UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations is sparing no effort to assist the Central African Republic (CAR) in confronting serious challenges, including poverty, corruption and impunity, the Secretary-General's Special Representative in the country told the Security Council here Thursday.

Margaret Vogt, who heads the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in the Central African Republic (BINUCA) told the 15-member body that, despite the gains made in recent years, the country still faces "serious" challenges.

"It is afflicted with extreme poverty, weak national institutions, corruption, a high rate of violent crime perpetrated by armed movements and brigands, human rights violations and impunity," she said in her first Security Council briefing after taking office in May.

"The United Nations system spared no effort in providing timely and integrated support to the Government and people of the Central African Republic in addressing these challenges," she said, as she presented Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's latest report on the activities of her office.

CAR completed legislative and presidential elections in January and March and last month signed a ceasefire agreement with the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP), the only armed group not to have signed the June 2008 Libreville Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

Vogt took note of the government's actions on political reform, poverty reduction, ceasefire agreements, and the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants, and urged continued international assistance for those efforts.

CAR, she said, "is at the crossroads of critical conflict zones, impacted by insecurity from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan, with the possibility of an upsurge of insecurity across the Sudanese border as the country grapples with security challenges that would necessarily attend the creation of the new state of South Sudan."

South Sudan will become independent from the rest of the country on Saturday, following a referendum staged in January.

Vogt highlighted what the secretary-general called the "dire" situation of women and children in CAR and said she was planning to establish a protection unit within BINUCA to "help coordinate these issues".

A landlocked country, Central Africa Republic has witnessed a series of coups and revolts since its independence from France in 1960. Despite its rich resources of timber, gold, diamond and uranium, the country remains one of the poorest in the world as a result of instability.