Javier Gonzalez-Olaechea, former foreign affairs minister of Peru attends the plenary session during the Summit on peace in Ukraine, in Stansstad near Lucerne, Switzerland, 16 June 2024. (Keystone/EDA/Pool//Urs Flueeler)

Peru nominates far-right political careerist as latest candidate to lead ILO. As the deadline closed for ILO leadership nominees, a former Peruvian foreign minister joined Spain’s labour minister and the incumbent director general in a race to head the financially embattled UN agency. Experts wonder what the new candidate may bring to the contest.

Bringing you the latest from UN press briefings in Geneva.

🍞WFP HALVES FOOD AID IN WEST BANK. Around 200,000 people in the West Bank will lose access this month to critical food assistance due to funding shortages, the World Food Programme warned yesterday, amid escalating food insecurity in the Israeli-occupied region.

The agency said it is being forced to halve the number of aid recipients starting this month from the 400,000 it previously supported, despite food needs estimated to have doubled since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, with over 900,000 people lacking regular access to food.

What they said. “Right now, we should be scaling up assistance, not cutting these vital lifelines,” Shaun Hughes, country director for Palestine, told journalists in Geneva, explaining that rising settler violence, displacement and increasing food and fuel prices were pushing Palestinian families deeper into crisis.

“They now find themselves in a choke-hold, unable to move freely and access land, or jobs, and so unable to provide food for their families,” he added.

Further afield. In Gaza, where WFP supports 1.5 million people, the organisation was already forced to reduce the cash value of its assistance for 375,000 people by 40 per cent in July.

Hughes said the organisation needs CHF386 million in funding to avoid further cuts over the next six months.

🧼HEALTH HAZARDS. The World Health Organization warned that deteriorating water and sanitation conditions in Gaza were heightening the risk of diseases in the enclave as the rainy season and winter approach.

Briefing journalists from Gaza, where she arrived just days earlier, Dr Reinhilde Van De Weerdt, the WHO’s representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, said water samples taken between January and August show microbiological contamination has almost tripled in the period, from under six per cent to over 18 per cent. 

“You can see and smell the overflowing rivers of sewage,” Van De Weerdt said, warning that potential flooding in the months ahead will increase the risk of mosquito and waterborne diseases, with damp tents becoming breeding grounds for mould and bacteria.

— Kasmira Jefford