The Week Ahead at the UN Security Council

27 - 31 August 2018

Dear Colleague,

On Monday (27 August), the Security Council will be briefed on the electoral process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) by Special Representative and head of the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) Leila Zerrougui, as well as by representatives of the National Electoral Commission (CENI), the National Episcopal Conference of the Congo (CENCO) and a civil society group.

On Tuesday (28 August), OCHA Director of Operations John Ging will brief on the humanitarian situation in Syria. This will be followed by consultations. A briefing on Ebola in the DRC may be scheduled under “any other business” during the consultations.

Also on Tuesday, the Council will have a briefing on Myanmar from Secretary-General António Guterres. UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Cate Blanchett and UNDP Associate Administrator Tegegnework Gettua are also expected to brief. The UK Minister of State for the Commonwealth and the UN, Lord Ahmad, will chair the meeting.

There will be an open debate of the Security Council on “mediation and settlement of disputes” on Wednesday (29 August). Guterres, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who is s a member of the Secretary-General's High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation, and Mossarat Qadeem, the co-founder of PAIMAN Alumni Trust, which works to prevent violent extremism in Pakistan, are expected to brief.

Two adoptions are scheduled on Thursday (30 August) to renew the mandate of the UN Interim Force Mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and to renew the sanctions regime on Mali as well as the mandate of its panel of experts of the 2374 Sanction Committee.

Also on Thursday, there will be a briefing and consultations on Guinea-Bissau. The briefers will be the Special Representative and head of the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNIOGBIS), José Viegas Filho; Ambassador Anatolio Ndong Mba (Equatorial Guinea), chair of the 2048 Guinea-Bissau Sanctions Committee; and Ambassador Mauro Vieira (Brazil), chair of the Guinea-Bissau configuration of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC).

A briefing by Ambassador Karel van Oosterom (Netherlands), the chair of the 1918 DPRK Sanctions Committee, is also anticipated on Thursday.

There are several meetings this week at the subsidiary body level. On Monday (27 August), Ambassador Joanna Wronecka (Poland), the chair of the 2406 South Sudan Sanctions Committee, and the coordinator of the Panel of Experts will brief the committee on their respective reports following their visit to South Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya in June.

On Wednesday (29 August), the 2048 Guinea-Bissau Sanctions Committee will hold informal consultations to discuss the Secretary-General's recommendations on the continuation of the sanctions regime contained in his annual report on progress in Guinea-Bissau’s stabilisation and restoration of constitutional order.

The 1533 DRC Sanctions Committee meets on Friday (31 August) for a presentation from the Group of Experts on their programme of work.

Background information on these and other issues has been published in the August 2018 Monthly Forecast.

Further Council developments will be published on What’s In Blue.