium? So we have with us the colleagues from IOM, Zoe Brennan with Abdusattor SOF, who is the IOM chief of mission. I understand you're already in Aden, sir, to tell us more about the escalating hostilities and the displacement in Yemen's western coast. We start directly. Will your colleague?

I'll speak.

Oh, you start. Okay. Let's start with Zoe then.

Thank you very much, Alessandra. Yes, we're here today to express our deep concern over the rising displacement across Yemen, which is prompted by the escalating violence on the West Coast. And we're seeing the numbers, sadly, rising by the hour. So I will turn to our Chief of Mission in Yemen, Abdusattar Essov, who's speaking from Aden. Over to you, Chief of Mission.

Thank you very much. Can you hear me?

Very well, sir.

Good, thank you. So, yeah, thank you very much for having me. We, as my colleagues have mentioned, there is a situation that we are witnessing now in the West Coast of Yemen. So we are deeply alarmed by the escalating violence in Yemen, West Coast, which had up to yesterday displaced more than 18,000 people. 500 people in just 72 hours. So families are arriving destitute with no shelter, food or safe options for return. Many, by the way, have already endured multiple displacement over the past 12 years of conflict, which with the new player raises what little stability they have had managed to rebuild. The latest escalation as we see today, the last few days, comes against the backdrop of the protected crisis in which 4.5 million people remain displaced across Europe. And that is the number of the people that have been displaced over the years. But in the recent days alone, as I mentioned, we have seen 18,500 people in this place. It's more than 3,000 households according to our displaced tracking metrics team data that they've collected and also the partners on the ground. So the newly displaced, the further movements reported as a situation of false. So displacement sites have been emptied. Those people who are forcing, the families who are forcing to move are actually coming from displaced camps and they are on the increasing precarious conditions in the house communities. in Al-Mukha and Taiz, in Mafza and Jabal Habashi, which are all in the west coast of Yemen, are under immense strain, struggling to absorb the influx with already limited resources. We are equally concerned also about the plight of the migrants stranded in Yemen. You know, Yemen is a country that also is a transit hub for a lot of migrants coming from the Eastern Mediterranean route, the Eastern route, they call it from the Horn of Africa. So we are very concerned about the plight of those migrants. So today, those migrants are also facing heightened risk and deteriorating security and humanitarian conditions. So their vulnerability is compounded by the lack of safe passage and the collapse of the basic services. The human toll is rising, fatalities are increasing, families are trapped by blocked roads and insecurity, and the access to, the access are also constrained, which is hampering the delivery of the life-saving assistance. The protection concerns are also rising, amounting with civilian caught in frontline areas and unable to move to safety. At this critical moment, The people of Yemen need our unwavering support. IOM stands ready to scale up its rapid response mechanism with partners deploying our displacement tracking metrics to monitor the movement of the people and to see the needs of this population and verify the needs and coordinate assistance. We are also providing currently limited assistance, which includes shelters, health services, protection, social support, and community-based programming that needs to scale up as the needs and what we have exceeds the available resources. We would like also to use this opportunity to echo the call of the UN Special Envoy for Yemen, which has issued a statement yesterday for the escalation and full respect for international military law. Civilian must protect in all times and essential infrastructure must not be damaged in tactical. And every effort must be made to prevent further escalations. Over the almost two years that I've been here working as the mission here, I have been quite amazed of the resilience of Yemeni people, especially those displaced families, which is extraordinary. But I believe that we cannot, the population cannot face this crisis alone. And we urge the international community to stand in solidarity with Yemen and to increase support and ensure that humanitarian actions are provided and humanitarian actors can continue reaching those most in need. As I mentioned, I am It's already mobilized some of the systems to the population based on available stocks that we have. So we have focused on the, as I said, rapid response mechanism and also multiple cash assistance, multiple purpose cash assistance. It is part of that. So some short-term and non-food items have been also provided in kind and cash. And we are looking at mobilizing our WASH pipeline supplies. As you know, I am in Yemen, who's managing the WASH pipelines on behalf of international humanitarian organizations. So we have some pipelines that are stored in the West Coast. We are looking at mobilizing them. So we are also providing health services in one of the facilities in the West Coast in health facilities. This is where we also kind of extending support to the new arrival families as a result of this displacement situation currently in the West Coast. I'd like to stop here and go back to you. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And as Rui just reminded me, I put out a press release yesterday night on this. And I also would like to call your attention to this statement by the UN Special Envoy for Yemen on this recent escalation that we have circulated yesterday, where he says, Yemeni's reports of civilians killed and injured, families displaced, and civilian infrastructure damaged are deeply troubling. Yemen has already endured more than a decade of conflict, and a return to sustainable large-scale fighting will carry grave consequences for civilians and make an already difficult path toward a political settlement even harder. He calls on the parties to cease all hostilities, exercise maximum restraint, and make full use of existing channels, including the UN's Military Coordination Committee, to prevent further escalations. All parties must uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law and protect civilians and civilian infrastructure." And he concludes by saying that he will continue engaging directly with the parties with the aim of containing the current escalation and preserving space for dialogue. He also called on regional and international actors to use their influence towards these and to support a return to political negotiations. And I'll open the floor to questions now. Agnes Pedrero, AFP.

Yes, thank you. Question to the Chief of Mission. You mentioned that camps have been emptied. Could you explain more what those camps were, who was inside those camps, and how they have been emptied? Is it natural movement that people were having fear, so they went away? Or have they been emptied by groups, by anyone? If you could explain more about that. Thank you.

Abdisatar.

Yeah, thank you very much for the questions. Indeed, what we are seeing now is the escalation of the situation where the population have been displaced. So there are a lot of number of the camps, quite large numbers of the camps in the West Coast. There are small camps, they are not, they are passing from few families to more than that. So those camps that we are talking about, empty, are those who are on the way of this escalation, right? So this is those districts that I had mentioned earlier. It is in the, in the heights in Mafza, Jabal Habashi. These are the areas that had used to have IDP camps. So this, I think those people have been living there already for the last few years. So they have those Those IDP camps have been emptied. But there are also other IDP camps that are on the way. So they are also trapped to some extent. So these are mostly in Heis and Hafsah and Jebel Habashi. That displacement does take place. We see it every time. Then there is an escalation in the situations. So the population fleeing the safety, they get displaced. And once the situation stabilizes, they come back. So therefore, we don't know if how long it will take, how long it will continue, and also if they would be able to return back to their camps.

Thank you very much. Other questions? I don't see any hand up on the platform, neither. So thank you very much, Abdusattar, for this update. And we really hope that our call, our common call for restraint will be heard by the parties. Thank you very much, Zoe, for bringing us your colleague on this important subject. I'd like to ask Marcelo to come to the podium. So let's now stay in the region with the Strait of Hormuz and a new report, a new analysis from UNCTAD, Marcelo.

Thank you, Alessandra, and good morning, um, everybody. We're releasing today, uh, a new, a UN trade and development analysis on the economic effects, uh, in, of the disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. Uh, in our earlier, uh, updates, we looked at the immediate effects on energy, um, shipping, food. exposure of vulnerable economies, today's update, uh, follows that transmission chain one step further, it asks what happens when those higher costs reach firms and why smaller firms particularly are likely to feel them more. The starting point is scale, um, small and medium sized enterprises, SMEs. account for around 90% of businesses, 70% of global employment, and half of global GDP. Of course, it does not mean that 70% of jobs or 90% of businesses will be affected by the Hormuz disruptions. It means that smaller firms represent a very large share of the global economy, small individually, but collectively accounting for most businesses and jobs worldwide. And that's why disruption, again, at one strategic point in global trade can ripple far beyond, in this case, the Strait itself. Importantly, the shock does not start from a level playing field, so the gap widens. Large companies can, of course, spread risk across suppliers, markets, financing sources. Smaller firms typically have fewer alternatives when energy, freight, insurance, and financing costs rise. This analysis gives us a clearer evidence of the size of that disadvantage besides or beyond what, of course, a common sense approach would indicate. In developing economies, the cost of complying, for instance, with import requirements reaches around 19% of the value of imports for small firms. That's more than twice the roughly 8% in developed economies. Almost half, 48% of small firms in developing economies identify access to finance as an obstacle. That's 70% more than the figure for developed economies. And of course, borrowing costs, they reinforce this gap. The average SME interest rates in the sample that we are presenting today were more than twice as high in developing economies, around 16% compared with just above 6% in developed economies. So we have long known, of course, that smaller firms are more vulnerable. What this analysis adds today is a clearer evidence of the size of the gap, particularly in developing economies. So the shock does not create these vulnerabilities. It hits firms that are already operating under very different conditions and can widen the gap even further. And this brings us to the most important point in this analysis. The risk is not only the trade slows globally, it is that smaller firms can be really pushed out of the value chains even when overall trade begins to recover. We might call this the exclusion effect. So headline trade figures may recover, it's a good headline, again, headline figures, while participation becomes more concentrated amongst larger firms. So it's not a story about firms only, it's of course the ripple effect, jobs, incomes, and recovery in general. The policy message from UN Trade and Development is practical. Keeping trade moving is not enough. We also need to keep smaller firms connected to trade. And that means ensuring access to trade finance, liquidity, working capital when costs rise and payment cycles lengthen. And it means improving access to affordable logistics, trade facilitation, market information, and business services, and it means helping smaller firms maintain and diversify suppliers and customers, hence broadening the base for resilience so that one disruption does not cut them off, or cut them out of markets altogether. The objective is not simply recovery in trade volumes, it's recovery without exclusion. The analysis is already live. It's on unctad.org. We also have a data story we have as a news feature, and of course, our experts standing by for any more detailed analysis that you might be interested in. Thank you. Thank you, Alessandra.

Thank you very much, Marcelo, for this interesting data. Let me open the floor to questions, if any, in the room or online. Today is a no-question day. I don't see any hand up, so thank you very much. You are, you are. You're all very clear and comprehensive. And let's go to our colleagues of WHO. I think we start with an update on Ebola. Welcome, colleagues. Welcome, Christian. And I'd like to welcome Luca Fontana, the technical officer of WHO on health and technical logistics. Who wants to start? Christian.

Yeah, give me a few words. Hello and welcome. Thank you. And I'm very glad to have with us today-- my chair is very high. Yeah, it's high. So I'm very glad to have with us Luca. Fontana, who is working mainly on the logistics part of the Ebola response. That's important. So mind you, he's not our epidemiologist or virologist, but will talk about the whole way how the mission is being set up, the expansion of the bed capacity, and what this all means. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Kristen. Thanks, everyone. I returned from DRC less than 10 days ago, and this was my second visit. I was there in May when we opened one of the very first treatment centers in Bunia. I can tell you that the scale of the response is massive, but only reflect the scale of the outbreak itself. More than 900 beds has been built within the first two months of the response. And we have now reached close to 1,400 beds across 59 treatment centers. This is one of the fastest treatment scale-ups I've ever witnessed, including during the West Africa Ebola outbreaks. Yet, despite this extraordinary effort, we estimate that another 1,600 beds will be required to meet the rapidly growing needs. On this most recent mission, when I walked back into the treatment center and saw the staff I had trained in June working with confidence, managing patients with calm professionalism, it made me incredibly proud. I met patients that I'd seen lying on those same beds weeks earlier now standing beside us as a caregiver, supporting newly admitted patients. moment like this made me feel that we were truly on the right tracks. But that feeling was tempered by the reality outside the gates. Patients were arriving from village, outside, and far beyond Bunia, a clear sign that the outbreak was spreading, is spreading, and that our response must adapt. moving forward with a more decentralized approach and bringing treatment closer to the affected community. When we talk about beds, we mean much more than just furniture. Each bed represents an entire space designed to deliver quality, dignified, and humanized care for our patients. built to ensure the safety of healthcare worker and conceived to be accessible for family and community. Expanding treatment capacity means having enough trained healthcare worker to care for the patients, and approximately we need three healthcare worker per patients. To cover the need for the estimated 3,000 beds needed, we need to train 9,000 healthcare workers and ensure they have access to personal protective equipment, infection prevention and control measures, laboratory support, and essential medical supplies to do their job safely. Together with partner, we have been installing water supply, solar panel system, and other essential service that will strengthen this treatment center and benefit communities after the outbreak is over. This progress has only been possible through close collaboration amongst the Minister of Health, WFP, UNICEF, MSF, Africa CDC, International Medical Corps, Samaritan's Purse, and ALIMA. Together, we are building and equipping treatment center and ensuring that patients can be safely transported from the community to the treatment center and home back again. But more support is needed. We need additional partners and international organization to help operate this treatment facility and deliver patient care. Every treatment center that is fully staffed and functional means more lives saved and a stronger chance of bringing this outbreak under control. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Luca. Okay. Let me see if we have any hands. Christiane Ehrlich, German News Agency.

Thank you. Good morning. Can you give us an update how far, how fast this is spreading? Is there any dent in the rate at which you register sick people and dead people? Is there any light at the end of the tunnel? That's basically the question.

Well, what we're seeing is that on the 5th of September, so just a few days ago, we had more than 6,600 confirmed case and 3,175 death that has been reported. And these figures alone are describing the current state of the outbreaks. In terms of spreading, what we are seeing now, as I already mentioned, is that as within the first couple of months, the majority of patients were coming from Bunia as the epicenter. Now we are seeing geographical expansion of the outbreaks in the area outside Bunia. Now we have six provinces that have been affected, and that's why the scale-up is not only about number of beds in the epicenter that was before, but with this more decentralized approach to cover the newly emerging affected area.

And is it difficult to find people who are interested in getting the training to be care workers? Is there a question of pay, maybe? Or are people afraid to come forward to do this dangerous and very exhausting work? Thank you.

Thanks. Well, first I have to say, and it's my personal opinion, the safest place inside an Ebola outbreak is the treatment center itself. You know where the patients are, staff is trained, and they have all the equipment to protect themselves. The problem is not just finding these healthcare workers to be trained. The problem is to find the right balance. So we need nearly 9,000 healthcare workers to run this Ebola treatment center, but at the same time, we want to ensure the continuity of essential service for non-Ebola care. People keep getting sick with malaria. Women still get pregnant, still need to deliver, and so on. So the challenge is to identify those healthcare workers from neighboring provinces as well, make sure there is a common language, move them to the affected area, train them, equip them, and so on. And for sure, paying a salary at the end of the month. So all these are important piece of the puzzle that we are trying to address right now. For instance, when we open a treatment center, that's the construction site. WHO design, WFP builds, UNICEF, the WASH component, supply all together, and the Ministry of Health identify those staff that are then trained by all partner together before being deployed into a treatment center. And that's why more partners are needed as well for delivering the trainings, for construction, for delivery of supply. And again, I mentioned this 1,400-bed built in nearly three months. It's incredible. But right now we reach this level of saturation that is due to the need of identify staff, delivery and supply, and identify other international actors that are willing to take over those treatment centers once they're ready.

Sorry, just to clarify, are you saying it's not difficult to find the people? It's not that people are afraid to work in these centers or just don't want to take up these jobs? Are you saying it's not a problem to find the people?

I'm not saying it's not a problem. The problem is finding the right... We can't find... The Minister of Health is actually identifying staff from, medical staff from other provinces and bringing them inside. The problem is to identify those fast enough to make sure that we can cover the need, the growing need.

Olivia, Reuters.

Hi there, thank you very much for this briefing. Just a few questions. I just wanted to clarify when you said support, do you mean financial support as well as human resources? I know that there was a figure of the Congolese government-led Ebola response plan seeking $1.3 billion. Is some of that money hoped to be used for helping upscale these treatment centres or are you seeking extra additional funding and if so, a figure would be great. And my second question is what is the current gap in terms of the number of healthcare workers that you need to work at these treatment centres as they expand? You gave a figure, I think, of about 9,000. I wasn't clear if that's what you're aiming for or if that's what you currently have. And therefore, what is the gap? How many people are short to you currently? And just a final question as well, you said you need an additional 1,600 beds. How quickly do you hope to get them and how urgent is it in terms of timescale? Are we talking kind of you need them to be set up within weeks, within the next month? Thanks so very, very much for this important briefing.

Thank you for this question that from here are all intertwined and connected. Right now, we have nearly 4,000 healthcare worker currently working inside the treatment center, so it means we need 5,000 more. And how fast we need those human resource, how fast we need this 1,600 bed is, as we say, in the emergency program by yesterday. However, we can probably build the treatment center infrastructure quite fast. But we need to identify the staff, bringing them to the training facility, train them, equip them with all necessary personal protective equipment, and so on. And these take time. Importantly, the decision on where, how big a treatment center should be built, it's essential. Right? So we try to move now ahead of the outbreaks and try to give priority for the staff of the treatment center to this newly affected area to try to contain the spreading as fast as possible. In term of resource, I think it's important to understand one thing, is that the financial resource I know the Minister of Health's plan was released a few weeks ago, but to give you an idea of the scale of the financial needs, to run a treatment center of 50 beds, it costs approximately half million dollars per month. So now we're talking as of today, we have 59 treatment centers. Okay? We need thousands more beds. So running an Ebola response is extremely expensive. Every time a healthcare worker walk inside the patient's area wearing the full gear, the personal protective equipment, it's approximately $25. We have hundreds of staff walking inside the patient's area every single day. And just think about this personal protective equipment that must be procured, shipped by plane, used once, and disposed safely in the field. So the resource needs are massive. Another important limitation of talking about resource is international organization. If we build a treatment center today and one of the usual organization Doctors Without Borders step in to run that facility, at some point they should be able to hand over that facility to someone else. Otherwise, Doctors Without Borders' resource will be soon saturated. So more resources needed? Yes. Where are all the organizations that were running treatment center in West Africa outbreaks in 2014, '16? Why they are not currently in the field to support this COVID response is probably because of lack of resource. And this is probably one of the bottleneck now that can delay the scale-up plan.

Could you just clarify, did you say dollars, half a million dollars per month? Dollars, not francs.

Dollars. Any other question? Agnes, AFP.

Yes, hello. I don't know if it's a question for you or for Christian on Ebola, because it's about financing. What can you tell us about where the response, how much the response is financed, how much is required? Because Guterres has been giving some figures. In DRC, there have been some few days ago, this 1.3 billion. So if you could clarify a bit. how much funds is needed and how much you are funding so far? Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Agnes. Let me give you what I have. So WHO and the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that's the Africa CDC, launched a six-month joint continental preparedness and response plan for the Ebola outbreak with an overall funding requirement of $518 million to support countries and partners to prepare for and rapidly detect and respond to the outbreak. As of 29 August, partners reported $1.6 billion in pledged funding, including $867 million disbursed and another 285 million committed, a lot of figures here. WJO's funding requirement under the plan is 115 million. WJO has offers or received 112 million, leaving right now a gap of 2.6 million. That's only a 2% gap. But Given the rapidly evolving nature of the outbreak, the current resource requirements may not fully reflect the funding needed to contain and end the outbreak and are expected to increase. Revised planning frameworks and cost estimates are being developed to better reflect the scale and cost of interventions required. Maybe...

It would be great if you would share this.

Yeah, it looks like these figures would be necessary here. We'll send them. The government-led plan for the next six months comes with an ask of another figure, 1.3 billion US dollars, covering the work of all partners. And that's what we asked, as we asked donors to increase and accelerate the contributions, because that is an evolving situation still. I'm sending the figures over.

Olivia, did we miss... Oh, sorry.

Just a quick follow-up, when was that launch and is the government figure inside the or outside the global figure you mentioned?

I do not have the date here, I only have the date that I had for the pledged, the partners pledging on 29 August, I don't have another date here right now.

And the numbers are overlapping or it's outside the government's request.

So, yeah, there's the one preparedness plan, because that's for the overall funding requirement of 518, and there's more to it, which is then, but also overlapping. Luca, I don't know if you have more details, I guess not, yeah. Would be good to clarify.

Olivia, did Luca forget to answer any of your question?

And then I think he says something interesting, which I just wanted to get further clarification on. Just in terms of this point about kind of bottlenecks. So just to check I understood. So you're saying that if a treatment centre is created, for example, run by one organisation, at some point you would need another organisation to come in and kind of provide either supplementary support or kind of take a assist with the running of it. But you're saying that what seeing is a gap there that that's just not happening. And is that because of broader kind of global donor cuts and the kind of bigger financing landscape or something kind of more specific that I've perhaps overlooked? Thank you.

Yes, indeed. At some point, there are not too many organizations that are able to set up an open treatment center for Ebola. It requires an incredible expertise. And Let's say there are five, six organizations, and they're all currently in the field. If we don't manage to free up the resource of those organizations, they will get stuck inside the current treatment center and not able to move somewhere else where it's needed. So yes, there is a need to have more international partner to come in the field take over a treatment center that has been run for six to eight weeks, and now, let's say, everything is running smoothly, the staff has been trained, they know what to do, but we still need some organization that is supporting for the management, for the supply, for the salary cost. And what we're seeing in the field is that this support is kind of missing. What's happening now is that the Ministry of Health is taking over treatment centers that were open at the very beginning of the outbreaks, like Mungwalo. So the Ministry of Health is taking over from the organization that's opened Mungwalo. But at some point, the Ministry of Health will reach their capacity level as well. So more actors in the field will be needed to ensure that the most experienced partner can move in the front line again. Why they're not, why this is not happening? Yeah, most probably because the funds cut that is affecting the ability of this international organization to step in, arrive in the field, and take over those facility.

Thank you very much. I think we've exhausted the questions on Ebola. Thank you. Thank you very much, Luca, for coming and explaining all this. Christian, you stay with us because you have another guest. your colleague, Dr. Kerstin Schotte, who is the medical officer on the Tobacco-Free Initiative. And I welcome her to tell us about, I think it's a new report, or for the International Day. Please, go ahead.

Thank you very much, Alessandra. Good morning, everybody. Yes, WHO has launched a new report today where we summarize all the evidence on the link between tobacco smoking and infertility. And what we found is that women who smoke have a 40 percent higher risk of infertility compared to women who do not smoke. And we also found an association between tobacco smoking, secondhand tobacco smoking and infertility. So women who are exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke have a 20% higher risk of infertility as compared to women who live without secondhand smoke exposure. Infertility, of course, is not only a topic of women, but also of men. And in our analysis, we saw that men who smoke also have reproductive dysfunction issues, including semen quality impairment and sexual dysfunction. There's also some good news in the report. We found that smoking cessation, so if women quit smoking, they have a 25% reduced risks of infertility as compared to women who continue to smoke. So for all people who plan pregnancies, our message is stop smoking, improve your health, improve your reproductive health as well, and most importantly, all healthcare professionals that work with people who are planning pregnancies, they should inform these people about the risks of smoking and offer evidence-based help to quit smoking. That's it. Thank you.

Incredible numbers. Wow, it's impressive, the percentage. Let me open the floor to question if there's any. Is that report has been distributed, Christian?

The...

Your mic.

So the publication is live as of today. It's available on our website. And we have a global webinar tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. Geneva time, where we have a bunch of experts from around the world. And we have interpretation in Spanish, French, and Chinese for the webinar.

Thank you very much. Is there any question waiting for the to ask them tomorrow at the webinar, probably? Don't see any hand up. So thank you very much, Dr. Schott, this is really interesting report. Oh no, sorry, maybe I can ask you to come back, there is a question which has been raised. I think it's for you, I don't know, let's ask.

This is actually a, this is for Christian actually, it's on a separate, he related to the issue.

Okay, go ahead, go ahead.

Thank you. Thanks very much. Yeah, sorry, it's just a question on Bangladesh, you know, reports of rising cases of measles as well as dengue fever. I was just wondering what the WHO's assessment is of what's happening in Bangladesh in terms of vaccine stockouts or shortages and where exactly the problem is coming from, particularly in relations to the measles situation. Or they would be curious if there's any impact as well on Dengue fever. Thank you.

With microphone. Thanks very much, Olivia. No, I don't have data on this with me now today, but please give us a quick heads up at mediaenquiries@who.int and we'll follow up.

Thank you very much, Christian. Any other question to WHO? I don't see any hand up. So Christian, thank you very much again. And let's repeat the appeal, do not smoke if you want to have children and it's easier. Thomas for UNECE, another interesting, important information on data center and energy.

Thank you, Alessandra. Good morning, everybody. UN ECE experts have warned that the rapid expansion of data-intensive technologies, such as hyperscale data centers, and particularly those involved in artificial intelligence, has significant implications for energy system reliability and resilience. Now, this is, of course, in addition to important implications for infrastructure investment, water resources, land use, economic development, and local communities. To put this into perspective, global electricity consumption by data centers is projected to increase from approximately 485 terawatt hours in 2025 to 950 terawatt hours by 2030. So that's equivalent to 3% of global demand. Some countries are even projecting consumption of 15% to 18% by 2030, so significant use. Additional demand as well comes from cryptocurrency mining and industrial electrification. Now, of course, there are great sums at stake, as I'm sure you're all aware, in terms of capital expenditure on data centers. The forecast is a rise from roughly 800 billion per year in 2026 to 1.8 trillion per year in 2050. So given the scale and speed of these developments, experts are coming together to discuss implications on many areas, and energy in particular is an area of focus at UNECE, as you know. And the experts have prepared a new paper to inform debates at our Intergovernmental Committee on Sustainable Energy, which will meet later this month. Now, in many regions, demand growth from so-called large load facilities is outpacing the expansion of electricity infrastructure. And while the former can be deployed in two to five years, data centers, transmission networks, so the grid and distribution, often require more than a decade due to planning and permitting constraints, hence the importance of accelerating discussion and the means to make sure the right decisions are made now. Now, the mismatch is already visible in several jurisdictions. To give a couple of examples, Ireland has introduced connection restrictions around Dublin. The Netherlands have tightened planning decisions due to infrastructure and land constraints. And in the U.S., large loads, particularly data centers, are projected to drive significant increases in equipment demand and supply chain pressures. Now, in systems with high shares of renewable energy, AI data centers can have disproportionate effects on voltage and frequency stability. Now, this is due to the rapid variability in the demand they put on the electricity. Now, in extreme cases, this can lead to voltage oscillations, unintended disconnections, and cascading failures, so naturally to be avoided. So highlighting the limited visibility of this behavior and of these trends, as a key operational risk. The paper prepared by the experts, UNECE, is calling for enhanced data transparency, as well as standardized reporting and real-time information exchange. This is to support both the planning and the operation. An important aspect is stronger coordination among developers, system operators, regulators, local authorities and agencies, including those responsible for water, land use, and infrastructure. Location and siting policies are also expanding, but not at the speed required, and remaining only partially effective. So the large loads are tending to cluster in areas with favorable connectivity and regulation. So this leads to stress on the grid in those areas and a misalignment sometimes between private investment decisions and the needs of the system. Now, the paper emphasizes that siting decisions must therefore account for water availability, land constraints, environmental impacts, digital connectivity, and of course, opportunities for local socioeconomic development. On the environmental side, Frameworks and reporting should therefore take full account of life cycle impacts, covering energy, carbon emissions, water, land, materials, and the footprints of e-waste. They should also consider the cumulative impacts where multiple facilities are concentrated in the same areas. Experts are also warning that in regions with low-cost electricity, While there might be an attraction for large-scale computing, the cheap energy alone does not ensure durable economic benefits. Another issue requiring attention is the cost allocation for the grid expansion, particularly. Therefore, clear frameworks are required to allocate the costs and the risks fairly among developers, infrastructure providers, and consumers. So this paper and the ongoing work has been developed by an international task force on digitalization in energy at UNECE. The recommendation overall is that over the long term, data centers, especially AI-oriented facilities, should be assessed not only through grid adequacy emissions, but also broader macroeconomic distribution and sovereignty as well as environmental perspectives. And without deliberate policy design, countries risk using electricity resources to generate externally captured value while absorbing infrastructure costs and labor market impacts domestically. The key message here is that aligning data center growth with public interest requires integrated governance. treating energy planning, socioeconomic development, digital policy, environmental management, spatial planning, and even national security as a unified strategic framework. Experts conclude that authorities should respond to the growth of data centers and other large loads through a phased roadmap. So this combines immediate risk management with longer-term planning and reform. The objective overall is to move from reactive decisions about power connection to a strategic integration of these issues, ensuring overall benefits for grid resilience, decarbonization, economic development, responsible resource use, and value for the public. Now, to learn more about all of these issues, and they are complex indeed, we invite you to attend the discussions on this and other topics at the upcoming session of the Committee on Sustainable Energy at UNECE. That's 28th September to the 1st of October, and we will inform you of highlights throughout that week's program nearer the time. The overall focus will be strengthening energy security, affordability, and sustainability in an uncertain world. That's it on that topic. I just want to mention another development very briefly. We let you know last week that Malawi became the latest country to join the UN Water Convention. specifically to strengthen their climate resilience through the shared management of water resources with their neighbors. So that's the 60th party overall, the 15th from Africa, and the fifth from southern Africa. So countries, again, looking to cooperate to address those increasingly complex challenges of water resources. And we'll keep you updated as more and more countries join ahead of the UN Water Conference later this year. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Thomas, for this exhaustive update. I don't know if there are any questions in the room or online. I don't see any. I think you have distributed those data because there are quite a few numbers also. Thank you very much for the update. So I don't see any. Thank you very much. I'm left with a few announcements for you. Quite a few, in fact. So I'll start now with the first one, which is about the press conference of this afternoon, as you have been informed. This afternoon at 2:00 PM, there will be an update on the human rights situation in Syria by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, and the two commissioners will be there, so in this room at 2:00 PM. And of course, you have the program of the Council, which continues its work. It started yesterday. Always on human rights, the Committee on the Rights of the Child will end the review of the report submitted by Uganda regarding the implementation of the Convention, and then we'll review the report of Burkina Faso, which will be ended tomorrow morning. UNIDIR is also organizing a conference here in Geneva. today and tomorrow, and the conference will concern the outer space security, the Outer Space Security Conference 2026 here at the Palais. WTO has asked me to read you if I find it. Where is it? Sorry. Too many papers. Here. to inform you that the World Trade Organization is organizing an embargoed press conference on the 2026 World Trade Report. It's going to take place on Monday, 14 September at 1pm Geneva time in room D at the WTO and on Zoom. The embargo lifts on the 15th September at 11.45 Central European Time, a day after the press conference. The press conference will feature Chief Economist Robert Steiger. And if you wish to participate, whether in person or online, you have to e-mail the media team at wto.org. WTO, WHO, if I'm not wrong, will be closed Thursday and Friday for the General. The Palais des Nations will be closed on Thursday, and we will see if we maintain the press conference sorry, the press briefing on Friday. We will inform you, but definitely on Thursday, the Palais will be closed. A couple of information from outside Geneva. One is Today is a big day in New York for the General Assembly. At 11 AM New York time, the General Assembly will hold a plenary meeting to close its 80th session with statements by the Secretary-General and by the President of the General Assembly, Annalena Baerbock. Followed by the oath of office by the President-elect, Doctor Kailash Raman of Bangladesh, at 12 noon. New York time, Dr. Rahman will deliver brief remarks to the press. 00 p.m., always New York time, the General Assembly will open its 81st session, presided over by Khalilur Rahman, with the appointment of the members of the Credential Committee and the adoption of the agenda. You can follow all this on UN Web TV. And then I'm by our colleague of UNOPS to give you two information. First of all, yesterday they put out a statement attributable to Jorge Moreira da Silva, the Under-Secretary-General at UNOPS, Executive Director, on the anniversary, one-year anniversary from the moment the Taliban the de facto authorities of Afghanistan implemented the ban on Afghan female colleagues entering UN premises across the country. You may remember that we have also sent you on Sunday a statement attributable to the spokesperson for the Secretary General also on this subject. This anniversary is a sad one, and we all further we all urge the de facto authority to lift all restriction, not only those imposed on UN staff, but also on women and girls and uphold their rights to full, equal, and meaningful participation in all aspects of Afghan society. And also, I would like to inform you, also on behalf of colleagues from UNOPS, that a senior colleague of UNOPS is in Nepal for the floods response, and she's available for interviews at distance, of course, too. I think that's about it. Yeah, that's all I have for you. It's not bad, already quite a few information. So if you don't have any other question, let me see if there is any on the platform. I don't see any hand up. So thank you very much. I would I would wish you a very good Jean Genevois for Friday, and we will keep you informed on Thursday, and we will keep you informed on Friday, and definitely, of course, we'll be back on Tuesday next week. Have a nice day. Thank you.