A Rash of Hard-Hitting Questions—Which May Remain Evasive–for Candidates Running for UN Chief

The seven candidates, still in the running for the post of UN Secretary-General (SG), have so far faced a barrage of questions, mostly from delegates and the news media.

Dementia: A Rapidly Rising Global Challenge

Dementia is a rapidly growing global health challenge that affects many millions of people worldwide and places significant economic, healthcare, and social strains on societies, particularly as populations age.

Workers Help Feed the World but Starved of Dignity

A new report reveals widespread labour exploitation among food system workers, warning that keeping the world fed comes at the cost of human dignity.

Austerity and Privatization Weakened OECD Education Systems

The results of the OECD PISA 2025 report point to the marked deterioration of results in countries whose education systems were once considered exemplary. PISA assesses how students aged 15 apply skills in reading, mathematics, and science to real-life situations, and the latest report contains the lowest averages ever measured in all three subjects across the OECD (as illustrated in the graph above). Public debate has rushed to blame the use of AI and social media, but the deterioration long predates them. In many countries, this decline has unfolded alongside years of austerity cuts and growing pressures on public education systems, including public spending, teacher pay and working conditions, staffing and the capacity of schools to provide quality education.

Climate Change Is Becoming a Pregnancy Hazard Worldwide, Survey Finds

Extreme heat is increasingly threatening pregnant women and newborn babies around the world, with almost all maternal health professionals surveyed across five continents saying they have cared for women or infants whose health was affected by high temperatures.

If We Can Start an Epoch, We Can Start a Farming Revolution

In November 1952, the United States detonated the world's first thermonuclear device at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The test, code-named Ivy Mike, erased the island of Elugelab and scattered a signature of plutonium across the planet that remains in lake beds, ice sheets and ocean sediments today.

Caring for Carers: Addressing Workplace Violence Against Nurses in Malaysia

Nurses are often called the backbone of the health system. We praise their compassion, commitment and resilience. On Nurses’ Day we thank them. During emergencies and crises, we call them heroes. But there is a harder question Malaysia, like most countries around the world, needs to ask more seriously: what happens when the people who care for everyone else are not safe, supported or respected at work?

A Stronger Future for Coffee Starts Where It Is Grown

Imagine your morning coffee. You smell the aroma as steam rises from the cup. It wisps and swirls, thins, then disappears. You lift the cup to your mouth. The first pure joy of the day.

UNGA81: UN Leaders Calls for Faster Action on Pandemic Preparedness

The United Nations High-level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response (PPPR) on September 25 called for faster and more sustained investment in pandemic preparedness. Speakers emphasized that future outbreaks will require coordinated action across governments, health systems, and communities.

New Ocean Report Warns of Rising Seas, Ocean Heat and Acidification

Fatuma Makame learned to farm seaweed in the shallow water where her parents worked. These days, she grows it farther from shore.

BRICS: Growing Ambition, Zero Accountability

At the 18th BRICS Summit, held on 12 and 13 September in New Delhi, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought together presidents Xi Jinping of China, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran, along with Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince, Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed, representing the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Around the table sat longstanding rivals such as India and China and, in the case of Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, states on opposite sides of an ongoing war. That the summit produced a joint declaration every member could sign was a modest multilateralist success.

What Faith Can Teach Agriculture

Years ago, standing in a small farmer's field in Haiti, I began to suspect that we had agriculture backward. The development world saw a man in need of rescue. I saw a farmer who might help rescue the rest of us.

Strategic Blindness at UNGA 81: “Super Intelligence” and “Killer Robots” Take Center Stage as Women’s Rights Take a Back Seat

“Artificial intelligence (AI) must be shaped by humanity, with humanity, and for all humanity... Life-and-death decisions must never be surrendered to machines. Killer robots must have no place in our future.”

Overshoot of Paris Agreement and the Looming Super El Niño Drive Urgent Calls for Global Climate Action at UNGA 81

The United Nations 2026 Climate Summit addressed critical strategies to mitigate the compounding impacts of the climate crisis and accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Global Leaders Network Pushes to Protect Women’s and Children’s Health

In the wake of the largest decline in global health financing on record, the Global Leaders Network (GLN) for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescent Health convened a high-level meeting on September 22 to sustain political momentum for women and children's health financing. The event, Financing for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescent’s Health in a Time of Austerity, was co-hosted by the Governments of South Africa, Spain, and Tanzania, in addition to the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (PMMCH).

The Dollar-Gold Standard’s Lingering Demise

The 1944 Bretton Woods (BW) conference accepted the US demand to use the dollar to settle international financial transactions. This arrangement would require a US balance-of-payments deficit to issue enough dollars.

Forty Years of the ‘Right to Development’: When Growth Excludes, Is It Still Development?

World leaders have warned that the most vulnerable people have been left behind as the right to development has promised more than it has delivered, with development seemingly the preserve of the superrich and powerful.

From Commitments to Action: Centering Lived Experience in NCD Responses

On September 21, just prior to the opening of the United Nations General Assembly Debate (UNGA81), the NCD Alliance held its fifth Multi-stakeholder Gathering, “Strategies for a Sustainable NCD and Mental Health Response,” during the UN High-level Week.

AI-Driven Climate Change Pushes Frontline Communities Further Into Environmental Degradation and Poverty

On September 21, Frontline Resource Institute (FRI) hosted its Climate Justice Hub at Fordham University at Lincoln Center in New York City under the theme “Building a Stronger Climate Coalition.”

Norway’s Development Rethink Should See Ocean Investment as a Strategic Interest

As Norway undertakes Vendepunkt, or “Turning Point,” its reflection on the future of Norwegian development policy, it is critical that oceans remain a priority. Donors around the world are running similar audits, deciding which long-term partnerships to keep, and why. Norway has decades of expertise to offer, but also something significant at stake: healthy and well-governed oceans underpin food, livelihoods and economic activity in partner countries while supporting global seafood supply chains in which Norway itself participates.