Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General
Department of Public Information . News and Media Division . New York
1 August 2025
The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's briefing by Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General.
**Briefing Today
Happy August, everybody. Today, at 12:45 p.m., there will be a briefing by Ambassador Eloy Alfaro de Alba, Permanent Representative of Panama to the United Nations and President of the Security Council for the month of August.
He will brief on the Council's programme for the month of August.
**UN80
The Secretary-General this morning provided an update to Member States on his UN80 initiative, focusing on his report, issued yesterday, on what is known as "workstream two," which deals with the implementation of mandates received from Member States. Mandates are the sole property of Member States, he affirmed.
Mr. [António] Guterres said that the problems with mandates are well known: Burdensome processes. Overlap. Duplicative structures. And a growing gap between mandates and resources. And he told the Member States that the review of mandates is not about questioning their decisions but about implementing them — more effectively, more efficiently and with greater impact. Mandates are not ends in themselves, the Secretary-General said; they are tools to deliver real results, in real lives, in the real world.
He said that today, there are more than 40,000 resolutions and decisions on the books — and counting. The risks of duplication and overlap are clear.
Meanwhile, since 2020, the average word count of General Assembly resolutions has increased by 55 per cent. ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council) texts have grown by 95 per cent. And Security Council resolutions are now three times longer than they were 30 years ago.
The Secretary-General added that we cannot expect far greater impact without the means to deliver. By spreading our capacities so thin, we risk becoming more focused on process than on results.
That is why, he said, the report puts for their consideration a possible shift: Toward shorter, clearer and more focused mandates.
His remarks and the UN80 report are available online.
**Secretary-General's Travel
The Secretary-General will travel to Central Asia this weekend. On Sunday, the Secretary-General and the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Kassym Jomart Tokayev, will witness the signing of the Host Country Agreement for the UN Regional Centre for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for Central Asia and Afghanistan, which has been formalized by the General Assembly. The signatories will be Murat Nurtleu, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, and Li Junhua, the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.
From Kazakhstan, the Secretary-General will travel to Awaza in Turkmenistan, to attend the Third UN Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries. He will reaffirm the need to help the landlocked developing countries overcome physical barriers and connect to global markets, including by leveraging artificial intelligence to strengthen early warning systems.
While in Turkmenistan, the Secretary-General is expected to have bilateral meetings with the host country leaders, as well as leaders and officials attending the Conference.
**Deputy Secretary-General's Travel
In Amman, Jordan today, the Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, is chairing the final session of the Regional Retreat with the UN Resident Coordinators in the Arab States region, focusing on progress in Sustainable Development Goals across the region and on ways to strengthen UN support to countries through the resident coordinator system.
She will return to New York tomorrow.
**Occupied Palestinian Territory
Turning to Gaza, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that large numbers of people reportedly continue to be killed and injured while searching for food. According to our human rights colleagues, more than 100 people were killed in the past two days alone, with hundreds of others injured, along food convoy routes or near Israeli-militarized distribution hubs.
OCHA reiterates that no one should ever be forced to risk their life to find food. Civilians must always be protected and community-level aid delivery at scale must be facilitated, not obstructed.
The months-long deprivation of most life-sustaining basic goods has led to a deepening of the crisis, which can only be addressed through unrestricted flow of aid into Gaza. Humanitarians must also have rapid, safe and unfettered access to deliver aid in a safe and dignified manner.
As market prices remain highly volatile and out of reach for many, our colleagues were able to distribute cash to 10,000 families over the past two weeks. OCHA has warned that humanitarians cannot address this crisis alone — commercial supplies must also be allowed to enter to help address people's needs.
Our colleagues from the World Health Organization (WHO) today reported that they were able to bring 11 trucks bearing medical supplies — including trauma, laboratory and water testing supplies — safely to its warehouse in Deir al Balah. WHO and its partners stress that access to healthcare must be facilitated. This means safe access to health facilities for the people, as well as rapid facilitation of entry permits for Emergency Medical Teams into Gaza.
Nearly a week since the Israeli announcement to allow the scale up of aid and tactical pauses to allow safe passage for our convoys, OCHA says that the aid that has entered Gaza so far remains insufficient, and our convoys continue to face impediments and danger along the routes provided to us by the Israeli authorities.
Fuel remains in short supply, though limited quantities have been entering Gaza in the recent days. Yesterday, the UN was able to collect approximately 150,000 litres of fuel from Kerem Shalom crossing and delivered it to a UN-managed fuel station last night. The UN and our partners need hundreds of thousands of litres of fuel every day to power critical facilities, including health, water and sanitation, as well as emergency telecommunication services.
Delays and impediments of humanitarian movements continue to be reported. While fewer humanitarian movements are denied outright, missions that are approved still take hours to complete due to having to wait at different points along routes. The fuel mission yesterday took 18 hours to complete because the team had to wait many hours along the way. For reference, the distance between Deir al Balah and Kerem Shalom is only about 24 kilometres. In addition, the routes that Israeli authorities instruct our teams to drive through remain insufficient and are often dangerous, congested or impassable.
**Haiti
Earlier today, our colleagues in Haiti published their quarterly report on the human rights situation in the country. And as you can imagine, the situation remains extremely worrying.
Between April and June, at least 1,520 people were killed and 609 injured in armed violence, primarily in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, followed by the Artibonite and Centre departments. Our human rights colleagues also report at least 185 kidnappings and 628 victims of sexual violence, during the same period.
The report says that criminal groups have expanded and intensified their attacks outside of Port-au-Prince, particularly in the Centre department and Bas Artibonite.
Abuses by criminal groups accounted for more than 24 per cent of the people killed or injured during the reporting period. Gang members continued to resort to murders, gang rapes, and kidnappings to maintain their control over populations living in areas under their influence. Cases of sexual slavery, sexual exploitation and child trafficking and exploitation were also documented.
A majority of the deaths and injuries documented happened during operations by security forces against criminal groups. More than a third were the result of strikes using explosive drones.
The report calls on the Haitian Government, with the support of the international community, to strengthen the fight against gangs, while strictly respecting human rights and standards on the use of force.
We join our colleagues to urge the international community to support the full deployment of the Multinational Security Support Mission and to intensify the fight against arms trafficking.
And adding to the human rights report, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is telling us that in the Artibonite and Centre departments, data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) indicates that more than 45,000 people have been displaced since June. Fifty-five per cent of them are women.
In total, nearly 240,000 people are now displaced in those two departments, as the humanitarian response remains critically underfunded.
Despite this, UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) and its partners continue to deliver aid, with more than 12,600 people having received sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence services in the country in the past two months.
OCHA urges immediate support to sustain and expand our overall response to protect the most vulnerable.
**Security Council
At 3 p.m. today, the Security Council will hold a briefing on maintenance of peace and security of Ukraine. Miroslav Jenča, our Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas, is expected to brief Council members.
**World Breastfeeding Week
Today, World Breastfeeding Week begins, and it will continue until 7 August. This year's theme is "Invest in breastfeeding, invest in the future". You can find more information online.
**Questions and Answers
Question: Couple of questions. First, on the situation in Middle East. The Trump Administration announced sanctions against members of Palestinian Authority and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) to limit its visas. What's the position of the Secretary-General on this sanction?
Deputy Spokesman: Our expectation on this is, of course, that the United States will continue to uphold its own legal obligations under the Host Country Agreement, which, as you know, allows for people to come into the country in order to go about UN business here at Headquarters.
Question: But the sanction from the US Government accused the members of supporting terrorism and seeking to destabilize peace efforts. Is that what the UN observed?
Deputy Spokesman: This is not what we've observed about the Palestinian Authority, which is, as you know, the recognized representative of the Palestinian people.
Question: Okay. Another topic, UN aid initiative. Can you confirm that we heard a lot of news, is this idea of relocate UNICEF, UNFPA, and UN-Women to Nairobi a sure thing now?
Deputy Spokesman: It's not a sure thing. There are certain options, as you know, that are being considered in terms of dealing... with making the United Nations more cost effective. There are certain proposals that are being discussed at different levels, including with the staff of the organizations, with the executive boards of the various agencies, and so forth. So, we're at an early stage, but what the Secretary-General told you is that one of the steps that is being considered is to put more of our operations into the field and into places where the costs are lower, and that is something that the various agencies will be exploring.
Question: And, one last question. I don't know whether someone asked this or not. On 24 July, the Staff Union Council of the UN Office in Geneva declared a vote of no confidence for Secretary-General and Mr. Guy Ryder and its UN80 restructuring plan. How would that impact the whole thing? And what is the response from the Secretary-General on this no-confidence vote?
Deputy Spokesman: Well, what we have basically said is, obviously, we are aware of the difficulties that all of us face in terms of dealing with the pressures on the Organization. And we are working from the management level with staff on a way forward together. We want to continue to encourage staff representatives to be involved in the process with us, and we'll proceed with this collectively. But there's no intention to exclude staff concerns from this process as we go ahead. Yes? Edie and then Gabriel.
Question: Thanks, Farhan. First, a follow-up to Dezhi's question about these reports of UNICEF, UN-Women and UNFPA possibly moving to Nairobi. Whose decision is that? Because all of those agencies have their own boards.
Deputy Spokesman: Well, as you know, for decisions involving UN agencies, funds and programmes, all those steps, for a way forward need to be approved by the boards of the respective agencies, in a dialogue with the management of those agencies. So that kind of dialogue will have to occur at each of those.
Question: Right. And on the mandate issue, the report has a whole bunch of steps that the Secretariat said it's going to take. When are those steps going to start?
Deputy Spokesman: Well, the steps that the Secretary-General can take on his own are steps that he is planning to present ultimately to the relevant budgetary committees of the Member States. So, the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) and the Fifth Committee will be apprised, by the end of the summer, about the sort of steps we're taking, and then it'll go through the budget process in order to be formalized.
Question: Right. So, ultimately, it will be the Member States on the ACABQ who will make those decisions?
Deputy Spokesman: Yes. And, of course, the Fifth Committee, which is the budgetary committee of the UN. But the bottom line is all of our various processes involve the Member States. And so, what we'll have to see over the second half of this year is how much of these proposals are acceptable, because at the end of the day, they're the ones who give us our instructions. Gabriel?
Question: Thank you, Farhan. As you know, Steve Witkoff, the Trump Administration special envoy to the Middle East, is in the region. Do you know if he requested to meet with anyone from the UN?
Deputy Spokesman: As far as I'm aware, he did not meet with anyone from either our political or humanitarian sides. I checked with all the various offices and agencies, and none of them have replied about any meeting.
Question: He visited a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) site today. My question is, if he would have requested to visit a UN site in Gaza, could you have facilitated that?
Deputy Spokesman: Oh, certainly.
Question: My last question is, do you think that he got a full...? From your perspective, do you think that he got a full picture of the humanitarian situation in Gaza by not visiting anything other than a GHF site?
Deputy Spokesman: We trust and expect that the US officials will continue to be in touch with us. We certainly have made clear what our operations on the ground are, and we've been in touch with them, as with other Member States. Yes, please?
Question: I have a question. Given the recognition of the State of Palestine by some European countries and the US opposition to this move, what is the Secretary-General's view? Does he consider these developments meaningful steps toward a real and lasting peace or more of a symbolic action without practical result?
Deputy Spokesman: From the Secretary-General's perspective, what is important is the show of support given to a two-State solution from the countries who were here this week for the meeting co-convened by France and Saudi Arabia. And he hopes that they will continue to seize upon the momentum of the last few days to reenergize this process so that we can go back to having an achievable two-State solution. Yes, please?
Question: Thank you, Farhan. It is reported that Slovenia has now become the first EU country to formally impose an arms embargo on Israel. Is this a development that the Secretary-General would like to see other Member States take, specifically other Member States within the EU?
Deputy Spokesman: Well, we don't comment on bilateral measures taken by States against arms. What the Secretary-General wants to see is to see greater support from Member States for a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all hostages, and full humanitarian access. Yes. Linda?
Question: Oh, thank you, Farhan. This is regarding Yemen. I was wondering if you could just give us an update in terms of the status of those who are still detained, whether they be UN staff, NGOs, diplomats, and so on?
Deputy Spokesman: Yes. We continue to have our own UN staff, as well as staff of different humanitarian and human rights non-governmental organizations, detained. And we call on the Houthis to release all of those who are in their detention.
Question: Can I just ask you, how are negotiations conducted, you know, with the Houthis in terms of... some of these people have been there a long time?
Deputy Spokesman: Yes. And the UN, as well as some of the other bodies, are continuing to call for their unconditional release, and we will continue to do so.
Have a good weekend, everyone.
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