Good morning, colleagues.
Thank you very much for being here a little bit earlier than than usual for this press briefing of the 6th of November in Geneva.
I would like to start by reading to you an announcement that Rolando Gomez has asked me to to transmit to you about the Universal Periodic Review.
Rolando could not come, but he says that the Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review continues with the review of Bulgaria this morning.
On Monday, the UPR Working Group will review the human rights situation in the Marshall Islands in the morning starting at 9 O clock and the human rights situation in the United States in the afternoon starting at 2:30 PM Geneva time.
Please consult the media advisory that has been sent to you for details.
And if you have any question, Rolando, of course, is available to answer.
So I would like now to give the floor to Catrina Riso, Frank Ted, who has an announcement too.
Catrina, Catherine, your mic is not connected.
Apparently you should connect your mic, otherwise we can't hear you.
Apparently Catherine has is like problem a problem with the mic.
Why we try to solve this?
Maybe I would like to give the floor to Jovana.
Jovana Myrchinovich, our former colleague.
For ITU, you have an announcement.
Good morning, Alessandra.
Indeed, I'd like to announce that the International Telecommunication Union will hold a virtual press conference on Thursday, 12th November, during which it will launch in its new partnership with the Norwegian government to support its Digital Transformation Centres initiative in Ghana.
The new partnership with Norway will scale up and strengthen digital skills training for underserved communities in Ghana.
In collaboration with Cisco and the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications, this new partnership will provide around 14,000 citizens with the job ready digital skills, in particular women entrepreneurs, pupils or students, teachers and marginalised groups through 200 centres across the country.
The Digital Transformation Centre initiative of ITU was launched in partnership with Cisco in 2019 and it is already operational in nine countries in Africa, Asia Pacific Region and Latin America.
The main goal of this initiative is to support countries to equip people with the skills needed to effectively participate in today's digital society and economy.
So this virtual conference is taking place on Thursday, 12 November and will start at 10:30 Geneva time or Central European time.
It will last for one hour and the moderator of the press conference will be Mr Reen Bogdan Martin, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau and **** level remarks will be delivered by Mr Hulin Zhao, Secretary General of ITU, Mr Doug Inge Olstein, Minister of International Development of Norway, Miss Wendy Mars, President of Cisco's Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia Region and Miss Ursula Husswe Kufu, Minister of Communications of Ghana.
The media advisory on this virtual press conference was sent by ITU yesterday and you can find all the additional information about the speakers and media registration form at the Media Centre on ITU's website.
Let me look at the platform.
I understand Katherine is not back yet, so we will wait to give her the floor as soon as she connects.
Otherwise, Kathleen, don't worry, I have the announcement of the press conference.
I can read it for you if, if there's a problem.
And now I will like to turn to our colleagues of the FAUNWFP.
We are going to to speak about food in the rest of the briefing and I would like to start with the joint announcement from FAO and WFP.
We have two guests this morning, Luca Russo, FAO Senior Food Crisis analyst, I believe from Rome via Zoom.
Claudia, a poet, was the WFP senior Food Security Advisor and with them were Thompson PD and Adriana Timasi.
So I think we start with FAO.
You would like to say a word before we start or Adriano, please and then I'll go to Luca.
Just to say that we circulated a news release, a joint news release between WFP and FAO on the release and launch of the hotspots for 2020.
We've also circulated with it links to photos as well as broadcast quality footage.
Adriano Dimosi from FAO is also sharing additional links with you.
It has been translated in all into all the UN languages and Italian for your reading pleasure.
That's all from me for now.
And back to Alessandra so that we can cross over to Ron.
So I will give the floor now to look at also of the FAOFAO Senior Food Crisis Analyst.
Good morning, you have the floor.
Yes, I'm calling from Rome.
And today together with Claudia, we are going to present a joint WFAO report on early warning for a spot of acute food insecurity.
Claudia will speak a little bit about the contents of the report.
What I want to say is that the report is about 22 pages long.
But on page 9 there is one full page dedicated to the issues of risk of I mean, and I guess that will will capture a lot of the attention of the discussion today.
And therefore I want to just to make clear what, why we are using this word, what we mean by that, so that that there is a clearly no, no confusion.
First of all, when we say risk of famine, we do not imply that in the countries which are quoted in the report, there is an ongoing famine, or at least we do not have evidence for a famine happening.
So why we're using the, the word risk of famine?
Because because essentially the moment you declare a famine is already too late to act in the sense that we we saw this in the past with Somalia when the famine was declared, already 260,000 people had had died because of the famine.
So we want to raise an early warning before, before a famine occur.
And we want also to highlight some of the key factors that needs to be monitored.
The, the, the word risk of famine has been used used widely in the last few months also as a consequence of the COVID pandemic.
And these are create a bit of confusion in the sense there is a little confusion in the international community.
Where is the risk of famine?
What, what, why we are using this word?
What do you mean by these?
There are different counties which are quote as at risk of famine and this has created a lot of confusion.
So, So what we have tried to do as a textual people, particularly feeling WP together with the Integrated Food security phase classification team, the IPC, is really to try to come to some to some joint understanding on when and how we can use the word risk of famine.
Just recall when we say famine, we have a very clear definition of a famine.
A famine is declared when you have at least 20% of the population facing severe food shortage in most times, which is twice the normal and level of acute malnutrition about 30%.
The point is for the risk of famine, we don't have a codified way to to handle it.
And particularly in in in the perspective of trying to foresee when if I mean my occur, even if this is not the most likely scenario, but is a possible scenario.
We have tried in this report to start to identify some possible element for which we have, we can use the the word for famine and these, I hope it will help also the international community to understand a bit better what we mean by that.
Basically, we are in this report, we are using 3 criterias for this.
The first one is the eye level of vulnerability of the population affected.
We, we don't talk of famine as a county level problem, but it's only not sports.
So when in Kansas where we have a lot of people in IPC phase four, which is emergency, which already means that there is an excess mortality for us, this is a spot spot that needs to be motored.
Another very, very important point is the issues of humanitarian access.
The country, the areas at risk of famine, they are characterised by poor or no humanitarian access.
And the third element is the issues of additional shocks like like a flood or other.
So with these three parameters together, we have come to this definition of identification of four countries as a rito famine, as as Claudia will explain, will explain just now.
So I will stop here and I will let Claudia just a bit to describe the contents of the report and and what why we are so concerned about certain parameters.
Thank you very much, Luca.
I'll give the floor to Claudia.
Yes, thank you very much.
Claudia Apple from WFP Senior Food Security Advisor.
So why did we embark on this report?
The The objective of this report is really to inform early action that needs to be taken now to avoid a further deterioration of the situation that is already very bad as it stands.
The This report is based on a joint analysis conducted by an experienced team comprised of food security and agricultural experts as well as conflict and early warning analysts of the two agencies.
So as a result, 20 countries have been identified and as we and are referred to as hotspots that we are particularly concerned about.
These countries already had significant acute food insecurity levels in 2020, beef in early 2020 and are now facing a risk of a further rapid deterioration over the next month.
So we had clear criteria that we looked at in order to come up with this, conclude with these conclusions.
The first one is the severity already of the current situation and also if there has been a deterioration compared to pre COVID times or 2019.
Then we looked at the drivers and the risk factors, for example, economic shocks, the presence of economic shocks including the socio economic impacts associated with COVID.
For example, job losses and remittances losses due to the global economic downturn.
We looked at weather related shocks and other disasters and their potential impact on the agricultural seasons.
We looked at conflict and insecurity and in particular associated new displacements.
And very importantly, we also looked into the operational and humanitarian access constraints, which is a very important factor that as as highlighted also by Luca before, in order to raise additional concern for us.
So among the 20 hotspot that I just mentioned, there are 4 where we are confirmed that they may be facing an elevated risk of famine if the situation would further deteriorate over the coming months.
And these are Burkina Faso in the Sahara region, North Eastern Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen.
They are all, all these four countries are, are exactly falling into these categories and, and criteria that Luca has just mentioned.
So we, we, we think that we are at a very important crossroad at the moment because once famine is declared, it means that many lives have already been lost.
And this is a situation like like the situation in Somalia, for example, in 2011, which was already mentioned.
So this is a situation we clearly would like, we clearly need to to prevent and therefore would like to call for for early action.
I stop here and I'm sure there will be many questions.
I'm very happy to answer those.
Thank you very much, Mary Manji, that we also have Adriano Kimosi, the spokesperson in Geneva.
So I will now like to open the floor to questions both FAO and WFP.
In this report, I'm looking at the platform.
If there's any question from the journalist connected, I don't see any.
I said yes, there is one.
Lisa Schlein, Voice of America.
Lisa, you have the floor.
Yes, thank you and good morning.
OK, I think I finally understand the definition of famine, but I would like you to be more specific pleas about the the countries about which you are concerned.
I'd like to get a a picture which will will tell people what is actually involved in terms of first of all, how many people are likely to be caught in in this potential famine?
How many people do you think may have already died?
And what what are the risks?
How, how serious could it be?
How many could actually die?
And then you mentioned four countries in particular.
If you could describe the condition of the people right now, the malnutrition rates, for instance, are people, how are they coping?
You know, I need to have some kind of a humanity, human picture so that people can visualise and understand what is at stake.
I don't know who would like to take this up, maybe Claudia or and then look how you can add something if you want.
Yes, we already have to see that the situation was already very bad before with 135 people facing acute food insecurity in 2019.
So in these countries, excuse me and this, this analysis had covered 55 countries.
We now have new data from 27 countries.
So that's the that's the progress update.
And within those 27 countries, the number of people that are already facing good food insecurity are more than 100 million already.
Analysis obviously is continuously ongoing.
So we expect this number to, to, to, to increase much more.
And earlier on this year, we WP, we actually had estimated in the countries where we are operating, which is around 80 countries, an additional 121 million people would be at risk of falling into food insecurity.
What does it actually mean in, in, in, in this case?
Well, so for for, for example, in in Yemen, it's estimated that around 17,000,000 were in food crisis already at the beginning of this year.
In the southern areas of Yemen, we do have new data where the number increased from 2 million in February from in February, April to 3.2 million in July to December.
And and that is that is really a situation of concern.
We also know from from from from a nationwide analysis that one in every five children is acutely malnourished and we know that this is very highly associated with the risk of him.
I think Luca explained earlier that we we are talking about a future scenario.
We are not talking about that at this point in time.
People have have, have have died.
But yeah, maybe I hand over to Luca if he would like to, to on his side as well.
You were just asking, OK, what is happening is that in this country?
And, and the point is, and the four countries that we mentioned, we, we should try a bit to visualise this, what is happening.
So it's not the old countries are our area of this country in, in, in Nigeria is we are referring to some areas in Borno State.
Borno State, as you know, there is, there is a lot of in fight with, with Boko Haram.
And these are areas where basically today there is no possibility of having humanitarian access.
So that means that the people are left on their own in a, in a, in a situation where in which many of them are displaced.
And this is what, what can triggers the famine in, in South Sudan, we are talking of jungle.
Jungle is a state and there, there is a bit better access, but there are floods and conflicts and so on.
People are displaced, they cannot cultivate.
They, they need to, to leave and depend on, on humanitarian assistance.
So the moment the humanitarian assistance stops or is is is curtailed, then it becomes extremely, extremely problematic of that.
Lisa, you have a follow up.
You say that action needs to be taken specifically what sort of action, what sort of money is involved?
What is actually needed to head off this catastrophe?
And then, Claudia, you mentioned that you're not talking about the.
What's happening immediately, but in the future?
There are so many competing needs in the world right now, you may not actually get what it is you need.
And you're going to tell me what you need, right?
So what is likely to happen and when?
How far in the future are we talking about this catastrophe occurring?
It has been an increasing concern in terms of the funding that is available for, for humanitarian and and development response.
So for example, in, in 2019, the, the humanitarian funds were 37% short, that's overall across the UN family.
And and this has been constantly increasing over the last four years.
What we are facing now at the moment.
I can give you an example of a couple of countries.
For example, in Yemen, our current for the next 6 months, our, our shortfall is 4042%.
And that's, that's a real, real concern for DFC.
It's around 50% in, in some of the, in some of the, the countries in the Sahel, we are, we are facing up to a shortfall of 70% of the funding.
There is also Thompson here, maybe who would like to contribute to this as well.
From your side, Thompson Yes, yes.
I can quickly say that all the four countries that have been listed here, there are men made crises and there are men made solutions, therefore booking a fossil.
We know that there's insurgents in the northern part of the country.
The same with northeastern Nigeria, the same with South Sudan.
It's a conflict that is for decades, people have lost assets, people have lost their capability to cope with any shocks.
We had one of the unprecedented floods this year in that that I mean flood waters with submerging all towns.
People are struggling the harvest that was just about to come in in South Sudan no longer there.
We have crisis after crisis.
The country is caressing from one crisis to the next.
But there are men made solutions for on our part is humanitarians.
We, we can only, we can only do so much.
We need funds, yes, in all the countries we need to scale up, yes, we need access to reach people who are in need in most of these areas.
We, we've been struggling to access some parts of Yemen and we've been scaling down on activities in Yemen.
We've been scaling down on even nutrition rehabilitation activities.
And once you miss a window of opportunity, when you, it becomes difficult for you to treat all, most of these kids suffer severe consequences as a result.
Like I said at the top, we need peace in all these countries.
Everything else becomes less daunting.
We need peace so that we're able to scale up.
We need peace so that we're able to reach people in need.
We need resources from the world.
Donors have been very supportive but we kindly appeal to them to step up again so that we if we provide assistance early, we have a realistic chance of rescuing this situation.
We saw it in 2017 in South Sudan, we saw it a couple of years ago when we were late to receive resources in Somalia and we continue to appeal to them to dig deeper.
We realise the pressures that they have, we realise the needs outstrip the available resources, but we can only continue to beg for more over.
And Luca, please raise your hand if you want to add anything.
John, I had seen your hand.
Sorry, no, but I did not see, I did not understand.
I need to raise my hand so, but is there another question whether I can compliment?
I had seen a question from John Zarocostas, but his hand is down.
So, John, if you wanted to ask a question, please raise it again.
So, John, you have the floor and then I'll go to Luca.
John, you're up, you're connected.
John, sorry, I don't know if you are talking, but we can't hear you.
But you are connected on the platform.
Unfortunately, we cannot hear you.
Sorry, look, you wanted to add something maybe we're while we try to reconnect, John, just a couple of points because WP colleagues said it all particularly underlined the links with conflict.
One, the trends are worrying in the sense that in the last 5-6 years we have seen a constant increase of the overall number in terms of people needing you might have assistance and conflict is by and large the most important.
The driver of disguise, something like at least two third of the of the of the of the people food insecure lives in country situation.
The point I want to raise underneath your perspective is the issues of anticipating the crisis, anticipatory action.
If you intervene before, let's say a crisis is manifested, then on the one end, you, you save human suffering, but you're, you're also saving your resources.
The, the case which I think is most important is the work that I've been doing with desert locus, particularly in eastern, in eastern Africa.
By treating the the the locus before they they or before they manifested the attack on on field and so on lead to substantial saving in terms of humanitarian assistance, something like at least 3-4 times the what was invested as well as a decrease in in the potential number of footing.
So intervening early is something which is as important as meeting your Italian needs over.
Thank you John, you are asking for the floor again.
Let's see if we can hear you this time.
No, I, we don't have any sound.
John, if you want to put your question in writing to me on the WhatsApp or on the platform, I'd, I'd read it for you to our speakers.
In the meantime, I'd like to if, if Luke and Claudia can stay over and we will try to, to get the question from John.
Otherwise, I'll give the floor again to Thompson, who has two more briefing issues.
Thompson, thank you so much.
I just wanted to give everybody a quick update on what we have been doing in Philippines following Typhoon Ghani.
We have offered the Government of Philippines logistics support and we have so far transported 14,600 about 15,000 family food packs from from the Metro Manila to provinces that have been affected such as Albay, Karan, Camarines North and Camarines through in the Biko region.
A family food pack that we are transporting covers is enough to to it's, it's, it's just our immediate response right now in, in the aftermath of the site of of of the typhoon and it covers a family of about 5 for up to three days.
We have we have conducted rapid needs assessments in in the province of Albay, which is one of the West affected areas there.
Our assessment has just been concluded and we are waiting final results.
But I just wanted to say that the top needs that we are seeing is that people are in need of food, people are in need of shelter, people need clean water, they need sanitation, they don't have power and they need emergency telecommunications support.
Whilst we are, whilst we are away to the final results to come in which will reveal the extent of the damage and the number of people that are in need for at least from the people that we've been talking to.
Most of them have said they have settled in these areas.
These are resettlement areas in, in, in the province of Albany for over 5 years.
The majority of them are saying we have never seen such strong typhoons like the one they've done that like, like the one that has hit them now.
The rise that was in their fields that was due to be harvested this month has entirely been lost.
So we can already see that we, we, we will have, things will only get worse before they get better.
We'll have to, to upscale there.
But thankfully the government has been very supportive.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development has been providing and so far the support that we've been providing has been, has been logistic support, setting up emergency telecommunications, transporting food to make sure that those in need get, get the assistance in time.
I also wanted to just share with you as well our, our response to Hurricane ETA in Nicaragua and Wanjura.
Of course, the, the, the, the hurricane has been downgraded to a tropical depression, but it still poses grave danger to communities in Nicaragua and, and, and and and and, and Wanjura.
And as I speak to you now, ETA is making its way through Honduras, where the government has already declared a nationwide radar late.
There are reports of of, of, of floods that would trees have been uprooted.
There's been a lot of devastation that is that is that, that, that, that is that is taking place there disrupted power lines and even landslides.
We are closely monitoring that situation and we are in close consultation with the authorities with a view of assisting should, should, should with assisting should that be required as soon as possible in Nicaragua as well.
The government is leading on that assessment and, and, and they, they had requested us even before the, the, the hurricane had hit to preposition about 80 metric tonnes of food in Bilwi in the autonomous region of the North and Caribbean, which is the West affected area to complement the national assistance that they are providing as a government in the aftermath of the hurricane again, in, in, in, in, in Nicaragua, we have deployed telecommunications and logistics assets as well as experts in, in, in our field offices of Bilwi and sooner to support any arising needs.
And thanks to that early preparedness, we've managed to support the national government and local authorities to respond to the affected areas, at least within the, at least within the 1st 24 hours after, after the disaster.
We continue to provide support.
We we are in touch with the government and we'll make sure that those in need will receive assistance as soon as possible.
And on my left, the answer Lyrica for Arch, I think has also something about the Central America.
And thank you, Thompson also for, for, for your report.
I've got this is still very much an developing crisis.
We are still trying to get a handle on what has actually happened.
But I just want to say a few words because it does have has had an impact on a lot of countries in in Central America.
So as we heard it, which is now what's called a tropical depression, it continues to cause rains throughout lots of Central America.
It's causing rising rivers and pose **** risk of flooding and landslides in parts of Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Salvador and Guatemala.
UN teams and humanitarian partners are working with national authorities, as we also heard from WFP, to prepare response efforts and support assessments and other response mechanisms when it clears the area.
In Guatemala, national disaster authorities have deployed teams and supplies on the ground, and there are reports of deaths from landslides and floods.
Nicaraguan disaster response authorities have evacuated some 30,000 people and is working to restore basic services.
In Honduras, all 18 departments are on red alert.
So far, some 3600 people have reportedly been sheltered after being affected by the storm.
El Salvador has also seen at least one deadly landslide and continues to carry out preventive evacuations and provide emergency shelter to affected people.
In Costa Rica has recorded hundreds of instances of flooding and regions have been put on red and orange alert.
And finally in Panama has seen more than 600 people evacuated.
We will, we do expect to have much more detailed information both about the impact this has had, the response from the national authorities and how the UN is supporting that response.
We're very much monitoring and preparing to swing into action.
Jensen, before I go to the question, I see Paul.
Dylan also wanted to say something for IOM.
Yeah, thank you and good morning.
I hope that we've resolved the audio issues today.
We've had trouble with that.
Yeah, I just wanted to bring you up to Up to Speed and add some comments about the conditions of the situation in the Philippines.
We know the destructive path of a Superg.
Typhoon Ghani included many highly urbanised and heavily populated areas, including some areas with the highest rates of COVID-19 cases in the country and communities of return from many vulnerable returning overseas.
Filipino workers in southern Louisiana is one of the most affected areas that has the highest, for me, the second highest COVID-19 base count in the country with roughly 70,000 confirmed cases.
And it is home to about 35,700 returning overseas Filipino workers.
Now, the COVID-19 has obviously exacerbated the challenges of this emergency relief effort.
It's critical the proper precautions be taken in the existing evacuation sites amongst the the overall population of displaced people.
I mean, we have roughly 52,000 of the of the people in evacuation centres at this time, 450 of them spread out across the affected areas.
The damage is extraordinary.
Many of those, in many cases those evacuation centres which were critical in, in, in the disaster preparedness have been damaged themselves.
Roofs have been ripped off and walls taken down.
There's a lot of exposure.
It's very difficult for people obviously to maintain a physical distance, distance protocols, pardon me, and that type of thing.
So what we're looking at now is some of the priorities, of course, a lot of priorities in these kinds of circumstances.
We're focusing on pretty much on few areas.
The 1st is the timely delivery of PP ES, personal protectionist face Shields, sanitizers and these types of materials, which are in these types of contexts.
And the second element of a response at this time, which began literally within hours of the storm passing are to continue to conduct these assessments of the needs of the space population with partners like WFP on the ground.
See if we can focus the emergency response in the days and weeks.
The only small bit of good news is that a a similar storm which we've been tracking last days, it looks like that's about 7 kilometres north area.
I think that it seems likely to have point here a major impact on the areas where we are currently on.
Thank you Paul, thank you.
I think we have lost your last sentence, but otherwise it's OK.
OK, I will now open the floor to questions on this extreme weather situations, whether in Philippines or Nicaraguan Duras, and then we will try again with John.
But I have John's question for Claudia, so I read it afterwards.
Peter, Kenny, good morning.
I don't know whether you spoke about this earlier because I joined this conversation late, but this is to do with IOM, but it's not to do with the flooding.
The IOM put out a OK, give me, give me a second, Peter, because we've got several speakers on this issue of the extreme weather.
So I'll try to go to them first to to the questions to them first and then we'll come back to you, if you don't mind.
Are you, are you there, Paul Dylan, go ahead, Lisa, he listens to you.
Okay, All right, Paul, your, your audio started off well, but it deteriorated and finally disappeared.
So you still have a lot more work to do.
Sorry to be on your case, but it's important.
As far as Goni goes, do you have latest figures in terms of how many people actually are affected in what has been said is one of the worst, if not the worst storm that has arrived in a very long time, figures on those affected and dead and whether search and rescue missions are still continuing or if that has been given up?
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Lisa.
I do have some updated numbers from this morning sit and wrap, which just came out a couple of hours ago.
Citing the government's data collection efforts, they've identified about 312,000 affected families.
That's a total of about 1.2 million people in in the in the areas that were struck by the by the Super typhoon.
They have identified in addition, some key areas needs on the ground predictably food, clean drinking water, a shelter.
Obviously, I believe there are the, the early assessments are that something in the order of 60,000 homes have been damaged to 1 extent or another and that roughly.
10,600 of those homes have been completely destroyed.
We also have wide areas where an hour is out where we've lost electricity and this is obviously another priority.
I can't speak specifically to search and rescue.
I believe the last update we've heard was that rough people had died tragically as a consequence.
But I have no further detail.
And then at the end, we hear you less well.
So maybe you can, after the briefing, send the numbers to all the journalists.
I think this would be appreciated.
Paula, you had a question and then I'll go to John and Peter.
So I was just wondering, actually it's a question for, you know, any of the agencies that might be there.
I don't know what happens this morning.
And OK, so maybe Paula try again, but otherwise send me your question.
While we're waiting for Paula, John Zaracostas wanted to ask to to our friends from from the BFP and I did the question here is the World Food Programme thinking of air drops in most severe affected areas in Yemen, Nigeria and how much have Agri Business company donated to World Food Programme?
I don't know if Claudia you want to take this up or I'll turn to Thompson maybe Thompson, would you like to take this out?
We always strive to reach people with the with the least costly, the most viable means.
And whilst whilst we we continue air drops in South Sudan, we are not air dropping anywhere else.
South Sudan is is because of the because of the geography, because of they are, they aren't that many developed roads in South Sudan.
So that's when we take to disguise.
We prefer to use other methods, for example, roads, for example river transport and we've increased that in South Sudan.
If anything we've been scaling down on air drops.
We only take to disguise as a last resort.
It's it, it costs at least eight times more than delivering by surface transport.
And given, given, given, given the limited resources that we have at the moment, we would, we, would, we, would, we would think carefully about, about taking to the skies in, in, in, in other contexts.
However, this is what we are doing in, in countries like Northeast Nigeria is that we, we have, Nigeria is a very developed country.
I, I'm on record as saying in this meeting that this is, this is Africa's biggest economy.
It has developed roads, it has developed infrastructure.
We, we, we, we prefer to use roads as much as possible.
We pre position whenever we have a window of opportunity.
That means pre positioning food enough to last people maybe for 2-3 months, even up to 4-5 months in some or in, in some contexts.
We can also bring in food.
I don't know if you are if, if, if people are aware of where Nigeria is, but we can also bring food from outside, from, from straight into the into the area, into the deficit areas, for example, from Cameroon and, and in Yemen.
When there's a, when there's humanitarian access, we are able to deliver by road.
And our appeal is to all the warring parties to, to, to, to allow humanitarian space.
Humanitarians are not a target.
We bemoan the dwindling humanitarian space in all these countries, that humanitarians need unfettered access to rich people in need.
Any disturbance, any embargoes, any delays affect the people that we are, that we seek to assist even more.
And as things stand, we will continue with airdrops as a last resort in South Sudan only.
Let's try again with Paula.
Otherwise, I'll go to Kathleen.
I had a problem with the computer.
So, yeah, it's a question regarding ETA and I just like to know from perhaps yes or any other agencies that are present, you know, what's your requests they may have received from governments in Central America?
And then aside from the early requests to WFP from Nicaragua, whether there have been other requests by the government as there seems to to be shortages of PPE, water and other supplies in the coastal regions that were affected by the the storm.
Yes, maybe we want to start.
As as of last night, which is where when I had my my data, there's no official request for international assistance from these governments.
However, and I think it's important to stress that does not mean that we sit and wait.
Of course, the, the, the UN, where it is present in, in these countries, of course, continuously as a, you know, a constant dialogue with the government and offers up any services and support that we can.
And I just mentioned how we are preparing to see how we can support on assessments and other mechanisms that needs to kick into gear once the area is is cleared and it's actually possible to make these assessments.
There is one little bit of information that that I can give you and that is from Nicaragua, where we're told that the government is, as I mentioned, is actively restoring basic services there.
And they have indicated that they are they are exploring how international support might form part of their recovery plans.
Thank you very much, Jens.
OK, so I am now going back to Katrina who seems to be Catherine Mizzou is she's now connected who has also an announcement.
Catherine, John Zaraconso sorry John, you wanted to add something to the question you have made before.
John, you really have a problem with the with the audio?
Catherine, your announcement of press conference like me said.
Thank you very much to everybody who has been connected this morning.
Thanks for having been with us a little bit earlier and I wish you a very good weekend.
