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CIVICUS discusses the challenges posed by Paraguay’s ‘anti-NGO law’ with Hugo González, executive director of the Paraguayan Network of LGBTQ+ Artists (REPAR+), a civil society organisation (CSO) that promotes the rights of LGBTQI+ people, which has joined the constitutional challenge against this law.

Hugo González

What are the problems with Law 7363?

The law was enacted in November 2024, and its regulations came into force in October 2025. It applies to CSOs that receive or manage private or public funds from national or international sources and use those funds to influence public policy or state activities. The regulatory decree defines influence broadly, including reports, press releases and other forms of public expression.

The law establishes a public register administered by the Ministry of Economy and Finance and requires balance sheets, minutes, supporting documents and annual reports on programmes, beneficiaries, professionals, staff and affiliated entities. It also prohibits reference to donor confidentiality to circumvent these controls and provides for sanctions ranging from a formal warning to suspension and deregistration.

Civil society doesn’t oppose transparency. We were already complying with civil, labour, tax and anti-money laundering obligations, so this law was unnecessary. We call it the ‘big stick law’ because it duplicates controls, uses broad definitions and turns public advocacy into a risk factor that triggers extraordinary scrutiny for punitive purposes.

In what political context was the law passed?

The bill was passed thanks to the majority held by the ruling Colorado Party. The process moved forward against a backdrop of stigmatisation of CSOs, human rights activists and journalists, and coincided with the work of a congressional committee that framed CSO funding within a narrative centred on money laundering.

The law also reflected the convergence between parts of the ruling coalition and conservative religious networks. Among its main proponents were legislators such as Gustavo Leite and Lizarella Valiente, who have also participated in activities and initiatives linked to evangelical organisations. While this doesn’t prove that these organisations drafted or funded the law, it does highlight an asymmetry in access and scrutiny between groups that influence public policy.

The law treats different groups that influence the same policies very differently. It imposes extensive controls on CSOs but expressly exempts churches and religious groups.

What impact is the new law having?

The impact began even before the first sanctions were imposed. Ever since the Ministry of Economy and Finance launched the registration portal, CSOs have had to devote time, money and staff to complying with the new accounting, administrative and legal requirements. For small organisations or those run by volunteers, this means that a large proportion of their resources is no longer being channelled into activities, assistance, research or support services.

Uncertainty is also a factor. Although sanctions are not yet being applied on a large scale, the law is having a deterrent effect. Donors, organisations and supporters fear the consequences of getting involved or advocating for causes.

The obligation to provide detailed information on beneficiaries and supporters poses privacy risks, particularly in small communities and among vulnerable groups. The safety of these people depends on who has access to the information, for what purpose and with what effective safeguards.

What obstacles do LGBTQI+ organisations face, and how does the new law exacerbate them?

In Paraguay, gender and diversity organisations operate in a context of structural discrimination, characterised by hate speech, exclusion from education and the labour market, barriers to accessing healthcare and difficulties in reporting violence. Added to this is the lack of a comprehensive anti-discrimination law, legal recognition for same-sex couples and accessible administrative procedures for the recognition of gender identity. All this leaves LGBTQI+ people in a particularly vulnerable situation.

Law 7363 exacerbates these difficulties, as it imposes broad and unclear requirements on CSOs that defend these rights. REPAR+’s artistic activities can be regarded as advocacy, culture and support all at once. The vagueness of the law, combined with discretionary powers and the threat of suspension, makes it impossible to predict how these activities will be classified, and could stifle critical voices before any sanction is imposed.

How has civil society mobilised to challenge the law at the Supreme Court?

The response has combined dialogue, international appeals, litigation and technical analysis. Since December, CSOs working on community development, culture, the environment and human rights, as well as rural communities, have filed constitutional challenges against the law and its implementing decree. REPAR+ has joined the effort because we believe freedoms of association and expression are essential for organisations that support LGBTQI+ people, denounce discrimination and engage in public policy.

We hope that the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court will examine these challenges independently and urgently, in the light of the Constitution, the American Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. A favourable ruling would directly protect the organisations bringing the challenges and establish an important precedent. We don’t seek to be exempt from accountability. We seek to prevent a regulatory process from becoming a form of political surveillance, exposing vulnerable people or serving as punishment for dissent.

What action is needed in and outside Paraguay to reverse these restrictions?

Within Paraguay, the court must rule urgently and prevent irreparable harm while it considers the merits of the case. However, a lasting solution requires Congress and the executive to repeal or comprehensively modify the law, through a pluralistic consultation process. Any regulation should be precise, avoid duplicate registrations and protect beneficiaries, donors, victims and workers. Intrusive requests should be subject to independent scrutiny and sanctions should be limited to what is strictly necessary and proportionate. These criteria should apply equally to anyone who manages public funds or influences policy, including religious organisations.

The international community could continue to monitor the situation at the United Nations, particularly through the Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review process, and at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. It can also take action through embassies and cooperation agencies. Donors should offer flexible support to cover accounting, legal, security and technological costs, rather than withdrawing out of fear of the new regime.

Paraguay also needs a comprehensive anti-discrimination law, effective recognition of gender identity and protection for human rights defenders and journalists.

We are not asking for external guardianship or privileges. We are calling for democratic solidarity to preserve a space where people can organise, question and propose ideas. Transparency should strengthen democracy, not expose vulnerable people or turn criticism of those in power into a cause for suspicion.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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Exiled Nicaraguans hold a national flag in the Church of San Francisco in San José, Costa Rica, at a service held on 19 April 2026 to commemorate the anniversary of protests in 2018. Credit: Ezequiel Becerra/AFP

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Aug 12 2026 (IPS)

On 19 July, the 47th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution that first brought him to power, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega declared that his country would hold ‘no more elections’ so that the opposition could never again try to ‘seize power’. Just like that, he scrapped a presidential vote that had previously been pushed back to 2027, abandoning even the fiction of democratic legitimacy. The move changes little in practice, since no free vote had been possible for years. But it’s still revealing: a government that controls the army, the courts, the electoral machinery and the police, and will still not risk even a stage-managed ballot, is one that has lost confidence in its people.

Civil society dismantled

The abolition of elections is the political capstone of a longer-term project to eliminate every organised space beyond the ruling family’s control. A constitutional overhaul ratified in January 2025 extended Ortega’s term, elevated his wife, Rosario Murillo, from vice-president to ‘co-president’, and handed the couple control over every branch of the state, with their son, Laureano Ortega Murillo, positioned as monarchical heir apparent. Scrapping elections that had already been emptied of any meaning removes the last formal mechanism through which power in Nicaragua might, however unlikely, have changed hands.

Since 2018, the government has shut down over 5,500 civil society organisations, close to 80 per cent of what existed. Its net has encompassed trade unions, women’s groups, universities, independent media and religious bodies, with the Catholic Church a particular target. The legal profession is the latest victim. In early July, some 2,000 lawyers found their licences to practise revoked overnight, without notice or appeal, effectively leaving many Nicaraguans without legal defence.

The Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua, mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, has concluded that the government has weaponised every arm of the state and its abuses amount to crimes against humanity committed as deliberate policy. It has documented chains of command linking the presidency to local officials, and named 54 officials responsible for the repression.

Repression beyond borders

Persecution has forced over 935,000 people, roughly one in eight Nicaraguans, into exile since mass protests in 2018, which security forces suppressed by killing more than 300 people. But exile offers no safety. A 2025 report by the Group of Human Rights Experts shows the regime runs an extensive transnational intelligence and surveillance network using the army, police, foreign service and informal agents to track critics abroad, monitor their communications and threaten their families back home.

For a growing number, surveillance leads to violence. In June 2025, Roberto Samcam, a retired army major turned prominent critic, was shot dead at his home in Costa Rica by an assassin posing as a delivery driver. He was one of at least four exiled opposition figures killed in Central America since 2022. Many more have survived attempts on their lives.

The regime has also stripped hundreds of critics of their nationality, including 222 political prisoners it expelled to the USA in 2023 and 135 it shipped to Guatemala in 2024, and made changes to the Penal Code to prosecute ‘crimes against the state’ committed abroad.

Aware that international bodies offer a route to accountability, the regime is moving to close it off. Having quit the Organization of American States in 2023, Nicaragua withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council and four other multilateral bodies in 2025. Yet some mechanisms do not need its consent. Two months after the government announced it was quitting, the Human Rights Council renewed the Group of Experts’ mandate for a further two years. An Argentine judge, acting under universal jurisdiction, has issued arrest warrants for Ortega, Murillo and other senior officials. The legal instruments exist, but the will to use them is often missing.

Democratic states have supplied little of that will. The USA does not recognise Ortega’s government, yet in September 2025 the Trump administration terminated Temporary Protected Status for Nicaraguans, asserting that the country was now safe for their return, a claim at odds with UN findings. This left thousands exposed to deportation.

Ortega has meanwhile leaned on autocratic friends, with China now his main source of funding and Russia supplying intelligence and security advice and training.

Long-term pressure needed

Ortega will have watched Venezuela closely. In 2024, Nicolás Maduro allowed the holding of an election he was sure he had won in advance, having stopped the main opposition candidate standing, only to see a little-known substitute become the catalyst for years of pent-up discontent. Scrapping elections spares Ortega that danger, at least in the short term.

Over the long term, pressure for the restoration of democracy will depend on the endurance of Nicaraguan civil society, at home and in exile, and on democratic states being willing to hold the regime to account. Neither can be taken for granted. The movement best able to sustain the fight has been driven abroad, where it also faces persecution, and the government best placed to shelter these exiles is busy sending them back home.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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Children play outside their home at a shelter in the Philippines. Credit: UNICEF/Joshua Estey

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 2026 (IPS)

On July 7, the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres presented a report from the Special Rapporteur on the sale, sexual exploitation, and sexual abuse of children, Ai Kihara-Hunt, to the General Assembly, underscoring her goals and priorities for the implementation of protection measures for children worldwide.

The report, submitted in coordination with the Human Rights Council, highlights the systemic barriers that leave children increasingly vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse, including weak government oversight, limited support and justice services for victims, and worsening protracted crises.

“Given the complexity, hidden and transnational nature of the sale, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children, the Special Rapporteur believes that robust child protection systems and effective cooperation within each State and across borders are essential to combat the phenomena,” the report reads. “Addressing the sale, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children requires a human rights-based approach grounded in the best interests of the child and informed by the dignity, agency and resilience of children.”

Drawing largely from contributions by UN member states, international agencies, civil society groups, and humanitarian organizations, the report outlines key mechanisms for cooperation, accountability, and the prevention of human rights violations against children. The report incorporates global perspectives from diverse stakeholders and the lived experiences of survivors, prioritizing protection, recovery, rehabilitation, and access to justice through frameworks that are gender-responsive, disability-inclusive, victim-centered, trauma-informed, and fundamentally grounded in children’s rights.

This follows the 61st session of the Human Rights Council on March 10, where former Special Rapporteur Mama Fatima Singhateh warned that emerging digital technologies are revolutionizing how perpetrators commit abuse and rendering online spaces increasingly dangerous for children. Singhateh urged closer cooperation between humanitarian actors, governments, and stakeholders to prevent digital advancements from creating “new pathways” for human rights violations.

Singhateh also issued a child-friendly version of her final report to the Human Rights Council on April 20, emphasizing the importance of accessibility so that children can engage meaningfully in the discussions that affect them most. Moving forward, Kihara-Hunt aims to build upon her predecessors’ work by addressing issues that have not received adequate attention or sustained engagement from the UN. Key priorities include the “complex or rapidly evolving” challenges linked with intersecting global crises and the alarming rise of sexual exploitation across digital contexts.

The Special Rapporteur notes that online spaces allow children to express consent and agreement based on their evolving capacities, which may grow increasingly complex amid the introduction of emerging technologies. The rise of artificial intelligence has been a major concern for humanitarian organizations as these technologies have streamlined the production and dissemination of harmful child material, as well as the collection of unauthorized images and the misuse of personal data.

Additionally, the report highlights how digital technologies—such as social media platforms, messaging applications, and cryptocurrencies—have streamlined recruitment into armed groups and trafficking and exploitation, while simultaneously helping perpetrators evade law enforcement.

“Child sexual exploitation and abuse are driven by a range of factors, including harmful social norms, stigma, gender inequality, power imbalances, poverty, and weaknesses in child protection and support systems,” Afrooz Kaviani Johnson, UNICEF Child Protection Specialist, tells Inter Press Service. “Today, the digital environment is increasingly implicated in these harms. Children face risks such as grooming, coercion, sexual exploitation, and abuse facilitated through digital platforms. Emerging technologies, including generative AI, are also expanding the scale and severity of risks.”

A core pillar of Kihara-Hunt’s mandate is to urge the private sector to adopt stricter safety policies rooted in human rights and children’s privacy—a responsibility that extends across organizations, from employees and volunteers to business partners. The report notes that market incentives and commercialization and profit-driven systems will be monitored in the ways they may or may not be contributing to a harmful environment that facilitates the sexual exploitation of children, particularly online.

“A safety-by-design approach involves assessing and mitigating foreseeable risks that platforms, messaging services, gaming environments or artificial intelligence systems may facilitate the sale of children, child sexual exploitation and abuse, and to actively detect, report and remove child sexual abuse materials,” the report states. “Beyond these responsibilities, the Special Rapporteur intends to examine how business actors can play proactive roles, in collaboration with States and other relevant stakeholders, in prevention, safeguarding, reporting and support for children.”

The report also noted that children residing in areas affected by armed conflict and humanitarian crises face heightened risks of sale and sexual exploitation, leaving them roughly twice as likely to experience rape and sexual assault during childhood compared to the global average. Other related drivers of sexual exploitation include forced displacement, natural disasters, and climate change. In these contexts, humanitarian aid is significantly limited, which often leads to constraints on protection measures and civil society intervention.

“Humanitarian crises such as conflict, displacement, climate-related shocks, and public health emergencies can disrupt the systems that help keep children safe,” said Johnson. “They can increase children’s exposure to risk while reducing access to essential services and support.”

“Poverty and financial hardship can also increase vulnerability, particularly in situations where exploitation involves an exchange of money, goods, or other benefits. Children who are displaced, on the move, living with disabilities, or affected by humanitarian crises often face multiple and overlapping risks.”

Economic instability and inequality also serve as primary drivers of child sexual exploitation. According to the report, children who are “outside the formal protection networks”—such as those experiencing statelessness—frequently are the victims of abuse from adults, peers, and in some instances, even law enforcement officials. Displaced children are similarly vulnerable, often barred from reporting crimes out of fear of detention or deportation. Without official identity documentation to access support services, and frequently separated from family members, stateless and migrant children face reduced adult supervision, which drastically increases vulnerability.

To build on her predecessors’ initiatives, Kihara-Hunt intends to prioritize youth participation and develop a mandate that empowers children. She aims to urge governments, tech companies, and stakeholders to build safer online spaces. Furthermore, Kihara-Hunt is committed to pressing for stronger cooperation between sectors, particularly within public health and education.

“The role of the public health sector in the rehabilitation of child victims and survivors extends beyond recovery and reintegration and includes promoting a shift from a criminal justice response towards one centered on the health and well-being of the child. Meanwhile, the education sector contributes across all stages of prevention, protection and response, as further elaborated on below.”

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Peter George attaching the solar lights and panels on the plastic design bags. Credit: Madina Kula Sheriff/IPS

By Madina Kula Sheriff
FREETOWN, Aug 10 2026 (IPS)

Growing up, Peter George, a young innovator in Bo District in Southern Region, Sierra Leone, watched people dump electronic waste near the farmland where his grandmother cultivated crops.

He told IPS that people would dump electronic waste, such as discarded batteries and other damaged electronic components, near the area where she grew crops, and the chemicals from the waste affected the crops and reduced yields.

But that experience triggered his curiosity and fascination with how electronic devices worked and led him to use e-waste to create solar lamps for students.

“We started using some of the electronic waste to develop solar lamps. These lamps helped students study at night, and we also donated some to other children,” George said.

However, George’s innovation shifted from solar lamps to recycling plastics to make backpacks as plastic pollution worsened in Bo.

“Many people often think plastic pollution is only a problem in Freetown, but the issue is also very serious in provincial cities like Bo. During the rainy season, the roads become flooded because water cannot flow properly in drains due to blockage by plastic waste. This disrupted our school and displaced people,” George said.

George later founded Ideal Technologies in 2018, a youth-led enterprise operating in Bo District that transforms plastic and electronic waste into solar-powered backpacks and lighting systems for school children.

Through his initiative, George believes he is tackling the problem of e-waste and plastic pollution in Sierra Leone, which has become a serious challenge.

The World Bank estimates that Sierra Leone generates about 130,000 tonnes of plastic waste each year, much of it from single-use plastic bottles, water sachets and plastic bags that pollute the country’s coastline and harm marine life. Globally, electronic waste is also rising rapidly.

The Global E-waste Monitor 2024 says the world generated 62 million tonnes of e-waste in 2022, but less than 22.3 percent was formally collected and recycled.

Authorities say plastic pollution has become a growing threat to Sierra Leone’s coastal ecosystems and tourism industry.

Yet, despite the scale of the challenge, Sierra Leone’s plastic waste management policy is still under development.

“I looked at everything happening around me and started thinking about how to solve the challenge of poor access to electricity, e-waste pollution and plastic pollution. I started developing solar-powered backpacks made from recycled plastic and e-waste.

“During the day, the backpacks are carried like ordinary school bags. At night the attached solar-powered lighting allows children in communities with limited electricity to continue studying after sunset,” George told IPS.

For him, innovation represents more than recycling. He says it is about changing the way people think about waste.

“Things that people saw as waste, I saw as solutions,” said Peter.

Turning Discarded Plastic into Livelihoods

Like George, Manty Sulman Beckley in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, refuses to see plastic as the end of a product’s life. Instead, she recycles waste into everyday items that she sells for a living.

For the past five years, Beckley has transformed single-use plastics into shopping bags, handbags, baskets, chairs, tables and bricks.

The climate activist and founder of the Beckma Empowerment Initiative said her passion for recycling began during childhood, watching her aunt repair and make household furniture. Inspired, she started fixing broken chairs at home.

“As a teenager, I started thinking about how to repair broken chairs around me. Gradually my passion for creating things grew, and as an adult, the passion developed into a plastic recycling initiative after I witnessed how plastic waste was destroying communities across Freetown,” she said.

To source materials, Beckley works with households and young waste collectors in her community.

Despite these efforts, she said securing enough recyclable material remains difficult.

“In my house and surrounding communities, I advocate against throwing plastic waste carelessly. I provide bags for households to collect their plastic waste, which I later gather for recycling.

“Even fifty full rice bags of single-use plastic are not enough to create items like bricks, baskets, and other products, meaning we constantly need to collect more,” she said.

Setbacks

These innovators believe recycling offers an opportunity to give waste a second life, but they say limited financial support and a lack of equipment continue to hinder progress.

For George, the lack of equipment for large-scale production is the key challenge.

“One of our greatest challenges is having the right tools and equipment. If there is greater investment in recycling, especially for young people, it could significantly change the story of single-use plastics, providing income for waste collectors and recyclers,” he told IPS.

But beyond this, Beckley said being a woman in the recycling and innovation space also comes with unique challenges.

“There are people who call asking for products or services, but once they realise a woman is behind the work, they begin to doubt my ability. Some openly say they would rather work with a man,” she said. “I usually tell them that everything posted on my page is work that I have personally done.”

Impact

Over the past two years, George said Ideal Technologies has expanded its work, particularly among schoolchildren in underserved communities. In 2024, his innovation was recognised through the Youth-Led Innovation Challenge, organised by the UNDP and the Environment Protection Agency Sierra Leone, where he was the winner.

The recognition brought financial support that allowed the initiative to reach more communities.

“Through grants from this and other initiatives, we have supported more than 400 school children in rural communities. This does not include people we have supplied products to through partnerships or buyers overseas,” George said.

For Beckley, she measures the rewards of recycling differently and urges greater government support for youth-led recycling initiatives.

“This is my main source of income, and I have also created job opportunities for people who have learnt from me. Some of them now continue making bags and other recycled products on their own,” she said.

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CIVICUS discusses India’s Cockroach Janta Party movement with Harshit Singh, a young activist, poet and storyteller who took part in protests in Delhi.

Harshit Singh

What’s the Cockroach Janta Party, and how did it start?

On 15 May, the Chief Justice of India said that young people who couldn’t find a job and turned to media, social media and activism to attack the system were like cockroaches. He corrected himself the following day, saying he had meant only those entering the legal profession with fake degrees, but it was too late. Everybody felt hurt and frustrated.

Abhijeet Dipke, a young Indian, posted a tweet asking what would happen if all the cockroaches came together. Within 24 hours he had set up an Instagram page, a website and a manifesto that said that if you were lazy, unemployed and had time on your hands, you qualified as a cockroach. The name, Cockroach Janta Party, was a parody of the ruling party. The response was enormous. Artists and creators began promoting the platform, and within weeks over 20 million people were following it.

It grew that fast because the frustration was already there. Two weeks before Surya Kant spoke, the question paper for the national medical entrance exam leaked in advance, and the exam was cancelled for over two million students who had spent years preparing. At least 21 students died by suicide; every morning we woke up to news of another death. And this was not an isolated case. Every other day we hear about another exam paper leaking somewhere.

The Cockroach Janta Party gave young people somewhere to channel their frustration with the education system and unemployment. It gave us hope and a chance to demand a better education system, one that isn’t privatised and doesn’t cost so much that only privileged people get a good education.

But education is just the baseline. Beyond it, this is a movement that brings together everyone who has been neglected and not listened to for years, so they can express their frustration and ask for change. What started as satire became a national movement that nobody, not even the person who started it, expected.

Would you call this a Gen Z movement?

It was organised by Gen Z, and most of us in it are, but it’s not only that. I have seen every generation at the protest. People of different castes, gender identities and religions have come together under one umbrella to ask for their rights. At the end of the day, we are all Indians, and every issue this country is going through is our issue.

There is no criterion for joining and no enrolment process. If you think something is wrong, or that your basic rights are not being respected, that is the moment you support the movement, however you can. Come to the protest, talk about it online or in print, and be a voice where you are.

What struck me most is how many people came who didn’t support Abhijeet or disagreed with something a spokesperson had said. Some didn’t even like that we call ourselves cockroaches. They came anyway, because the movement is bigger than any person in it and because after a long time we have a platform where we can speak out loud, with other people standing next to us. That’s why it grew so fast.

What role has social media played?

Social media has played a central role. The movement started online and the vast majority of what it has achieved rests on that. Nobody expected it to come onto the ground and organise protests at this scale.

The reason it mattered this much is that the media here is compromised. If you say anything against the government, mainstream television and print media will not carry it. There was a protest in the heart of the capital for weeks and you wouldn’t find a single headline about it in the newspapers or magazines.

But when you are on the ground with your phone, taking photos and videos, you become your own media. And everyone was using their platforms. It didn’t matter whether someone had 10 followers or 5,000, each person was reaching the audience they had. In the end, mainstream media just reaches a limited number of people, but social media reaches everyone.

The turning point was when artists and creators started speaking. I hesitated at first. My livelihood is social media and ticket revenue, so I doubted what would happen to my future if I spoke against the government. I feared my accounts would be taken down. But I couldn’t deny what was happening, so I spoke out, and many other artists did too.

How has the government responded?

The government has responded very negatively. People who question the government, protest against it or ask for their rights get labelled as anti-national or terrorists. There’s no second thought about it. When I was a child, those were heavy words. Watching this government make them ordinary and using them against us was frightening.

For seven weeks we were at Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site in central Delhi. The Prime Minister’s Office, the President’s house and every ministry are within a five-kilometre radius. Still, not official came to meet us. What they did instead was try to dilute the protest by dividing us with anything they could find. They mocked queer people and spread hatred between Hindus and Muslims, but the unity held and we stood together.

On 20 July, we marched from Jantar Mantar to parliament. Delhi hadn’t seen a peaceful protest this massive in about 15 years. Thousands of people, including children, teenagers and grandparents, were on the streets asking for their basic rights. We were carrying flowers, banners and posters, and chanting slogans.

But the security forces met us with repression and violence. They used pellet guns, teargas and batons against anyone, even if they were just standing nearby. There’s a girl who’s still in intensive care on a ventilator.

The way the police handled the protests was illegal and unconstitutional. At that moment a lot of people in India realised something was badly wrong, and support for our movement grew massively across the country. Cities, districts and small towns started protests in solidarity. That is when the government understood it had to listen.

What has the movement achieved?

Our non-negotiable demand was the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan and action against everyone involved in the scam. Pradhan stepped down, and we are glad he did, but it shouldn’t have taken this long or this much violence. He even framed it as a way to stop the protests and prevent terrorist activity, not as an admission that anything had gone wrong. Accountability is still missing.

Our other two demands are still unmet. We asked for compensation of 10 million rupees (approx. US$115,000) for every family that lost a child to suicide. Those families haven’t received anything, not even an apology.

We also asked that nobody who took part in the protests face legal action. Instead, the police have spent the past days tracing protesters and opening cases against them. There’s a lot of rage about it, and Abhijeet and others have said we may have to protest again.

What support does the movement need now?

What we most need is for people to stop being afraid. Protesting here is almost a taboo, because people expect repercussions and stay away, which makes organising anything at all difficult.

That fear is not irrational. This government controls the security forces, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate, and it can do whatever it wants with them, as we saw on the streets. The courts will not stop it either, because the judiciary is compromised in the same way the media is.

But if something is wrong, it is fine to ask the government why. They are here to serve us. All we are asking for is to be able to protest peacefully in what is supposed to be the world’s largest democracy.

We need young people in this country to keep showing up and artists to stop being silent, because if the mainstream media will not speak out, art must become the mode of resistance. Support from abroad matters too. When people elsewhere talk about our movement, it creates pressure on the government. And we must hold on to what we know – our rights and our intentions – because diluting the agenda is what the government will try next.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

India has recently been added to the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist, which identifies countries where a severe deterioration in the quality of civic space is taking place.

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India added to human rights watchlist as repression intensifies in Modi’s third term CIVICUS Monitor 29.Jul.2026
Gen Z protests: new resistance rises CIVICUS | 2026 State of Civil Society Report
India: ‘When civil society is constrained, it cannot challenge power or amplify excluded voices’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Devanshi Vaid and Smarinita Shetty 11.Dec.2025

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Burkina Faso’s junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traoré attends a meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow on 10 May 2025. Credit: Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Aug 7 2026 (IPS)

Burkina Faso’s charismatic young military leader, army captain Ibrahim Traoré, has stopped pretending. In April, he declared that people should ‘forget about the question of democracy’ because ‘democracy isn’t for us’. When Traoré seized power in September 2022, ousting a leader who’d staged a coup earlier that year, he promised elections by June 2024. The junta broke that pledge, pushing any transition back to 2029. Now Traoré has confirmed he has no intention of restoring democracy. Instead, Burkina Faso’s military junta is tightening its repression, while working with neighbouring states to internationalise its dangerously undemocratic model.

Crackdown intensifies

Repression has unfolded in a context of jihadist insurgency. Frustration with the democratically elected government’s security failures helped fuel the conditions that led to military rule, but the army hasn’t turned things around. The insurgency has grown, and civilians are paying the price. All sides are accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes, and since the coup, there’s evidence that Burkina Faso’s armed forces and allied militias have increasingly targeted civilians, particularly members of the Fulani ethnic group.

A military seen to be failing against the insurgency and killing civilians would lose any claims to legitimacy. That makes the junta determined to control the narrative, silence dissent and crush any perceived challenge to its power.

Traoré backs his anti-democratic rhetoric with actions. In January, the government dissolved all political parties, claiming they sowed division and weakened the social fabric. The junta is also targeting civil society organisations (CSOs). In recent months, authorities have suspended over a thousand organisations. In April, the government dissolved 118 CSOs, citing non-compliance with a July 2025 law that imposed strict and onerous registration, compliance and reporting requirements. The law supposedly gave CSOs a year to comply, but the government dissolved them before the deadline expired. It targeted human rights organisations such as the African Meeting for the Defence of Human Rights, the Burkinabè Coalition for Women’s Rights and Christian Action for the Abolition of Torture.

Religious associations and student groups have fared little better. Association As Salam and the Coordination of Young Muslims of Burkina have no explicit human rights focus, but authorities have suspended both for alleged public disorder and activities said to fall outside their stated purpose. In May, the government suspended the General Student Union of Burkina Faso, the country’s biggest student group, after it issued a statement criticising the government’s security record, which the government claimed glorified terrorism.

Authorities have suspended several media outlets, typically over their reporting on the security situation. In May, the state media regulator indefinitely suspended French TV channel TV5 Monde, accusing it of siding with terrorist groups.

Anybody who speaks out risks arrest, detention, enforced disappearance, forced conscription into the armed forces and torture. Burkina Faso’s LGBTQI+ people are particularly exposed, since in 2025 the junta criminalised same-sex relations, with jail sentences of up to five years. The government has also granted itself the power to strip citizenship from anyone deemed to be acting against the national interest. Last December, repression took an even more ominous turn when the junta announced its intention to reinstate the death penalty.

Due to these actions, Burkina Faso has recently been added to the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist, which identifies countries where a severe deterioration in the quality of civic space is taking place.

Repressive alliance

Burkina Faso isn’t working alone. Under Traoré, it has forged close relations with two neighbouring military regimes, Mali and Niger. Together, they’re promoting a model that rejects democracy and international scrutiny. In January 2025, they completed their joint withdrawal from the key regional organisation, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a year after forming their rival Alliance of Sahel States. The move was clearly a response to ECOWAS pressure to restore civilian rule.

The three states have now formally begun the process to leave the International Criminal Court (ICC). They’ve denounced the court as a ‘tool of neocolonial oppression’ and promised to set up an alternative, although any body they create is unlikely to retain the ICC’s power to issue arrest warrants against sitting heads of state and other senior figures. For survivors of human rights atrocities, withdrawal from the ICC and the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice removes vital potential routes to justice.

In February, Burkina Faso suspended the UN Human Rights Office, which had operated in the country since 2019, in retaliation for a statement by UN human rights chief Volker Türk urging the junta to reverse its ban on political parties and open up civic space. The UN has now concluded it has no choice but to close its office.

These moves shield military leaders and security forces from external accountability. They’re part of a wider realignment that has seen Burkina Faso and its allies turn away from former colonial power France and other democratic states and towards Russia, a partner with no interest in human rights. Burkina Faso’s relations with Russia have extended beyond military cooperation to stronger economic ties. Last year the two countries signed a gold-mining deal.

Even as he rejects international scrutiny, Traoré has cultivated a global following. Through adept use of social media and a steady stream of disinformation, he casts himself as a pan-African leader in the mould of liberation-era icons such as Thomas Sankara, Burkina Faso’s revolutionary former president. His message taps into real anger about colonialism and the power imbalances in relations with western states.

But the people whose rights he tramples aren’t westerners. The civilians being slaughtered by the army and the activists and journalists being silenced are Burkinabe people. There’s nothing un-African about democratic freedoms, and nothing pan-African about a leader who denies them. African democracies have the most to lose if Traoré’s model spreads, and are the most able to challenge it. They should refuse to normalise his narrative and press him to restore fundamental freedoms, rebuild a path to democratic rule and recognise the value of international accountability.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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Action Against Hunger holds a commemoration event for the 17 staff members killed in Muttur, Sri Lanka on August 4th, 2006. Credit: Action Against Hunger

By Rotimy Djossaya
NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 7 2026 (IPS)

This summer, an ambush on a marked humanitarian convoy in Duk County, South Sudan, left 17 dead and five injured. While the UN called for an immediate investigation, history suggests the victims’ families will wait indefinitely for answers.

We suspended field movements in the area pending a security review, which means communities already facing crisis levels of hunger lost access to life-saving assistance, at least temporarily.

The emblem on a vehicle or a vest once offered protection: a shared understanding, codified in international law, that those delivering food, water, medical care and other basic relief would not be targets of violence. That understanding is breaking down.

In the past three years, more than 1,000 humanitarian workers have been killed, most notably in Gaza, Sudan, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Worryingly, 2024 was the worst year on record with 383 aid workers killed worldwide. That’s more than one each day.

This year, the recent ambush brought the toll to 29 in South Sudan alone — and it is only August. Roughly 90% of those attacked are local and national staff, the people furthest from headlines and closest to the danger.

Twenty years ago this month, seventeen of our colleagues were executed in our office in Muttur, Sri Lanka, wearing shirts that clearly identified them as humanitarian aid workers. It remains one of the deadliest attacks of its kind. Two decades later, despite evidence pointing to the likely responsibility of state security forces, no one has been held accountable. We are still calling for a new, independent investigation.

Rotimy Djossaya, Chief Impact Officer for Action Against Hunger

There is a framework for addressing this. In 2024, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2730, which calls on States to respect and protect United Nations and humanitarian personnel in accordance with their obligations under international law. Last year saw the introduction of the Declaration for the Protection of Humanitarian Personnel, a commitment to uphold international humanitarian law, prevent attacks, and pursue accountability. Over 110 countries have signed on, from every region and political tradition. While the issue still generates broad agreement, it is increasingly polarized, and the declaration’s enforcement is weak.

When a marked humanitarian vehicle is attacked with impunity, the international laws designed to protect humanity become nothing more than abstract targets.

The recent cuts to international aid budgets make a challenging situation even harder. Although it’s not clear that recent funding cuts led directly to any violence, it’s evident that NGOs have far less money to spend on security response management. The 2025 Aid Worker Security Report documented what the funding collapse means for safety: organizations are cutting security positions, communications, and risk analysis, with the danger falling overwhelmingly on local organizations.

In principle, localization is smart, and the humanitarian reset is a chance to build a system that is locally led, globally supported, and more efficient. But it only works if resources move with the risk. Local NGOs are routinely excluded from security funding, training, and data-sharing. They are expected to work in the world’s most dangerous places without the protections international agencies take for granted. They face a difficult choice: abandon some of the people and places they serve or accept greater risk to the safety of their staff.

The aid workers this summer were traveling in a marked humanitarian convoy. Five of them were staff of our local partner, the John Dau Foundation, an organization founded by one of the “lost boys” of South Sudan, who fled unimaginable violence as a child and answered it by building clinics and feeding children in the very county where this attack took place. That people who devoted their lives to healing were met with this violence shows how badly protections for humanitarian workers have eroded. The markings on their vehicle were supposed to shield them, but they did not.

As we mark World Humanitarian Day on August 19 and approach the UN General Assembly in September, the global community and member states must act. They must mandate and fund security allocations directly for local partners, insist on independent investigations for harmed personnel, and enforce UN Security Council Resolution 2730. Commitments on paper only protect lives when perpetrators face consequences. Those who step into the crossfire to feed the world’s forgotten children should not have to pay for that humanity with their lives.

Together, let’s honor those who have served, stand with those who continue to serve, and act for humanity.

Rotimy Djossaya is, Chief Impact Officer at Action Against Hunger.

IPS UN Bureau

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CIVICUS speaks about China’s recently implemented Ethnic Unity Law with Gulchehra Hoja, a correspondent for Reporters Without Borders and a Uyghur activist and journalist known for her reporting on human rights abuses against Uyghur people in China.

Gulchehra Hoja

What does the new Ethnic Unity Law state?

This new law means there is one acceptable way to be Chinese and requires every part of society, not just the state, to work towards it. Culture, faith and language become things to be managed rather than rights to be protected.

But none of this is new. The law formalises practices that are already in place and turns repression into official state policy. For years the Chinese government has closed Uyghur-language schools, demolished mosques, imprisoned intellectuals, separated children from their families and sent more than a million Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples into detention camps. Ordinary expressions of Uyghur identity can attract suspicion.

Every government wants security and stability. The question is how those goals are pursued and who ends up defined as a threat. Under this law the answer is anyone whose identity does not fit. The Ethnic Unity Law strengthens Communist Party authority, not minority rights. It tells minorities that loyalty to the Communist Party matters more than their identity and that even the most ordinary parts of life are subject to state control.

Doesn’t China’s constitution protect minority languages and autonomy?

On paper, Article 4 guarantees all ethnic groups the right to use their own languages and preserve their cultures. But there is an enormous gap between what the law says and what happens.

I come from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. For Beijing, it is a strategic asset that connects China to Central Asia, holds vast natural resources and plays a central role in the country’s long-term economic and security ambitions. But for Uyghurs, it’s our home. It is where generations of our people have lived and built their lives.

The region is officially described as autonomous, but autonomy must include genuine local political participation, real cultural protection and the right to use and teach our language freely. Where those are missing, autonomy exists in name only.

Which communities does the law reach, and how is it enforced?

Uyghurs are the first victims, but we are certainly not the only ones. The law reaches Hong Kong activists, religious communities, Southern Mongolians and Tibetans. It can even be applied to Chinese citizens whose beliefs or identities just don’t fit the Communist Party’s vision. And because it applies beyond China’s territory, it reaches all of them wherever they live.

Paramilitary institutions, police, security agencies and universities work together, so every part of society is drawn into monitoring and reshaping people’s identities. Students from China’s National Security College, for example, were sent to East Turkistan to study governance centres, neighbourhood grid management, police stations and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, the state-owned paramilitary body that runs its own cities, courts, police and prisons across the region. This was not an academic visit. It was training in how to put a population under surveillance.

What are the risks of speaking out?

I know them personally. In authoritarian systems, telling the truth can be treated as a crime. I was branded a terrorist not because I committed violence but because I practised journalism and dared to speak out. And it was not only me who paid for it. After I reported on what was happening in East Turkistan, 25 members of my family were detained.

I am not alone in this. The Chinese government fears independent reporting, and that is why it works so hard to control information. Foreign journalists have been expelled, local journalists imprisoned and many Uyghur journalists working for international media have seen relatives disappeared, imprisoned or sent to detention camps simply for continuing to report.

The new law gives Beijing further justification to present peaceful advocacy as a threat to national unity. It also sends a message to Uyghurs living in Canada, Europe, Latin America, Turkey and the USA: we are still watching you. That is what transnational repression means.

What should the international community do?

Governments should not judge this law by its title but by its consequences. They should continue documenting human rights abuses, expose China’s efforts to intimidate critics abroad, sanction the officials responsible for these policies and strengthen protections for Uyghur journalists and refugees. We’ll keep documenting these stories even when access is restricted, but we can’t do it alone.

This is not only about Uyghurs. It is about whether a government can erase a people’s culture, history, language and religion and call it unity. That question should concern everyone.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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SEE ALSO
Transnational repression: ‘China feels emboldened to globalise its political red lines’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Barbora Bukovská 19.May.2026
China: ‘The state is using generative AI to engineer reality through informational gaslighting’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Fergus Ryan 12.Mar.2026
The long reach of authoritarianism CIVICUS Lens 20.Mar.2024

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Anti-FGM activists protests outside the National Assembly in Banjul, The Gambia, on 18 March 2024, as lawmakers discuss a bill seeking to lift the ban on FGM. Credit: by Muhamadou Bittaye/AFP

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Aug 3 2026 (IPS)

Last August, a one-month-old girl in The Gambia bled to death after being subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice that had been illegal in the country since 2015. FGM is a human rights violation, whatever the appeals to faith or tradition made in its defence, but now the Gambian Supreme Court is being asked to strike the country’s ban down. This is the second attempt in two years to make FGM legal again.

Civil society stopped it the first time. When a repeal bill reached the National Assembly in 2024, the Network Against Gender-Based Violence brought survivors to testify, lobbied legislators, ran radio programmes and obtained a ruling from Cairo’s Al-Azhar University saying that FGM is not required under Islam. The bill fell in July 2024.

The ongoing fight in The Gambia is a measure of how fragile advances in the recognition of rights are. FGM is in retreat across most of the countries where it is practised, the result of decades of campaigning by survivors and community organisations. But holding that ground is becoming harder, as the money supporting those campaigns dries up and a resurgent anti-rights movement works to recast FGM as a traditional practice under foreign attack.

A practice in retreat

Over 230 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM, with an additional four million cut every year. But the direction of travel has changed. A 2024 UNICEF report found that half of the decline in prevalence over the past 30 years has come in the last decade, with rates among adolescent girls halved or cut by 30-plus percentage points in countries including Ethiopia, Kenya and Sierra Leone. Attitudes have shifted too. Around 400 million people in practising countries, two-thirds of the population, now say they want FGM to end.

That change has a clear source. The Joint Programme run by UNICEF and the UN Population Fund found that the sharpest reductions come where communities are supported to deliberate and then commit, publicly and collectively, to abandoning the practice. The UN channels funding and provides coordination, but the dialogues, declarations and door-to-door persuasion are the work of community activists, national organisations and survivor networks. Thanks to these civil society efforts, in 2025 alone, over 7.5 million people took part in community dialogues and over 190,000 religious leaders and community influencers publicly denounced FGM.

The tools that work

Where campaigners have targeted the religious justifications that sustain FGM, results have followed. In 2025, Islamic scholars in Djibouti, Eritrea and Somalia issued a joint ruling saying that nothing in the faith requires FGM. Litigation has proved another powerful tool. In July 2025, the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States found Sierra Leone in breach of its international obligations for failing to criminalise FGM, and said that, when intentionally inflicted, the practice meets the threshold of torture. In India, the Supreme Court has begun hearing whether cutting among the Dawoodi Bohra community should lose constitutional protection as an essential religious practice. And this June, Colombia became the first country in Latin America to ban FGM, driven by Emberá Indigenous women campaigning against a practice carried out in their own community.

Prohibition is now the norm rather than the exception, with Djibouti and Guinea writing bans into their constitutions in 2025. But laws alone don’t necessarily change what happens on the ground, and enforcement remains thin. Arrests and prosecutions rose sharply in 2025, yet there were still only 711 FGM court cases all year. In The Gambia, the fine imposed on the country’s first convicted cutters was paid by a prominent imam, an act that helped galvanise the campaign seeking to repeal the ban.

The movement’s defunding

The tactics that drove three decades of progress are now being starved of funding, with budget cuts falling hardest on the survivor-led and grassroots groups that are most effective but always face the toughest struggles for support. Funding for the Joint Programme fell from US$29.6 million in 2024 to US$16.3 million in 2025. The dismantling of USAID removed the largest single source of civil society funding worldwide, and total US foreign aid halved in a year. The UK, once the biggest funder of FGM prevention, is winding down its flagship programme with no replacement, so it can spend more on weapons.

The economics make no sense, because every dollar invested in prevention brings a tenfold return. The Joint Programme estimates that treating the health consequences of FGM currently costs US$1.4 billion a year. Politics, though, is playing a big part. In global north countries, political shifts are driving the withdrawal of aid, and far-right parties invoke FGM to stigmatise migrant communities while also opposing the gender justice policies that would make a difference. In practising countries, prohibition is increasingly recast as a foreign imposition on culture and faith. What unites these arguments is a shared sleight of hand that treats FGM as a question of cultural identity rather than a violation of fundamental human rights.

Elimination by 2030, the target that states set when they agreed the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, is already out of reach. But the evidence on what works is not in dispute, and it points towards communities and grassroots movements. The question is whether governments that claim to value human rights will keep supporting those delivering progress, or let a generation of girls pay the price of retreat.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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Dominica's geothermal power plant. As Caribbean countries seek to reduce their dependence on imported fossil fuels, renewable energy remains a key pillar of the regional resilience agenda advanced by CARICOM leaders. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
GROS ISLET, Saint Lucia , Aug 3 2026 (IPS)

From wars that drive up fuel prices to supply chain disruptions, inflation and increasingly frequent climate disasters, Caribbean leaders say many of the forces shaping the region’s future lie beyond their control.

Their response, however, is not resignation.

Instead, leaders of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the region’s largest economic grouping, are pursuing a strategy built on strengthening the systems they believe they can influence, hoping to make one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions more resilient to external shocks. These include food and energy security, transportation, healthcare, artificial intelligence and regional trade.

At their recent summit in Saint Lucia, the leaders argued that CARICOM must be judged less by declarations than by whether regional cooperation improves people’s daily lives.

“Our discussions have been guided by one central objective, ensuring that CARICOM delivers results that people can see and feel in their everyday lives,” CARICOM Chairman and Saint Lucia Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre said as he outlined the meeting’s outcomes.

“Heads of government focused on the issues that matter most to the people of the region.”

Those priorities included the rising cost of living, food security, affordable transportation, disaster resilience and the challenge of building stronger economies in an uncertain global environment.

Leaders acknowledged that inflation in food, fuel, freight and electricity has largely been driven by global conflicts, supply chain disruptions and commodity price shocks, which small island economies have little ability to influence. While several governments have introduced temporary measures to cushion households, they argued that lasting relief will require deeper regional cooperation on transportation, consumer protection and trade.

“We will work together,” said Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, who leads CARICOM’s work on the Caribbean Single Market and Economy. “None of us is omniscient, none of us has all the answers, and none of us are omnipotent as well.”

One of the summit’s most tangible initiatives was renewed work toward an affordable intra-regional ferry service, long viewed as critical to reducing freight costs, improving travel and strengthening food security. Leaders said the proposal would begin with a proof of concept using existing ferry capacity while governments harmonise regulations governing licensing, insurance and vehicle movement across borders.

The initiative complements CARICOM’s “25 by 2025 Plus Five” programme, which aims to reduce the region’s food import bill by expanding agricultural production and strengthening regional supply chains. Leaders argued that producing and transporting more food within the Caribbean would make the region less vulnerable to global disruptions.

Energy security emerged as another defining theme.

Prime Minister Terrance Drew of St Kitts and Nevis said that the Caribbean’s greatest vulnerability is not a lack of energy resources but its continued dependence on imported fossil fuels.

“We don’t have an energy issue,” Drew said. “We have an energy-harnessing issue.”

Pointing to the region’s abundant solar, geothermal, wind and wave resources, Drew said renewable energy offers perhaps the greatest long-term opportunity to stabilise Caribbean economies, reduce electricity costs and improve living standards.

“There’s nothing that can really stabilise our economy, or transform our economy, or deal with this constant up and down, like stabilising our energy sources,” he said.

Recognising that technological change will also reshape the region’s future, CARICOM agreed to establish a regional Blue Ribbon Commission on Artificial Intelligence. Leaders said the commission will develop regional guidance on AI, helping member states capitalise on its benefits while managing risks around jobs, privacy and ethics.

Climate resilience also remained central to the discussions.

Leaders reaffirmed their commitment to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius while continuing to advocate internationally for the special circumstances of Small Island Developing States. They also advanced work on a regional insurance and reinsurance strategy aimed at improving financial protection for governments, businesses and households, as climate-related disasters become more frequent and more costly.

Historical justice remained firmly on the regional agenda. Leaders endorsed renewed efforts to advance CARICOM’s Ten-Point Plan for Reparatory Justice through closer engagement with the African Union, upcoming Commonwealth meetings and other international forums.

The agenda set in Gros Islet, Saint Lucia, has effectively set CARICOM’s agenda for the months ahead. From advancing ferry connectivity and renewable energy to strengthening food security, disaster resilience and artificial intelligence governance, the challenge now is implementation.

For Caribbean citizens, the measure of success will not be the number of declarations adopted but whether regional cooperation delivers tangible improvements in everyday life.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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CIVICUS discusses disinformation campaigns targeting the LGBTQI+ community in Armenia with Hripsime Kizogyan, Executive Director of Pink Armenia, a community-based organisation that defends the human rights of LGBTQI+ people and advocates for policy change.

Hripsime Kizogyan

What was the fake Pride campaign about?

In late January, online stories started appearing that claimed that Armenia’s first LGBTQI+ Pride march would take place in the capital, Yerevan, on 7 April, supported by our organisation and personally led by Nikol Pashinyan. The date was no accident, because 7 April is a religious holiday and Mother’s Day in Armenia.

None of it was true. The stories first appeared on a brand-new website that had been created only 11 days earlier. It used an AI-generated image of Pashinyan and disappeared shortly after. But the damage was done. Georgian and Turkish media outlets and dozens of Facebook and Twitter/X accounts had already picked up the story.

The same false campaign came back in April, this time amplified by pro-Kremlin Telegram channels and Russian outlets. It came with two new claims, both equally false: that Pink Armenia helped write same-sex marriage into a supposedly leaked new draft of the Armenian constitution, and that we’re funded by the US Agency for International Development. We denied this publicly, but by then the story had travelled.

The fake Pride story was just one piece of a much bigger campaign against our organisation and, more broadly, against LGBTQI+ people. A fake account impersonating Pink Armenia on Twitter/X managed to buy a verification checkmark before being suspended. Someone also set up a lookalike domain and sent emails in the name of our former president, telling schools that an LGBTQI+ curriculum would be introduced in 2027.

We also know that foreign bloggers were approached and offered paid trips to Yerevan to publicly urge Pashinyan to ‘support Pride’ as a show of solidarity with Europe. Someone pasted images of same-sex couples on walls in Yerevan, then photographed them as ‘evidence’ of activism that wasn’t happening.

What was the campaign trying to achieve?

Whoever was behind the fake Pride campaign wanted two things: to provoke fear and hostility towards LGBTQI+ people and to damage the government and its pro-European course by association. The false claims reinforced a familiar storyline in which European integration will bring the imposition of ‘foreign values’ and LGBTQI+ rights are the leading edge of that imposition.

This rhetoric didn’t come out of nowhere. Across the region, anti-LGBTQI+ discourse is increasingly tied to anti-democratic narratives, attacks on civil society and conspiracy theories that portray human rights organisations as foreign agents and threats to national identity. The same thing happened in Moldova and elsewhere in the region, with LGBTQI+ rights used to split the electorate ahead of a vote.

Although Armenia isn’t like neighbouring countries where anti-LGBTQI+ campaigns are written into state policy, the election showed our community being used when politically convenient. That kind of rhetoric makes the public environment hostile, legitimises discrimination and creates conditions in which hate speech and violence become more socially acceptable.

What has changed, and what hasn’t, for LGBTQI+ rights in Armenia?

Some things have improved. Earlier this year, Pink Armenia was formally included in public advisory councils at the health, internal affairs, justice, and labour and social affairs ministries. This means we can now raise issues directly with them.

But the law hasn’t changed. Armenia still hasn’t recognised same-sex partnerships. There’s no anti-discrimination protection covering sexual orientation and gender identity in most areas of life. When someone is the victim of a hate crime just for being LGBTQI+, that still doesn’t count as an aggravating factor.

Social attitudes are the other barrier. LGBTQI+ people still face discrimination in education, employment, family settings and healthcare. Being open about who you are still carries a risk, so many people hide it or leave Armenia in search of safety.

How is Pink Armenia countering disinformation?

We monitor media and social media systematically, documenting disinformation and hate speech targeting LGBTQI+ people and tracking the politicians and outlets pushing it. This gives us the evidence to respond publicly, take issues to policymakers and, when needed, go to court.

When false claims about us circulate, we answer them directly. We issue public clarifications and work with independent fact-checkers such as the Fact Investigation Platform and Media.am.

On digital security, we report impersonating accounts and fraudulent lookalike domains so they get taken down, and we warn partner institutions such as schools when fake messages go out in our name.

What support does Armenian civil society need?

We need stronger international cooperation to deal with disinformation networks that operate across borders to spread anti-gender narratives. Sharing of advocacy strategies, best practices, digital security expertise and research would strengthen civil society across the region.

We also need long-term support, not just project funding that responds to one crisis at a time. We need funds that are sustainable and flexible enough to keep our services running while we react quickly to disinformation campaigns and security threats.

International partners can do something else too: keep raising discrimination, hate speech and attacks on civil society in their diplomatic conversations with Armenian authorities. Public attention and international scrutiny make it harder to treat these issues as optional.

Ultimately, supporting LGBTQI+ rights in Armenia isn’t only about one community. It’s about defending democratic values, protecting civic space and making sure no group is excluded from human rights because it has become a politically convenient target.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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Armenia: ‘Foreign interference was real and documented, but its impact is hard to measure’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Samvel Martirosyan 16.Jul.2026
Armenia’s westward turn overshadowed by personal rule CIVICUS Lens 18.Jun.2026
Armenia/Azerbaijan: ‘Civil society has an essential role in preparing societies for peace’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Konul De Moor 19.Sep.2025

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Josephine Sembeyo (in blue) competes during Kenya's World Athletics Under-20 trials in May, where she qualified for the World Athletics Under-20 Championships in Oregon. Credit: Robert Kibet/IPS

By Robert Kibet
OLOITOKTOK, Kenya, Jul 30 2026 (IPS)

Before sunrise each morning, 19-year-old Josephine Sembeyo joins dozens of teenage runners leaving Magnolia Athletics Camp for training beneath the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro.

The quiet morning air is broken only by the rhythm of footsteps along the dusty roads that have shaped generations of Kenyan distance runners.

But for Sembeyo, every kilometre represents far more than preparation for the 2026 World Athletics Under-20 Championships, where she will represent Kenya in the 1,500 metres.

Running has given her a chance she once feared might never come: to complete her education, support her family and make choices about her own future.

“Life hasn’t been easy for us. My father married a second wife and left my mother to raise us on her own. Seeing everything my mother has gone through motivates me every day. I want to succeed in athletics and education so that one day I can support her and my siblings and give them a better life,” Sembeyo says.

Girls from Magnolia Athletics Camp during a daily road training session in Oloitokitok, Kenya. Credit: Robert Kibet/IPS

A Camp Creating New Possibilities

Sembeyo is among 45 girls from pastoralist communities living and training at Magnolia Athletics Camp in Oloitokitok, near Kenya’s border with Tanzania.

The camp provides full scholarships covering education, accommodation, meals, athletics training and safeguarding support.

For many of the girls, athletics is not only about competition. It has become a pathway to education, confidence and opportunities that might otherwise remain out of reach.

The girls’ journey comes as they mark the International Day for Women and Girls of African Descent on July 25, a day that recognises the contributions, resilience and experiences of women and girls of African descent while highlighting the need to address discrimination and inequality.

For girls growing up in marginalised communities, access to education, safe spaces and opportunities can be a powerful tool for breaking cycles of poverty and exclusion.

Coach Andrew Lesuuda says Magnolia was created not only to identify talented runners but also to give girls a safe environment where they can develop academically and personally.

“When we started Magnolia Athletics Camp, our vision was not only to identify talented runners. We wanted to create an environment where girls could discover their potential, stay in school and believe that they can achieve more in life,” Lesuuda says.

“Athletics gives them an opportunity to dream, but education gives them the foundation to build a future beyond sport.”

Sports Against Early Marriage and FGM

Many of the girls joining Magnolia come from communities where opportunities for girls remain limited and where some continue to face risks linked to female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage.

According to UNICEF, more than 230 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM. The United Nations says progress towards ending the practice remains too slow to meet the Sustainable Development Goal target of eliminating FGM and child marriage by 2030.

Kenya outlawed FGM in 2011 and has made progress through legislation and awareness campaigns, but the practice continues in some communities, particularly among sections of pastoralist populations.

The struggles facing girls in vulnerable communities are part of a wider global challenge.

Sarah Hendriks, a UN Women spokesperson, in a recent press conference said no country in the world has achieved full legal equality between women and men, leaving millions of girls exposed to harmful practices and unequal opportunities.

“No country in the world has achieved full legal equality between women and men. More than half of the world’s countries do not actually define rape by law on the basis of consent. Nearly three-quarters — 74% of the world’s countries — still allow child marriage by law, allowing girls to be married as children,” Hendriks said.

At Magnolia, athletics has become a tool for changing that reality by keeping girls in school and giving them opportunities beyond traditional expectations.

A Second Chance Through Running

Before joining Magnolia, Sembeyo feared her education could end early and that she might face an early marriage.

Today, she believes the camp has transformed her future.

“Had it not been for Magnolia Athletics Camp, I believe my life would have been very different. I was at risk of an early and forced marriage, but coming here gave me the chance to stay in school, train and dream about a better future. Today, I’m happy because I know my life has a direction,” she says.

Her daily routine starts before sunrise with training, followed by school and another athletics session in the afternoon before homework in the evening.

“Every morning when I train, I remind myself why I’m doing it. I know every session brings me closer to my dream and gives me another opportunity to change my family’s life,” she says.

When Climate Change Threatens Dreams

Sembeyo is joined at Magnolia by Jeska Lenawatop, a 1,500-metre runner from Lkuroto village in Samburu County, a pastoralist region in northern Kenya.

Before joining the camp, Jeska’s life revolved around helping her family care for goats and sheep, the main source of livelihood for many pastoral households.

But recurring droughts have devastated livestock and deepened economic hardship for communities that depend on animals for survival.

“Before Magnolia, my life was mainly about grazing goats and sheep. With droughts destroying livestock, our family’s main source of income, I had little hope for the future. This camp gave me a chance to stay in school and pursue my dreams,” Jeska says.

Through athletics and education, Jeska now sees a future beyond the challenges facing her community.

Building Confidence Through Education

Another athlete benefiting from Magnolia is Felister Naimutie, a 400 m and 800 m runner from Lolgorian village in Kilgoris.

She says drought and limited opportunities affected many girls growing up in her community.

“Growing up, I saw how drought affected our families and made life difficult. Many girls had few choices beyond pastoral duties and early marriage. Magnolia gave me hope through education and athletics,” Felister says.

For her, the camp represents more than a training facility. It is a place where she can continue learning while pursuing her sporting ambitions.

Beyond the Finish Line

Barnaba Korir, Athletics Kenya’s Youth Development Director, says community-based programmes, such as Magnolia, complement national efforts to identify young talent while ensuring athletes remain in school.

He says sport can build confidence, leadership and opportunities for young people.

At Magnolia, parents, teachers, community leaders and anti-FGM advocates also engage with families to promote girls’ education and challenge harmful practices.

As another training session ends beneath Mount Kilimanjaro, the girls jog back to camp laughing and encouraging one another.

For Sembeyo, the finish line is no longer defined only by medals.

Her selection to represent Kenya at the World Athletics Under-20 Championships has strengthened her belief that athletics can transform not only her life but also those of her family.

“Being selected to represent Kenya at the World Under-20 Championships means everything to me. It’s proof that hard work pays off, and I believe it is opening opportunities that can change my life. I want to make my family proud and show other girls that they should never give up on their dreams,” she says.

One day, she hopes to stand on an international podium wearing Kenya’s colours.

But her greatest ambition goes beyond medals.

“I want girls from communities like mine to know that education and sport can change their lives. If someone believes in you and gives you an opportunity, you can achieve your dreams. My dream is not only to win medals for Kenya but also to make sure my mother and my siblings have a better life,” Sembeyo says.

Perhaps Magnolia’s greatest achievement will not be measured by medals but by the number of girls who leave the camp with education, confidence and the freedom to choose the futures they want.

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PAHO Director calls for expanded access to innovations such as oral and injectable PrEP, rapid testing, and HIV self-testing, while strengthening early diagnosis and timely treatment initiation to advance HIV elimination. Credit: PAHO

By Pan American Health Organization
RIO de JANEIRO, Brazil, Jul 28 2026 (IPS)

The Region of the Americas has more tools than ever before to prevent, diagnose, and treat HIV, yet many of them are still not reaching everyone who needs them, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Director Jarbas Barbosa said during the opening session of the International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2026).

Dr. Barbosa emphasized that expanding access to innovations such as oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), long-acting injectable PrEP, rapid testing, and HIV self-testing, together with strengthening early diagnosis and ensuring timely treatment initiation, will be essential to accelerate the elimination of HIV as a public health problem in the Region.

In his remarks, Dr. Barbosa highlighted that the Americas have repeatedly demonstrated that ambitious public health goals can be achieved through cooperation, scientific evidence, and strong health systems. He noted that the Region has eliminated polio and rubella and that several countries have eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV, achievements that provide a strong foundation for accelerating progress toward HIV elimination.

Credit: PAHO

He further stressed that achieving this goal will require combining innovations in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment with political leadership, equity, and close collaboration with communities.

Dr. Barbosa also noted that countries in Latin America and the Caribbean now finance 92% of HIV investments through domestic resources, representing one of the highest levels of domestic funding for HIV programs globally and demonstrating the Region’s sustained commitment to HIV response.

“The question before us is no longer whether we have the tools to end HIV as a public health threat. We do. The question is whether we can ensure that those tools reach everyone who needs them, regardless of where they live, who they are, or the circumstances they face,” said Barbosa. “Innovation only changes lives when people can access it.”

According to the latest available data, AIDS-related deaths in Latin America and the Caribbean declined by 46% between 2010 and 2025. In 2024 alone, access to antiretroviral treatment prevented an estimated 117,000 AIDS-related deaths. Access to PrEP also increased substantially, from 35,000 people in 2020 to more than 326,000 in 2025.

Despite this progress, significant gaps in access and coverage remain. Approximately one in three new HIV diagnoses is still made at a late stage of infection, and nearly 900,000 people living with HIV in Latin America and the Caribbean are not receiving treatment.

Reducing HIV-related mortality and addressing advanced HIV disease will be among PAHO’s key priorities at AIDS 2026. Although tools to prevent and treat HIV have improved substantially, late diagnosis, delays in treatment initiation, and challenges in retaining people in care continue to contribute to preventable deaths and to the burden of co-infections such as tuberculosis, which remains the leading cause of death among people with advanced HIV disease.

Against this backdrop, PAHO unveiled new initiatives aimed at accelerating HIV elimination across the Region.

As part of its agenda at AIDS 2026, PAHO launched the Alliance for HIV Elimination in the Americas, a new regional platform designed to advance progress toward HIV elimination by 2030 through stronger collaboration among governments, communities, international organizations, academia, development partners, and the private sector.

The Alliance is part of PAHO’s Disease Elimination Initiative and seeks to strengthen political leadership, expand equitable access to innovation, and promote sustainable investments to accelerate HIV elimination across the Americas.

PAHO is also advancing the Path to HIV Elimination in the Americas, an evidence-based framework that will help countries measure progress, identify remaining gaps, and demonstrate achievements on the path toward HIV elimination.

“If we maintain political commitment, protect the investments already made, and place equity at the center of every decision, ending HIV as a public health threat will be within our reach,” Barbosa said. “No country will achieve this goal alone.”

The PAHO Director warned that financial pressures, shifting political priorities, and persistent inequalities could jeopardize hard-won gains.

He reiterated that achieving HIV elimination will require strengthening people-centered health systems, expanding access to PrEP and other innovations, integrating HIV services with tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, and sexually transmitted infection services, working alongside communities to reduce stigma and discrimination, and sustaining the domestic investments that have enabled steady progress across the Region.

Throughout AIDS 2026, PAHO will advance these priorities through a series of high-level events focused on HIV elimination, advanced HIV disease, and equitable access to innovations for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

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Student-made posters and artwork line the streets of Jantar Mantar, capturing messages of resistance and hope. Aishwarya Bajpai/IPS

By Aishwarya Bajpai
NEW DELHI, Jul 27 2026 (IPS)

On July 25, after 50 days of protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned.

The movement had begun in May as a satirical social media page called the Cockroach Janta Party, founded by Abhijeet Dipke after the Chief Justice of India, Surya Kant, used the term “cockroaches” during a Supreme Court hearing, apparently referring to young people with fake law degrees, but his remark sparked a massive public backlash.

Weeks later, the NEET-UG paper (for admission into medical colleges) leaked, and alleged irregularities in the Central Board of Secondary Education on-screen marking process transformed satire into a nationwide campaign.

On June 6, Dipke called for a sit-in protest at Jantar Mantar, demanding Pradhan’s resignation. But by the time the protest entered its seventh week, the movement had outgrown its original demand – and many argue that replacing one minister will not restore faith in an education system battered by paper leaks, administrative failures and growing privatisation.

The crowd reflected that evolution.

Protesters gather at the main stage at Jantar Mantar, where peaceful demonstrations and slogans continued throughout the sit-in. The stage later became the focal point of the movement as education reformer Sonam Wangchuk began his indefinite hunger strike. Credit: Aishwarya Bajpai/IPS

The seat of the protest, Jantar Mantar, had become far more than a student protest. Farmers stood beside parents, young professionals, senior citizens, queer activists and wage labourers. Volunteers distributed food, arranged train tickets for protesters travelling home and coordinated donations. People travelled from across India, while a handful of foreign nationals joined in solidarity. Despite their different backgrounds, they shared one belief — that the crisis threatened the future of public education itself.

Ashutosh Agarwal (centre), national vice-president of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, India’s Youth Wing, stands with colleagues from Meerut in solidarity with the student-led movement. Credit: Aishwarya Bajpai/IPS

The seriousness and urgency are also reflected in the numbers. India has recorded 152 examination paper leaks in the past decade – roughly one every month. In 2026 alone, more than 20 million candidates appeared for NEET-UG, while reports of the leak were followed by the deaths of nearly 20 aspirants by suicide. Yet clearing these examinations offers no certainty. According to the State of Working India 2026 report by Azim Premji University, nearly 40% of graduates aged 15–25 remain unemployed, while unemployment among graduates aged 25–29 stands at 20%. Although the country produced 5 million graduates each year between 2004/05 and 2023, only 2.8 million found employment.

As the protests grew, they also drew support from opposition leaders, public figures and education reformers, expanding the movement beyond student circles.

The turning point came on June 28, when education reformer Sonam Wangchuk joined the sit-in with an indefinite hunger strike. CJP announced a march to Parliament on July 20, the opening day of the Monsoon Session. Later, on 18^th July, Delhi Police removed Wangchuk from the protest site and admitted him to Safdarjung Hospital for medical observation, a move his family described as forced hospitalisation against his wishes.

What followed altered the course of the movement.

On July 20, police and the Rapid Action Force dispersed marchers using batons, tear gas, water cannons and pellet guns. Protesters alleged that some lathis were studded with nails, while the RAF’s own chief later admitted that “excessive force” had been used during the operation.

Nazia Khanam (left) and her friend travelled across Delhi to join the protest. Credit: Aishwarya Bajpai/IPS

Instead of dispersing the protesters, however, the crackdown brought more people to Jantar Mantar.

Nineteen-year-old Anshil Khan was among those who returned.

A first-year student at Delhi Skill and Entrepreneurship University, he had spent nearly three weeks at the protest. Four days earlier, he said, police had beaten him while demonstrators were trying to march towards Parliament Street. Even as he spoke, he carried hospital reports documenting his injuries.

“I got hit three times by the Delhi police,” he said. “I have been resting for four days, and today I have come back.”

He recalled crossing two barricades before police stopped the march at the third.

“We were peacefully protesting and only raising slogans of “Inquilab Zindabad” (Long Live Revolution). Nothing violent happened from our side.”

Delhi Police had issued a public advisory before the march stating that no permission had been granted for any procession beyond the designated protest site and later maintained that officers were enforcing prohibitory orders. Officials also said that both protesters and security personnel suffered injuries during the clashes.

For Anshil, however, the police action only strengthened public support.

“The students are coming along with their parents now,” he said, referring to the days following Wangchuk’s detention and the July 20 crackdown.

Anshil Khan, a member of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), joins fellow protesters at Jantar Mantar. Credit: Aishwarya Bajpai/IPS

His demands had also evolved.

“Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation is the first step,” he said. “Education is our first priority.”

That sentiment surfaced repeatedly across conversations at Jantar Mantar. Protesters were no longer speaking only about accountability for one minister; they were debating how India’s education system itself should function.

Standing nearby with a placard reading “We are fighting for our rights,” Nazia Khanam had travelled across Delhi to join the demonstration, despite never having been directly affected by an examination scandal.

A law student from Jodhpur interning in the capital, Khanam had successfully cleared the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT). But with her younger sister now preparing for the same examination, she felt she could not remain on the sidelines.

“Being an elder sister of a student who is going to give a competitive exam, it becomes my responsibility,” she said. “Even though I’m not personally affected, I should still come here and raise my voice.”

Unlike many demonstrations driven solely by outrage, Khanam arrived with ideas for reform.

“There should be stricter checks and balances at every bureaucratic level,” she said, referring to agencies such as the National Testing Agency, examination centres and other bodies involved in conducting competitive exams.

She also questioned how education policy is made.

“There should be other stakeholders involved,” she said. “Educators who have done actual groundwork, who know the ground reality, should be part of consultations before policies are formulated like Sonam Wangchuk.”

That conversation had drawn unexpected allies.

Among those standing with the students was Ashutosh Agarwal, National Vice-President of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, India’s youth wing. Before arriving in Delhi, he said, the union had organised meetings across Meerut, Muzaffarnagar and other parts of western Uttar Pradesh to mobilise support for the students.

“We demand one nation, one education,” he said.

For Agarwal, the increasing commercialisation of essential public services was inseparable from the examination crisis.

“We demand the end of privatisation of both education and health,” he said. “Otherwise paper leaks won’t stop.”

He argued that growing corporate influence over private schools, colleges and hospitals had weakened public institutions, making quality education increasingly inaccessible.

Parents had reached a similar conclusion.

Alisha Siddique came to Jantar Mantar thinking about her three children, particularly her daughter pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree. Unlike many protesters, she did not begin with paper leaks. Instead, she pointed to the everyday rules that, in her view, unfairly punish students.

“If students reach one or two minutes late because of an accident or emergency, they are not allowed to sit for the exam,” she said. “Their entire year’s hard work goes to waste.”

For Siddique, the issue was larger than examinations.

“We want our children to become good citizens,” she said. “That starts with good education.”

The examination crisis merely provided the spark for Avinash Kumar, a human rights practitioner and activist who is the former Executive Director of Amnesty International India and the Director of Policy, Research and Campaigns at Oxfam India.

“The constant leaking cauldron of competitive exams provided that cause,” he said. “Yet everyone knows it’s now not just about that.”

According to Kumar, the protests became an outlet for frustrations that had accumulated over years — declining public services, rising costs, increasing privatisation, shrinking civic freedoms and a growing sense that institutions no longer worked for ordinary citizens.

“You need a cause which cuts across classes and masses, age and gender and religion,” he said. “Competitive exams became that cause.”

What struck Kumar most was not just the scale of the demonstrations in Delhi but also the emergence of protests in places that rarely make national headlines.

“My attention was particularly drawn towards mass-scale showings in small unknown towns like Begusarai, Narnaul and Aurangabad,” he said. “All were speaking in one language of years of frustration.”

To him, that distinguished this movement from many previous protests.

Rather than revolving around one organisation or one political leader, it drew strength from multiple voices – student leaders, education reformers, farmers, parents, opposition politicians and ordinary citizens – each contributing from their own experience.

“It is a movement with very different leaders at different points of time,” Kumar said.

Two days after resignation, the protest site is almost empty.

The questions raised over 50 days of protest — about accountability, privatisation, public education and the future promised to India’s youth — remain standing.

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A man walks past a sign reading 'unjustly persecuted' featuring journalist José Rubén Zamora, former CICIG lawyer Claudia González and Maya leaders Luis Pacheco and Héctor Chaclan in a Guatemala City, 12 May 2026. Credit: Johan Ordóñez/AFP

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jul 24 2026 (IPS)

José Rubén Zamora, founder of elPeriódico, Guatemala’s now-defunct leading investigative newspaper, spent 1,295 days in detention before a court granted him house arrest on 12 February. He endured long stretches of solitary confinement in a military jail, held in near-constant darkness and subjected to treatment that six UN experts warned could amount to torture. His offence was simply doing his job. For decades, he exposed the corrupt dealings of Guatemala’s economic and political elites. Prosecutors are still trying to send him back to prison.

Police arrested Zamora in July 2022 on a complaint brought by a former banker who was under investigation for financial crimes, following Zamora’s reporting on corruption under then President Alejandro Giammattei. Within months, elPeriódico had shut down following intimidation of its advertisers and criminalisation of its staff. A court convicted Zamora of money laundering in June 2023, and when an appeals court overturned the conviction, a second case kept him in jail anyway. Courts ordered his release several times, and each time appeals chambers reversed those decisions. The Supreme Court transferred a judge who ruled to free him to a court in another part of Guatemala. At least 10 lawyers who took up his defence were forced to abandon it under pressure. Some were prosecuted and jailed.

In May 2024, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared Zamora’s detention arbitrary and retaliatory and recommended his immediate release. It took almost two more years for him to be allowed home. In March, the Supreme Court voided the rulings that had returned him to prison, finding they violated due process. The Constitutional Court heard the prosecution’s latest appeal to send him back to jail in June, but has yet to issue its ruling.

The machinery of impunity

Zamora’s ordeal is no aberration; it’s how captured institutions are designed to work. The Guatemalan state has long been in the hands of what Guatemalans call ‘the pact of the corrupt’, a coalition of business leaders, drug traffickers, military officers and politicians that has captured the justice system to guarantee their own impunity. Anyone who threatens that arrangement risks prosecution on fabricated charges, reinforced by coordinated smear campaign. This includes journalists who investigate corruption, judges and prosecutors who pursue it, and Indigenous, land rights and climate activists who mobilise against its consequences. The aim, as a Guatemalan civil society leader put it, is to instil fear so nobody dares question anything. Over 100 people, including around 50 judges and prosecutors, have fled into exile rather than face trumped-up charges.

Because the justice system serves the corrupt pact rather than the law, any serious attempt to dismantle corruption has required external support. In 2006, the UN and the Guatemalan government agreed to establish the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). Over 12 years, CICIG and the Public Prosecutor’s Office investigated over 70 complex criminal structures and brought charges against more than 1,540 people, including former presidents, ministers, members of Congress and business figures. This challenged the perception that the powerful were untouchable.

But success sealed its fate. When CICIG investigated sitting president Jimmy Morales in 2017, he moved to destroy it, refusing to renew its mandate and appointing a compliant attorney general, Consuelo Porras. President Giammattei reappointed Porras, who prosecuted or forced out dozens of judges and prosecutors who had worked with CICIG. She turned the Public Prosecutor’s Office into an instrument of persecution while dismissing 74 per cent of the complaints filed with it without investigating them. By the time her term ended in May, over 40 states had sanctioned her and some associates. The institution built to prosecute crime had become the state’s key tool for committing it.

New president, same system

Guatemalans elected Bernardo Arévalo in 2023 with a mandate to dismantle this system, but the system has consistently tried to disable him. His unexpected win – he scraped into the runoff largely because the establishment had not seen him as a serious enough threat to block – triggered what civil society described as an attempted electoral coup, with spurious legal complaints, raids on his party’s headquarters and at least two credible assassination plots. It took 106 days of peaceful resistance led by Indigenous authorities to ensure he was sworn in.

But taking office was not the same as taking power. Arévalo’s party had only 23 of 160 congressional seats, and its legal status was subsequently cancelled by judicial order. Congress blocked the legislative change that would have allowed him to dismiss Porras, and the Supreme Court, 13 of whose judges were selected in 2024 through a process stacked with candidates tied to corruption networks, refused to lift her immunity. Throughout Arévalo’s term, the Public Prosecutor’s Office continued to criminalise dissent and repeatedly tried to strip Arévalo of immunity.

A narrow window

But Porras’s term eventually expired, and his successor, Gabriel García Luna, a career judge with no ties to corruption networks, has moved quickly, dismissing prosecutors linked to Porras and closing the special prosecutor’s office that fabricated cases against Zamora and many others. His arrival offers the first genuine opening in eight years. But it’s a narrow one. Congress remains in opposition hands, and the Constitutional Court, the Comptroller General’s Office and the electoral authority are all due for renewal this year. Corrupt interests are well placed to exploit these processes to entrench their grip.

Much now depends on whether Arévalo throws his political weight behind García Luna’s efforts to rebuild the institution Porras weaponised, and whether the bodies up for renewal can be kept out of the corrupt pact’s hands. The clearest sign of change will come if Zamora and the dozens of others criminalised for exposing corruption and defending rights no longer face prosecution, and instead their persecutors face justice.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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The Global Nobel Laureates Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War brought together more than 200 of the world’s most authoritative figures on peace and artificial intelligence. Here the 'The Rome Declaration for a Disarmed and Disarming Peace' was signed in the main council chamber in Rome's city hall Campidoglio. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri/INPS Japan

By Ariel F. Dumont
ROME, Jul 24 2026 (IPS)

After two days of debate at an international conference devoted to the challenges of artificial intelligence (AI), nuclear war and global security, Nobel laureates, former heads of state and government, scientists, human rights defenders, religious leaders and representatives of civil society adopted a joint declaration, calling for it to be based on human dignity.

Inspired by Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas and signed in the halls of the Capitol, Rome’s city hall, this text states that artificial intelligence cannot be left solely to military or commercial interests. It also calls for international cooperation based on human dignity, the development of global AI governance and the continuation of efforts towards nuclear disarmament.

As major powers are investing increasingly substantial sums in the development of AI, participants considered that humanity stands at a genuine crossroads. The choices that will be made will have a decisive impact not only on tomorrow’s geopolitical balances but also on the future and place of human beings in a world where decisions could increasingly be entrusted to artificial intelligence.

This point was highlighted by Rome’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, the master of ceremonies of this meeting, organised by the Global Nobel Laureates Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War, who described it as historic.

The declaration, named “The Rome Declaration for a Disarmed and Disarming Peace”, was signed on Thursday, July 16.

For Rome’s mayor, “the crucial issue, both at the global and local levels, is technological development, which must be inspired by fundamental ethical principles: respect for individuals, equality among human beings and democratic responsibility in the name of the common good.”

Gualtieri also stressed that today, more than ever, “the world needs an international coalition capable of promoting a new model of development combining economic growth, social justice, human rights and environmental protection”, thus echoing Pope Leo XIV’s call for “a disarmed and disarming peace”.

A few hours earlier, Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, had warned against the development of autonomous weapons.

“The idea that decisions to kill could be made by machines is repugnant to us.”

Delegates at the Global Nobel Laureates Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War pose in the main council chamber in Rome’s city hall Campidoglio. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri/INPS Japan

According to Callamard, the danger does not lie in an artificial intelligence that would suddenly become conscious but rather in the decision to delegate to it responsibilities that belong exclusively to moral judgement.

“It is not that the machine decides that it will become the boss; it is we who programme these systems,” she explained.

For the head of Amnesty International, the growing integration of AI into military operations represents a major change. These systems can already analyse enormous quantities of data, identify targets and recommend strikes, while gradually reducing the need for human intervention.

Beyond autonomous weapons, the Callamard reminded the world that it must pay close attention to the implications of the progressive integration of AI into what the military calls, in its jargon, the “kill chain”, meaning the process from target identification to the conduct of an operation.

“Even when a human being officially retains the final decision, the growing dependence on automated systems profoundly changes the way military operations are prepared and conducted,” Callamard stated, adding that these technologies rely on immense volumes of data that may themselves be altered.

“Analyses and recommendations can be biased because they are based on data that themselves carry these biases. We must remain attentive to the risks arising from erroneous or discriminatory decisions in contexts where the consequences can be irreversible.”

Another danger: the multiplication of force. Thanks to artificial intelligence, a single operator could simultaneously supervise dozens, or even hundreds, of drones or other autonomous systems, considerably increasing military capabilities.

“These technological developments are taking place within a broader context of strategic competition between states. We are living in a period when many governments are seeking military hegemony,” Callamard concluded.

Beyond military issues, several speakers also insisted on the geopolitical consequences of this technological revolution. Romano Prodi, former president of the European Commission and former Italian prime minister, estimated that the growing rivalry between the United States and China considerably complicates the emergence of genuine international regulation.

In an increasingly fragmented world, Prodi warned, no nation will be able to address alone the challenges linked to artificial intelligence, global security or the control of ever more powerful technologies.

These words anticipated the essence of the final declaration, according to which international cooperation is now an indispensable condition for preventing artificial intelligence from fuelling a new arms race and widening geopolitical fractures.

The discussions also focused on the economic and social consequences of this technological revolution. In the world of work, the sudden arrival of AI is already raising many concerns, particularly regarding the professional future of younger generations and the profound transformation of several professions in the coming years.

The programme brought together a number of leading international figures, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Chief Advisor to Bangladesh Muhammad Yunus; Yoshiyuki Nagaoka, Executive Director of the Office of Public Affairs at Soka Gakkai; Filipino journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa; Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard; and several scientists and nuclear experts.

Research published by King’s College London shows that a study carried out on hundreds of millions of job advertisements across 39 countries reveals an average 6.1% decline in job offers in professions most exposed to automation, while the remaining positions require increasingly specialised skills.

Ultimately, what will remain of this conference and of the Rome Declaration? The main point to remember is that participants accept the development of artificial intelligence and do not believe it should frighten us. On the contrary, they consider that this technology can become a powerful driver of progress – provided, however, that it remains at the service of humanity. The ball is therefore in the court of states and their leaders, who must above all place human dignity at the forefront.

The real question is no longer only what artificial intelligence will make possible, but rather what limits societies and humanity as a whole will choose to set for it before the imperatives of power permanently override collective responsibility.

Note: This article is brought to you by IPS Noram in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.

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CIVICUS discusses land grabs and environmental damage linked to a luxury coastal resort project with Eva Kushova, Director of Destination Management Organisation Albania, a civil society organisation that supports sustainable tourism in Albanian destinations, seeking to preserve culture and nature while maximising benefits for communities.

Eva Kushova

What are the impacts of Albania’s foreign investment laws?

The Law on Strategic Investments was passed in 2015 to attract foreign investment and boost Albania’s economy. Its deadline has since been extended several times, most recently to 2027. In practice, it has become a vehicle for serious abuses. Unlike ordinary investment laws, it gives the state the power to expropriate private property on investors’ behalf, often at compensation well below market value. Some residents say they were forced off their land after refusing this compensation.

Despite the law’s stated purpose, only two of around 44 projects approved so far are genuinely foreign investments. Most are owned by domestic investors with close connections to the government. The system gives selected companies access to public land, beaches, forests and national assets, and grants them tax exemptions for up to 10 years. The state also pays for all the necessary infrastructure, including electricity, roads, telecommunications and water, effectively subsidising private profit. In some cases, water meant for villages has been diverted to supply resort swimming pools. Meanwhile, local communities lose beach access and remain economically marginalised.

What does the Zvërnec case reveal about how these deals are made?

The Zvërnec project, a luxury resort planned on the coast near Vlorë, in southern Albania, comprising around 10,000 accommodation units, drew international attention because of its Trump family ties, but it exposed broader governance failures. It includes a large property allegedly acquired by an internationally wanted drug trafficker under highly questionable circumstances, and there are also allegations that officials manipulated property records at the regional land registry. Many local residents claim ownership of the property, yet it was suddenly recognised as belonging to the trafficker, who then sold it to Arab investors.

This fits a wider pattern in Albania’s land governance. After communism collapsed in 1991, the law mandated redistribution of agricultural land to rural families in small parcels. Thirty-five years on, most Albanians own only limited land, while strategic investors obtain vast coastal properties through questionable transactions, controversial expropriations and alleged manipulation of property records. Property rights have remained unresolved for over 30 years, forcing people into costly court proceedings.

The secrecy around the Zvërnec deal is typical too. The public only learns about the projects once construction machinery arrives on site. News of Zvërnec, and of Sazan Island, an island off Albania’s Adriatic coast earmarked for luxury development, broke via international media in March 2024. Even now, the identity and ownership of the investors behind several of these projects remain unclear, and sites are fenced off with barbed wire. Authorities say this is in preparation for infrastructure works, fuelling further distrust.

What environmental damage have these developments caused?

The Zvërnec coastline is home to the Narta Lagoon, one of Albania’s most biodiverse areas and a critical stopover for thousands of migratory birds travelling between Africa and Europe. It was first threatened by the construction of Vlora International Airport and now by the Zvërnec resort.

The legal groundwork was laid in 2022, when the government removed thousands of hectares from protected areas, cutting total coverage by 20 per cent. In 2024, another law opened the door to construction inside protected areas, allowing for the transformation of one of Albania’s last wild coastal lagoons into a heavily urbanised area. A further law passed in 2025 extended the threat to forests and pastures elsewhere in the country.

This runs counter to Albania’s European Union (EU) membership bid, targeted for 2030. All candidate states must align their laws with EU standards across 33 negotiating chapters before joining, and chapter 27 covers environmental protection. The European Commission’s 2025 Enlargement Report raised serious concerns on this front, criticising recent legal changes for weakening environmental standards. The Bern Convention’s Standing Committee, an international body that protects European wildlife and habitats, has repeatedly asked Albania to suspend construction of Vlora International Airport inside the Pishë Poro–Narta Protected Area, which includes the lagoon, pending proper environmental assessment. So far these requests have gone unheeded. But sustained EU pressure could still force a repeal of regressive laws and the introduction of stronger protection for natural areas.

What has driven recent protests, and how has the government responded?

Protests began on 23 May in Zvërnec after the developer fenced off part of the beach with barbed wire. They intensified after footage emerged on 30 May showing private security guards beating a protester while police stood by without intervening. The movement spread to the capital, Tirana, the next day, then to other Albanian cities, Kosovo and diaspora communities abroad, becoming known as the ‘Flamingo Revolution’. Protesters have marched nightly since under the slogan ‘Albania is not for sale’, demanding the project’s cancellation and Prime Minister Edi Rama’s resignation.

What began as opposition to a single resort has broadened into a wider anti-corruption movement, with protesters citing grievances such as poor public healthcare. A nationwide protest on 10 June deliberately coincided with a national historic commemoration, joined by Albanians from the diaspora on five continents. Yet Rama has stayed defiant, arguing that the backlash has more to do with the Trump links than with the project itself.

There are encouraging signs of accountability, though. The Special Structure against Corruption and Organised Crime, an independent judicial body created in 2016, has opened an investigation into the 2024 legal changes that enabled the Zvërnec deal. Arrest warrants have been issued against around 20 businesspeople suspected of illegally obtaining land or permits linked to various projects. People hope public pressure will keep judicial investigations alive, ensuring accountability for abuses of power, environmental damage and property rights violations.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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Albania: protesters and police clash at anti-corruption demonstrations; amendments partially decriminalising defamation criticised CIVICUS Monitor 22.Apr.2026
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Global Nobel Laureates at the Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War held last week in Rome. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri/INPS Japan.

By Ariel F. Dumont
BORGO LAUDATO SI’, Italy, Jul 21 2026 (IPS)

“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” By bringing the supercomputer HAL 9000 to life in his 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, American director Stanley Kubrick created one of the most powerful symbols of the fear of artificial intelligence (AI) escaping human control.

Fifty-eight years later, that question is more relevant than ever. It was precisely this issue that brought together more than 200 international figures for three days of discussions in the exceptional setting of Borgo Laudato Si’, located within the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, where Pope Leo XIV is currently staying.

Organised by the Global Nobel Laureates Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War, the conference set out to reflect on “the future of international security, the governance of emerging technologies, disarmament and the building of an economy of peace”.

Yoshiyuki Nagaoka, Executive Director, Office of Public Affairs at Soka Gakkai. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri/INPS Japan

The programme brought together a number of leading international figures, including former Italian Prime Minister and former President of the European Commission Romano Prodi; Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Chief Advisor to Bangladesh Muhammad Yunus; Yoshiyuki Nagaoka, Executive Director of the Office of Public Affairs at Soka Gakkai; Filipino journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa; Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard; and several scientists and nuclear experts.

The assembly was officially opened by Monsignor Fabio Baggio, under-secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

In his welcoming address, he immediately established the central thread of the discussions by stressing that “peace is not simply the absence of war but an order founded on justice, mutual trust, respect for the rule of law and the inviolable dignity of every human being.”

The central idea was clear: regulating artificial intelligence has become imperative if peace – and ultimately humanity’s very survival – is to be preserved. AI is now integrated into military systems, dramatically increasing the risks of proliferation, cyber warfare and high-intensity conflicts, with the potential to undermine global stability and respect for ethical principles.

Although the speakers sometimes differed in their analyses, reflecting their diverse backgrounds, they all converged on one essential conclusion. Artificial intelligence should not be feared, but that certainly does not mean it should be given free rein until it becomes another HAL 9000. On the contrary, most participants stressed the urgent need to establish safeguards before potential abuses become impossible to control.

Karen Hallberg, Argentine physicist and president of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri/INPS Japan

This concern was voiced in particular by Karen Hallberg, the Argentine physicist specialising in condensed matter and president of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. AI, she argued, is a “dual-use” technology, much like nuclear energy itself. While nuclear fission has led to extraordinary advances in energy production and medicine, it has also made atomic weapons possible.

“Artificial intelligence has the same ambivalence. It can certainly contribute to scientific research, medicine and even the monitoring of international commitments. However, its integration into nuclear weapons systems could usher in a period of dangerous uncertainty,” she warned.

Hallberg also stressed that one of the greatest risks would be to allow algorithms to intervene in processes related to the command and control of nuclear weapons – for instance, analysing satellite imagery, interpreting military situations or contributing to decisions whose consequences could prove irreversible for the future of humanity.

“I am not afraid; I am concerned. And it is precisely this concern that should give us the determination to act before it is too late,” she said, calling on governments to apply the precautionary principle before technology outpaces political regulation and leads to an irreversible drift.

A concern that Nagaoka shares, albeit from a different perspective, is that artificial intelligence is not inherently dangerous. Everything, he argued, depends on how humanity chooses to use it.

“The question ultimately comes back to humanity itself, which has the choice of becoming either more selfish or more compassionate.”

Nagaoka placed particular emphasis on the responsibility of younger generations, who are growing up in an environment where digital tools occupy an ever greater place and where the risk of isolation continues to increase. Humanity’s greatest challenge, therefore, is not to reject AI but to learn how to use it without abandoning the uniquely human capacity for judgement.

Peace is not simply the absence of war but an order founded on justice, mutual trust, respect for the rule of law and the inviolable dignity of every human being.
“We must preserve our conscience and our wisdom when making decisions,” he said, reminding participants that education and critical thinking will remain the best safeguards against a technology capable of influencing both individual and collective choices.

“I recently heard on television the story of an 86-year-old Japanese woman faced with the painful decision of ending life support for her seriously ill husband. She chose to seek advice from ChatGPT rather than from her family.”

For Nagaoka, the issue is not to condemn such a choice but rather to reflect on these new forms of dialogue emerging in societies where machines may increasingly become trusted interlocutors at the most important moments of human existence.

This reflection on human responsibility echoed the concerns raised by Maria Ressa, winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for her defence of freedom of expression and her fight against disinformation.

Throughout the discussions, she repeatedly highlighted the risks AI poses to the future of democracy, including the accelerating spread of false information, the large-scale manipulation of public opinion and the concentration of power in the hands of a limited number of technology companies.

“AI is not simply an issue of innovation. It concerns the very functioning of democratic societies,” Ressa insisted.

But it was undoubtedly Yunus who delivered the conference’s most far-reaching criticism by shifting the debate onto economic ground. The Bangladeshi economist, founder of the Grameen Bank and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize offered a profoundly humanist critique that challenged the very foundations of AI’s use within contemporary capitalism.

“The main problem is not simply the possible disappearance of certain jobs, but the growing concentration of wealth,” Yunus said.

Artificial intelligence, he warned, risks reinforcing a model in which a handful of companies control technologies, data and income, while an ever larger share of the population is excluded from economic participation.

“It could deprive people of their livelihoods, their dignity and their ability to remain independent,” he argued.

The future, he said, cannot be an economy in which artificial intelligence replaces human beings. Instead, it must be based on participation, entrepreneurship and the sharing of opportunities.

His message to political leaders around the world was unequivocal: AI must not become an instrument for concentrating power but rather a tool placed at the service of everyone.

And now what? At the end of these discussions, one certainty emerges: there can be no turning back. Artificial intelligence is now part of our world. Humanity should not fear it, nor should it regard it as tomorrow’s greatest enemy. But several fundamental questions remain unanswered: Who will control this technology, according to what rules, and in the service of what kind of society?

More than half a century after HAL 9000, the real threat may not be that a machine could become human. It may be that human beings gradually renounce what defines them most: their capacity to decide, to judge and to assume responsibility for their own choices.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Note: This article is brought to you by IPS Noram in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.

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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres addresses the opening session of the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, Geneva, Switzerland. Credit: UN Photo/Irina Popa

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 20 2026 (IPS)

Throughout July 2026, various United Nations (UN) bodies and global experts have underscored the need for increased comprehensive artificial intelligence (AI) governance. Although AI yields significant potential gains for global development, persistent structural barriers continue to impede equitable access and deepen the digital divide.

From July 6 to 7, the UN convened the first session of the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, featuring a presentation of the inaugural report of the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI. The conference included testimonies from global experts and leaders who emphasized the rapidly accelerating nature of AI, warning that without adequate guardrails and transparency measures, entire communities risk falling behind.

“Artificial intelligence is advancing at runaway speed. A technology that can reshape economies, transform the world of work, sway elections and tilt the balance of security is being deployed faster than anyone— including the people building it— can keep up,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the Opening Session of the dialogue on July 6th.

“The technologies we trust most— in aviation, in medicine, in nuclear energy and beyond— earned that trust because we acted to hold their makers to account. If AI is to be powerful, it must be governed. If AI is to be trusted, those who build it must be accountable. If AI is to be global, it must be fair. And if AI is to serve the future, it must not consume the future,” he added.

According to Guterres, AI holds immense potential to accelerate medical advancements, revolutionize educational systems, strengthen food production, and revitalize local economies, all of which would drive progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite this, widening gaps in development have been recorded across communities in lower-income countries, particularly in the Global South.

On July 17, Guterres spoke at the World AI Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, urging governments and stakeholders to invest in international cooperation and monitoring efforts to ensure equitable access to AI’s benefits. Guterres noted that an alarming “one-third of humanity” remains offline, with the vast majority of technical expertise and investment disproportionately concentrated in only a few countries and companies

“Hundreds of billions of dollars of private investment flood into artificial intelligence – while many developing countries receive just a trickle,” said Guterres. “AI risks pushing the world towards even greater inequalities … greater divides in income, in opportunity, in security … greater gaps between North and South.”

At WAIC, Guterres outlined three main priorities that are to be taken in advancing global AI governance: making AI more environmentally sustainable, establishing critical safety guardrails, and expanding capacity across developing countries. Underscoring the need for AI testing and risk management to be firmly based in the principles of international law, he confirmed that over 20 countries, including China, have agreed to contribute to a UN-supported Global Network for Exchange and Cooperation on AI Capacity Building to assist developing countries navigate this transition.

Throughout the conference, many UN experts emphasized that human rights must remain the cornerstone of all AI decision-making processes, ensuring that final judgments are always made by human beings. Guterres also called for major AI companies to disclose their environmental footprints and commit to a full transition to renewable energy by 2030.

AI has the potential to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy by optimizing power efficiency and significantly reducing waste. Several nations, including China, are already leveraging these technologies to increase their annual reliance on renewable energy.

Several developing countries in the Pacific have taken steps to reclaim agency over AI, implementing frameworks that prioritize sustainability and ensure that they remain in control regarding the technology’s development and use. For example, the Kingdom of Tonga has expanded commercial 5G access and conducted a Digital Readiness Assessment to examine risks and potential gains when coordinating governance strategies. Similar assessments have been undertaken across Samoa, Vanuatu, and Fiji.

The Kingdom of Tonga is reshaping its government services around a digital-first model by implementing AI tools that will assist citizens in interacting with the state in their own language. In Kiribati, AI monitoring technologies in fisheries have helped in recovering approximately US$2 million in illegal fishing fines.

“These are real wins, but they are wins within a system the Pacific did not design. The region already knows what it means to be on the wrong side of a divergence, in climate, in trade, in debt vulnerability,” said Kanni Wignaraja, UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific.

“AI follows the same logic at greater speed. The difference is that the rules of AI are still being written, which means the divergence is not yet locked in. That window will not stay open for long. The time for the Pacific to shape the outcome is now, not once the frameworks are agreed, and the tools are already being deployed.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Delegates at the 11th Annual Global Conference on Energy Efficiency, organised by the International Energy Agency (IEA). Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

By Umar Manzoor Shah
SRINAGAR, India, Jul 20 2026 (IPS)

As geopolitical tensions, rising electricity demand and climate pressures reshape the global energy landscape, more than 600 energy ministers, chief executives, financial leaders and policy experts gathered in Montreal, deliberating upon how to deliver at an unprecedented scale.

The 11th Annual Global Conference on Energy Efficiency, organised by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on July 7, focused on transforming a global commitment into practical action. Delegates sought ways to meet an ambitious international target of doubling the annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030, a goal widely viewed as essential for strengthening energy security while cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Speaking during the conference, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol described energy efficiency as the world’s “first fuel”, calling it the fastest, cheapest and cleanest resource available to countries seeking greater resilience amid growing uncertainty.

Birol reminded delegates that the global energy system has experienced only three major disruptions in recent decades. The oil crises of 1973 and 1979 fundamentally reshaped global energy policy. More recently, the supply chain disruptions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exposed the vulnerability of international energy markets.

Against that backdrop, he argued, improving efficiency is no longer simply an environmental objective but a matter of national security and economic stability. Growing geopolitical risks around strategic shipping routes, including the Strait of Hormuz, reinforce the urgency of reducing dependence on volatile energy supplies.

“We are in an age of rapid technological change,” Birol said, urging governments and industries to move beyond declarations and begin implementing large-scale solutions.

Throughout the two-day conference, participants repeatedly emphasised that technology alone will not deliver the transformation. Success, they said, depends on closer cooperation between governments, investors and private industry.

One of the conference’s central outcomes was the launch of the Montreal Collaboration Framework, an initiative designed to strengthen coordination between policymakers, financial institutions and businesses. The framework aims to overcome one of the biggest barriers facing energy efficiency projects, fragmented decision-making that often prevents otherwise viable investments from moving forward.

Executives participating in CEO roundtables acknowledged that many companies continue to pursue isolated efficiency upgrades that deliver only modest savings. Such projects frequently fail to attract significant investment because their financial returns appear too limited when evaluated individually.

Industry leaders instead advocated bundling multiple efficiency improvements into larger investment packages.

Rather than replacing a single motor or upgrading one heating system, companies can combine electricity savings, industrial heat recovery, cooling improvements and digital monitoring into integrated projects that generate stronger financial returns and attract institutional financing.

Another recurring theme was the growing importance of data.

Representatives from major industrial technology companies including Schneider Electric and Danfoss argued that many businesses still rely on broad estimates of their energy consumption instead of detailed operational information.

Without precise data, they warned, companies struggle to identify where the greatest efficiency gains can be achieved.

Delegates highlighted artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and digital monitoring systems as increasingly important tools for optimising industrial operations, reducing waste and lowering operating costs.

Representatives from Deutsche Bank argued that traditional investment decisions remain too heavily focused on initial capital expenditure. Instead, investors should assess projects through the lens of total cost of ownership, accounting for decades of lower energy bills, maintenance savings and reduced operational risks.

Such an approach, participants said, makes many efficiency investments substantially more attractive than they initially appear.

The conference also examined one of the energy transition’s newest challenges.

Rapid growth in artificial intelligence and digital services is driving an unprecedented expansion of data centres, creating soaring electricity demand worldwide.

Rather than viewing AI solely as a source of higher consumption, delegates argued that technological innovation can help solve its own energy challenge.

Companies showcased advanced cooling technologies, including liquid cooling and evaporative systems, capable of dramatically reducing the electricity needed to maintain modern data centres.

These innovations, participants said, demonstrate that rising digital demand does not necessarily have to translate into proportionally higher energy consumption.

Beyond technology and finance, speakers repeatedly stressed that energy efficiency must also serve broader social goals.

Yasmin Abraham, representing the Kambo Energy Group, reminded delegates that low-income communities often experience the highest energy costs while having the fewest resources to improve efficiency.

“Communities know the challenge,” she said. “Communities are closest to that challenge but furthest from the resources.”

Governments, she argued, must ensure that efficiency programmes reach vulnerable households rather than benefiting only wealthier consumers and large corporations.

Canada used the conference to announce an expansion of its Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program, which will provide energy efficiency retrofits to approximately 35,000 low- and middle-income households without upfront costs.

Officials described the initiative as an example of how public policy can reduce emissions while improving affordability and living conditions for ordinary families.

Despite widespread optimism, delegates acknowledged that achieving the 2030 efficiency target remains a formidable challenge.

Global energy demand continues to grow as economies expand, industries electrify and artificial intelligence accelerates electricity consumption. Meeting climate commitments while ensuring affordable and reliable energy will require unprecedented coordination across governments, financial institutions and private industry.

Still, the prevailing mood in Montreal remained pragmatic rather than pessimistic.

Participants agreed that the technical solutions largely exist. What has often been missing is coordinated implementation, sufficient investment and political determination.

By the conference’s conclusion, delegates appeared united around a common conviction that energy efficiency should no longer be treated as a secondary climate policy but as the foundation of future energy systems.

“With the launch of the Montreal Collaboration Framework and renewed commitments from governments, industry and financial institutions, the conference sought to transform efficiency from an often overlooked policy objective into the central pillar of global energy security, economic competitiveness and climate action,” Abraham said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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People collect signatures against the construction of a massive Mitsui Fudosan datacentre in Hino City, Tokyo, 19 April 2026. Credit: Yasushi Wada/The Yomiuri Shimbun via AFP

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Jul 20 2026 (IPS)

Few things unite Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters with the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, but datacentres are one of them. Across the USA, communities are joining forces across the political divide to oppose developments few want but governments seem determined to impose.

Michigan residents are among those who’ve come together across party lines to oppose plans for over a dozen datacentres. Polling shows just 28 per cent of the state’s population support the proposals. Local communities are fighting back, and similar struggles are unfolding across the world.

Datacentre impacts

Datacentre construction is booming, driven by AI use, demanding increasing computing power that requires huge amounts of electricity and water for cooling.

A single question to an AI chatbot can use 10 times more energy than a conventional search. Generating an AI image takes around a thousand times more energy than generating text. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that datacentre electricity demand will double by 2030.

In Utah, despite thousands of objections, authorities recently approved one of the world’s largest datacentres. It will need more power than the entire state currently uses. The development will construct a gas-fired plant.

AI growth is driving the construction of such gas-powered plants, meaning that more datacentres cause more greenhouse gas emissions. According to the IEA, coal is currently the top energy source for datacentres and over half of all current datacentre power comes from fossil fuels. The agency expects renewables to eventually provide a bigger share of growing needs, but warns that datacentre demand is driving growth for fossil fuel-generated electricity.

Tech companies once pledged to be climate leaders, but that no longer rings true. Google promised to become net zero by 2030, but its greenhouse gas emissions leapt 48 per cent from 2019 to 2023 as it embraced gas-fired electricity for datacentres. In Mumbai, India, two coal plants due to close in 2024 have had their operational life extended to meet demand from Amazon datacentres. Last December, Irish authorities decided that datacentres can keep using fossil fuel electricity for six more years. The UK intends to burn gas to power over 100 planned new datacentres.

Fossil fuel corporations lobby for datacentres almost as hard as tech companies, because they help perpetuate a destructive business model otherwise threatened by the shift to renewables. Fossil fuel corporations were among Donald Trump’s top campaign backers, and they’re benefiting from his administration’s rollback of regulations and ambition to achieve ‘unchallenged global technological dominance’.

Water supplies are coming under greater strain. One large datacentre can use as much daily water as a town of 50,000 people, yet datacentres are being built in some of the world’s driest regions. Amazon plans to open new datacentres in Aragon, Spain, even as the regional government seeks European Union help for drought. Similar concerns surround plans for one of the world’s biggest datacentres in the United Arab Emirates.

Civil society resistance

The struggle against tech companies and their lobbying riches is an unequal one, but civil society is mounting an increasingly credible response.

Climate litigation is an established civil society tactic, and recent research indicates that lawsuits are an emerging response to datacentre developments, with recent examples in Ireland, the UK and the USA. Civil society groups are also filing objections in planning processes, including one recently lodged against a huge proposed datacentre in Cape Town, South Africa.

Legal action by two UK organisations forced the developer of a huge new datacentre in Buckinghamshire to commit to binding environmental impact mitigation measures. Lawsuits are also exposing how datacentre impacts are often understated and inadequately measured. A 2022 case forced Google to publish accurate water consumption figures for an Oregon datacentre.

Protests and campaigning are bringing successes. In 2023, protests driven by a recent drought forced Google to change plans for a datacentre to reduce water use in Uruguay. Similar protests in Chile caused Google to pause its plans. As of last year, public pressure had led to over US$42 billion worth of datacentre projects being changed, delayed or cancelled in Europe, and US$77 billion worth in the USA.

In the USA, civil society groups have forged alliances with sub-national administrations to develop stronger local environmental and accountability standards. While established politicians aren’t listening, there are signs that US local politics are shifting. Some candidates opposed to datacentres have won, and several local administrations have introduced bans or moratoriums.

Campaign successes are bringing new threats. US industry lobbyists have smeared activists as agents of foreign influence determined to sabotage the country’s technological supremacy. US government documents show a growing focus on what they call ‘anti-technological extremism’, suggesting that security forces may be gathering intelligence on campaigners, and peaceful protesters could be targeted for surveillance on national security grounds.

Tech companies that are driving datacentre development often present themselves as free speech champions. They should prove it by ensuring that wherever they develop, people are able to protest, and hold them to environmental standards. There’s widespread public opposition and no shortage of people bearing the climate and environmental costs of the datacentre boom. Their voices must be heard.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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CIVICUS discusses the prospects for elections in Serbia with Rasa Nedeljkov, Programme Director at the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability, a civil society organisation that monitors electoral processes and the rule of law in Serbia.

Rasa Nedeljkov

How has President Vučić responded to demands for elections?

Vučić committed to holding early elections in 2026 under pressure from over a year of mass protests. His announcement came with no date for dissolving parliament or his resignation, amid speculation that he could return as prime minister.

Vučić has deliberately dragged his feet because he wants to ensure that when they happen, his party cannot lose. Meanwhile, the government has systematically worsened conditions for elections. Independent media are being suffocated. University professors who supported student protests are being fired. Justice officials who show independence are being replaced by more obedient ones. Hate campaigns against civil society, journalists, opposition parties and students are intensifying. The plan has been transparent: call elections only once the environment is so controlled that they cannot bring real change.

This strategy reveals the fundamental collapse of democratic standards in Serbia. Democracy requires genuine competition, and competition is genuine only when the government can lose. Vučić is building the opposite, putting in place a system where elections are empty rituals that rubber-stamp predetermined outcomes. Every month of delay has bought time to consolidate control and eliminate remaining spaces for independent voices.

What are the challenges with elections in Serbia?

Elections are being voided of substance through the systematic disregard, misuse and selective enforcement of laws and rules, all with the goal of turning elections into empty rituals.

We are witnessing harsher voter intimidation, more elaborate political clientelism, more brazen abuse of public resources and increasingly overt violence on election day. Our observers have been physically attacked, with police looking on.

Elections are still held, but the quality of the process is severely damaged. Electoral corruption takes countless forms, including interference in elections by organised crime and capture of institutions. And it’s protected by impunity. The state apparatus refuses to prosecute it.

Serbia is becoming an electoral autocracy. Unlike democracies, where governments lose elections, in electoral autocracies only opposition parties can lose.

How is the government attacking civil society?

Fourteen months ago, police raided our office and remained on-site for 28 hours, copying almost 10,000 pages of financial documents. This was turned into a spectacle for state-controlled media, which branded us a ‘criminal gang of foreign mercenaries money-laundering millions of dollars’. Three other civil society organisations in Belgrade were raided on the same day. We still haven’t heard from the prosecutor’s office, and we are certain our papers were perfectly clean.

Yet the assault continues through narrative and threat. Senior ruling party officials and pro-government media regularly label us as behind-the-scenes organisers of a ‘colour revolution against Serbia’. We live in constant uncertainty, never knowing if another raid or something worse is coming. The strategy is clear: to exhaust civil society financially and psychologically and make donors and partners fear any association with us. It’s institutional intimidation dressed in the language of law enforcement.

Can protests bring lasting institutional change?

The protests are the best thing that has happened to Serbia in a long time. Sparked by the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad in November 2024, which killed 16 people, they began as a student-led demand for accountability and grew into a nationwide movement. Our society had sunk into political apathy, a feeling that there was no alternative, not even a slight possibility of change. The endurance of Serbian people in demanding the restoration of the rule of law, in the face of growing repression and toxic propaganda, has been remarkable. Society has been evolving politically, showing more solidarity and resilience. People have begun to imagine that change is possible.

At the same time, the protests have made painfully visible how deep state capture runs, and how far Serbia is from having accountable institutions. How do you translate months of mobilisation into lasting change? Nobody has a complete answer. When we get there, the transition will be complex and exhausting. We should closely watch neighbouring Hungary. Viktor Orbán’s and Vučić’s styles of authoritarian, grand-corruption-driven rule are very much alike. However, Hungary is an EU member, which may make a big difference.

We believe it’s important that this period, rather than the moment elections are officially called, be used for preparation, including by recruiting and training people to serve as election observers and members of polling boards, and building the logistics needed to cover polling stations nationwide. The goal has to be readiness, so whenever elections are called, the infrastructure of oversight is already in place.

What’s the role of the EU in Serbia’s democratic future?

Serbia needs more international support and pressure, and the EU is the most crucial lever. Neighbouring countries are making progress towards EU membership. Serbia is stuck. Without the EU perspective, all potential outcomes for Serbia look murky.

Our current government is far closer to China and Russia than to Europe, as its propaganda and rhetoric make abundantly clear. It wants only the financial benefits of EU membership, not the accountability that comes with it. It wants EU money without EU standards. That’s not a sustainable position, but without stronger international pressure, it may be the path Serbia remains on.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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Serbia: ‘Social media are more trustworthy than much of official media, a disturbing sign of state capture’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Marija Babić 29.Jun.2026
Serbia: ‘We haven’t inherited democracy, so we’ve had to reinvent it ourselves’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Mihajlo Matković 06.Dec.2025
Serbia’s suspicious election CIVICUS Lens 26.Jan.2024

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An Indigenous community leader, Jackeline Mendoza Díaz, addresses participants during the webinar “Gold’s Dark Web: The Hidden Price of a Booming Market” on June 25, speaking about the devastating impacts of illegal and poorly regulated gold mining on Indigenous lands, forests and local communities. The webinar brought together community leaders, investigators, civil society organisations, financial experts and policymakers to discuss how soaring gold prices are accelerating environmental destruction, organised crime and human rights abuses. Credit: FERN

By Kizito Makoye
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Jul 17 2026 (IPS)

The sweltering heat inside a London conference hall did not deter Indigenous leader Jackeline Mendoza Díaz from condemning the sheer destruction of the Peruvian Amazon. Her voice occasionally trembled with emotion but delivered a strong message — painting a picture far removed from the glittering gold bars traded in the world’s financial capitals.

Behind the rising price of gold, she said, lie poisoned rivers, razed forests and Indigenous communities jostling to defend their ancestral lands from the rising wave of illegal mining.

In her Asháninka community, she said, rivers that once sustained life no longer provide edible fish. Women trek for hours searching for clean water, while community leaders who speak out against encroachment increasingly do so at personal risk.

“Our rivers are being contaminated with mercury. When the rivers are contaminated, the fish become contaminated as well, and we indigenous people depend on these rivers for our survival,” Díaz told participants during a webinar that brought together Indigenous leaders, environmental advocates, investigators, bankers and policymakers to discuss the growing crisis of illicit gold.

Her testimony offered a glimpse into a global phenomenon that experts say is accelerating, as gold prices fuel environmental destruction, organized crime and corruption across continents

Behind the soaring value of gold lies a darker reality, visible in remote forests, fragile river systems and marginalised communities globally.

A recent report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) warns that illicit gold has become one of the world’s most consequential criminal markets, functioning as an “accelerant economy” that fuels conflict, corruption, environmental crime and organised criminal networks worldwide.

The report says rising gold prices have enabled criminals to control entire supply chains.

For nearby communities, the consequences are dire.

“We are defenders of the forests and defenders of life. Yet because of this, Indigenous defenders are often attacked, and many of us are even killed for protecting our people, our territories and our way of life,” said Diaz.

Forests Falling, Rivers Dying

In Ghana, where illegal mining has become a national crisis, environmental campaigner Daryl Bosu described a country caught up in a moral dilemma to balance the worth of the precious metal with environmental woes.

“Ghana is Africa’s largest gold producer, and gold remains one of the most important pillars of our economy,” Bosu said. “However, alongside these economic benefits, we have witnessed an alarming increase in illegal and poorly regulated mining activities.”

The environmental consequences, he warned, have been severe.

“Many of our forest reserves have suffered extensive degradation. Rivers and water bodies that serve millions of people have become heavily polluted.”

Across gold-producing regions, forests are rapidly being cleared to dig mining pits, roads and processing kilns. Once mining begins, toxic substances often contaminate rivers and groundwater aquifers.

According to the GI-TOC report, illicit gold mining frequently paves the way for illegal logging, wildlife trafficking and land grabbing. Dirty money is increasingly being invested in cattle ranching that destroys critical forest ecosystems.

Mercury’s Silent Toll

While deforestation often captures public attention, experts say mercury pollution remains one of the most devastating but least visible consequences of artisanal and small-scale gold mining.

Speaking exclusively to IPS during the recent Global Environment Facility (GEF) Assembly in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Monika Stankiewicz, Executive Secretary of the Minamata Convention on Mercury, warned that mercury contamination continues to threaten millions of people living in mining communities.

“Mercury contamination does not stop at the mining site,” Stankiewicz told IPS.

“It enters rivers and ecosystems, affecting fish, soil and water sources locally.”

For families dependent on fishing and farming, the consequences can be profound.

“Reduced food safety and food security, loss of income from contaminated natural resources, and long-term degradation of ecosystems they depend on,” she explained.

Mercury exposure can trigger neurological damage, memory loss, tremors, respiratory illnesses and reproductive health complications. Children are particularly vulnerable.

The impacts extend far beyond mining sites themselves.

Mercury released into the environment can travel vast distances through atmospheric circulation. Indigenous communities in the Arctic, for example, are experiencing mercury contamination despite having no mercury-intensive mining activities in their territories.

Following the Money

Yet environmental damage represents only one side of the illicit gold equation.

Several participants stressed that illicit gold is fundamentally a financial crime issue.

Julia Yansura, programme director, Environmental Crime & Illicit Finance, FACT Coalition, said billions of dollars earned through environmentally damaging mining activities continue to enter legitimate financial systems without scrutiny.

“What we are discussing today is not merely an environmental issue,” she said. “It is also a financial crime issue.”

Traditional responses have focused heavily on police raids and military operations targeting miners.

But according to Yansura, such interventions often fail because they focus on low-level actors while leaving intact the financial networks that sustain illegal mining.

“A more effective approach would focus on following the money,” she said.

The GI-TOC report supports that assessment, warning that criminals increasingly control entire gold supply chains.

The report also identifies growing use of cryptocurrencies and gold-backed stablecoins as emerging mechanisms for laundering illicit proceeds outside traditional anti-money laundering frameworks.

London’s Hidden Role

Much of the webinar focused on the responsibilities of major financial centres.

A coalition of 35 civil society organisations has urged governments gathering at the UK Illicit Finance Summit to recognise that gold has evolved beyond a commodity into what they describe as a strategic vehicle for organised crime, sanctions evasion and corruption.

The coalition notes that London remains the world’s largest over-the-counter gold trading hub, handling approximately 70 percent of global OTC gold trading volumes.

Because illicit gold frequently passes through multiple countries and refineries before reaching financial markets, campaigners argue that financial centres can no longer treat illegal mining as a problem confined to producer countries.

“The solution cannot come only from mining countries,” Yansura said. “It must also come from the financial centres where profits are ultimately laundered and legitimated.”

The coalition is calling for mandatory due diligence requirements, stronger beneficial ownership transparency, enhanced scrutiny of gold traders and robust anti-money laundering obligations across the entire gold supply chain.

A Crisis Outpacing Regulation

Sophia Pickles of the GI-TOC warned that existing international frameworks have failed to contain the evolving nature of illicit gold markets.

“There has undoubtedly been progress,” she acknowledged. “However, our recent research shows that criminal activity linked to gold mining is expanding.”

According to the GI-TOC report, voluntary responsible sourcing standards are insufficient against increasingly sophisticated criminal networks. Information gaps, weak customs oversight and opaque financial transactions continue to provide opportunities for illicit gold to enter legitimate markets.

Researchers argue that current approaches remain too narrowly focused on artisanal mining and conflict zones while overlooking broader vulnerabilities embedded throughout global supply chains.

Among the report’s key recommendations are legally binding due diligence requirements, stronger oversight of international bullion centres, mandatory transparency measures and enhanced scrutiny of financial institutions.

Searching for Solutions

Despite the scale of the challenge, Stankiewicz believes progress is possible.

Under the Minamata Convention, countries with significant artisanal and small-scale gold mining sectors are required to develop national action plans aimed at reducing mercury use and protecting communities.

The results, she says, are encouraging.

Countries are increasingly adopting mercury-free technologies, strengthening regulations and formalising parts of the mining sector.

Beyond the Gold Rush

As the webinar drew to an end, panellists emphasised that illicit gold is not just a mining issue but an environmental, health, governance, human rights and financial crime crisis.

For Mendoza Díaz and communities living on the edge of gold extraction, the message was crystal clear.

“We are not just defending our land and our territories; we are defending life itself and our ecosystem.”

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Pride Parade participants march on the Elisabeth bridge in Budapest, Hungary on 27 June 2026. Credit: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jul 15 2026 (IPS)

On the morning of 28 June, riot police sealed off Taksim Square with iron barriers and enforced bans on all weekend gatherings in Istanbul. Marchers pressed ahead anyway, re-emerging from side streets each time police dispersed them. By the end of the day police had detained at least 50 people, including a journalist. It was Istanbul Pride’s 24th edition, and the 12th year running that the authorities banned it outright.

Homosexuality is not illegal in Turkey, so the state cannot prosecute people for who they are. Instead, it punishes them for making themselves visible. Authorities ban marches on ‘public morality’ grounds, block access to the social media accounts of LGBTQI+ organisations and put activists on trial for ‘obscenity’.

The pattern repeats in country after country. For a movement that spent decades making progress in winning recognition of rights, this Pride season tells a story of regression. A concerted backlash is clawing back territory once claimed, and Pride has again become a protest.

Much of the current wave of regression is a direct response to the gains LGBTQI+ movements made over previous decades. Anti-discrimination laws, recognition of equal marriage rights and growing public visibility have given opponents a clear target to mobilise against, and governments under economic or political pressure have found a convenient scapegoat in the LGBTQI+ community.

Authoritarian and populist leaders, facing discontent over corruption, inflation and unemployment, redirect public anger towards a minority that can be attacked without political cost, while conservative religious institutions find in opposition to LGBTQI+ rights, and particularly trans rights, a rallying cause that restores their claim to define society’s moral order. The result is a mutually reinforcing alliance between political power and religious conservatism, dressed up as the defence of children, the family and national identity.

Existence criminalised

A growing number of states are going further, criminalising not only LGBTQI+ people’s visibility but their very existence. Four West African states have criminalised consensual same-sex relations in the past two years, framing their move as a defence of national sovereignty against western influence. Mali’s military government criminalised homosexuality in December 2024 and Burkina Faso’s junta followed in September 2025. Niger’s new penal code, adopted last month, imposes punishment of up to 20 years in prison. Within weeks, media reported at least 40 arrests, the suspension of HIV prevention services and people fleeing the country.

Electoral democracies aren’t immune. In Senegal, parliament doubled the maximum sentence for ‘unnatural acts’ to 10 years in March, and over 300 ‘suspected homosexuals’ have reportedly been arrested in the past few months. Ghana’s parliament passed a bill imposing jail sentences on anyone who identifies as LGBTQI+ and requiring people to report prohibited activities to the authorities. President John Mahama has yet to sign it into law, but the debate about the bill has already fuelled a rise in blackmail, evictions and workplace discrimination.

The model is Uganda’s 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act, which includes the death penalty for ‘aggravated homosexuality’ and punishes the vaguely defined crime of ‘promoting’ homosexuality with up to 20 years in prison.

All these laws, marketed as a rejection of foreign interference and imported values, have been promoted with foreign money. US-based conservative groups such as the American Center for Law and Justice and Family Watch International have played a key role in funding anti-rights advocacy. Days after passing its bill, Ghana’s parliament hosted the African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty, a platform with documented ties to those groups that has promoted Uganda’s law as a template for the continent.

Consensus in retreat

US anti-rights groups have their president’s ear. Since returning to office, Donald Trump has signed a series of executive orders rolling back federal protections, particularly targeting transgender people. Private companies heard the message. Major events including NYC Pride and San Francisco Pride lost sponsors in 2025, and Tampa Pride had to cancel its 2026 parade.

For years, activist groups such as New York’s Reclaim Pride Coalition accused corporations of pinkwashing, that is, turning Pride into a corporate vehicle without advancing demands for rights. Many sponsors are now gone, but for the wrong reasons. Whatever its motives, sponsorship functioned as a seal of approval from mainstream institutions. Money withdrawn out of political fear takes with it more than event budgets; it erodes a social consensus that took decades to build.

Marching for those who can’t

In this context, the year’s biggest marches have become acts of political defiance. A million people marched in São Paulo under the theme ‘The street summons, the ballot box confirms’, ahead of Brazil’s October general election. In Bangkok, an all-time record half a million people marched a year after Thailand’s marriage equality law took effect, a testament to what legal recognition can do for a community’s visibility.

On 27 June, tens of thousands joined the 31st Budapest Pride, the first held since voters removed the right-wing populist government that repeatedly banned it. Organisers are treating this as a starting point, pressing the new government with a list of 14 demands that begins with repealing a 2021 ‘anti-LGBT propaganda’ law the European Union’s top court has ruled incompatible with equality and human dignity. Hungary shows that change is possible after all.

In places like Indonesia, Iraq, Niger and Uganda, among many more, there’s no Pride march to ban, because holding one is unthinkable. Even private organising now risks prosecution. In those places, people are looking outward, hoping that a crowd marching freely somewhere else will march for them too. That’s the duty of Pride season for those still free to gather: to mobilise both for themselves and for the many being forced to hide who they are.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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An Islamabad High Court ruling awarding a divorced woman an equal share of assets acquired has sparked debate in Pakistan. Credit: Handout

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan, Jul 14 2026 (IPS)

A landmark Islamabad High Court ruling that recognised marriage as an economic partnership and awarded a divorced woman an equal share of assets acquired during marriage has triggered a legal and religious backlash, with Pakistan’s law ministry challenging the judgment before the Federal Shariat Court, a constitutional court empowered to determine whether laws and judicial rulings conform to the Qur’an and Sunnah.

Pakistani women, in general, spend years raising children, managing households and helping build family wealth but have little legal claim to assets accumulated during marriage.

“The continued resistance to recognising women’s non-financial contributions to building family wealth has no basis in religion or law,” said Maliha Zia of the Legal Aid Society, referring to the law ministry’s appeal before the Federal Shariat Court against a recent judgment by Islamabad High Court judge Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, who held that assets acquired during marriage should be divided equally, recognising homemaking and childcare as contributions equal to earning an income. She said it was disheartening to see a government ministry refusing to grant women economic rights and freedoms when it should be supporting women’s equality as guaranteed by the Constitution of Pakistan.

What began as a routine dowry dispute in 2021 – after Amara Waqas sought a share of her dowry and jointly acquired assets, along with maintenance for her two children – has grown into a debate over who gets what once the marriage ends, not just for Waqas but for countless Pakistani women facing a similar predicament.

Unsatisfied with the family court’s award of 30% share, she appealed to the appellate court, which dismissed her claim. Undeterred, she approached the Islamabad High Court, which ruled in her favour and transformed her case into a landmark judgment on women’s economic rights after divorce.

Dr Rakhshinda Perveen, founder of the Fight Against Dowry Advocacy Network, said the judgment marked a first step in recognising marriage as an economic partnership, valuing unpaid domestic work, dowry, and wedding gifts as measurable assets. A survivor of gender-based violence, including dowry-related abuse, Dr Perveen has campaigned to criminalise dowry demands and related violence, ban public display of dowry, and legally separate dowry from bridal gifts for over three decades.

“A woman who built a home, raised children and contributed income should never leave a marriage with nothing,” agreed Zia.

Fauzia Viqar, Federal Ombudsperson for Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace, said: “The issue isn’t the ruling but resistance. Men in Pakistan refuse to grant women the property rights Islam already provides.” According to Viqar, there are over 20 Muslim countries (including Morocco, Iran, Malaysia, and the UAE) that provide maintenance and marital property rights in their family laws.

She also said the judiciary has started taking note of that. “Some proposals have been submitted to parliament since 2008,” she said but no action was taken.

Zia agreed, saying the judgment was years in the making. “LAS, with Musawah, has been working towards this for years” and training lawyers in strategic litigation. “Policy papers mean little without advocates willing to take cases to court,” she said, adding that a draft law on matrimonial property rights is now headed to parliament.

More recently, in 2023, the Lahore High Court directed amendments to the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961 to recognise women’s matrimonial property rights. A year later, in 2024, Senator Barrister Syed Ali Zafar tabled a set of amendments to the family law seeking a share in assets accumulated during marriage for divorced women as “compensation for her contribution during her marriage”.

But the 2024 amendments were opposed by the Council of Islamic Ideology (which advises the legislature on the conformity of laws with the Qur’an and Sunnah).

It also opposed Justice Kayani’s recent judgment. “We don’t think it is in keeping with the teachings of the Qur’an and Sunnah, said Ghulam Majid, a senior research officer at the CII. “We thought the matter had been settled two years ago when the bill was blocked, but it keeps resurfacing,” added Majid, dismissing the proposal as part of a “Western agenda” with no place in Pakistan’s legal system.

Viewing marriage as an economic partnership, Justice Kayani’s judgement had cited laws in countries including the US, the UK, Türkiye and Malaysia, where jointly owned marital property is equitably divided regardless of title after divorce.

Majid remained unconvinced.

“These countries can have their own interpretation, but what is wrong is wrong, and we cannot endorse it.”

The debate is not simply between women’s rights advocates and religious scholars.

Islamic jurists are divided over whether the Qur’an and Sunnah support the recognition of a wife’s contribution to assets acquired during marriage. Unlike inheritance, which the Qur’an addresses explicitly, matrimonial property is left open to interpretation.

Humaira Masihuddin, who teaches Islamic jurisprudence to law students, argues that the Qur’anic principle of mata’a al-talaq (which provides for post-divorce support, together with its broader emphasis on justice) offers a basis for compensating divorced women.

Masihuddin, who also provides judicial training to family court judges on various women-specific laws, argues the issue should be revisited through ijtihad (independent legal reasoning). “We already have a forum – the CII. It should include jurists, judges and lawyers to deliberate on these interpretations and arrive at a fair solution for both spouses,” she said. The 20-member council currently comprises 19 men, one woman and no legal experts.

Justice Kayani also proposed amending the nikahnama (marriage contract) – the Muslim marriage contract – to allow spouses to agree in advance on an equal division of assets during marriage, after divorce or upon the husband’s death. Masihuddin, terming the nikahnama a “prenuptial agreement”, said these provisions are fully consistent with Islam. The judge also recommended legislation guaranteeing wives an equitable share of assets acquired during marriage.

Meanwhile, Waqas’ case remains pending despite the Islamabad High Court’s order for a fresh hearing within two months. Her husband has challenged the ruling in the Supreme Court. “A man’s ego, often reinforced by his family, can cause immense harm to a woman seeking justice after years of marriage,” said her lawyer, Rana Raza.

Whether Justice Kayani’s ruling survives the Federal Shariat Court remains to be seen.

But whatever the outcome, it has already forced Pakistan to confront a question its family laws have long avoided: should years spent building a home and raising a family count as an economic contribution when a marriage ends?

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A conceptual illustration of the Global Nobel Laureates Assembly at Castel Gandolfo, where Nobel laureates, AI experts, religious leaders and civil society representatives will confront the intertwined risks of artificial intelligence, nuclear weapons and war while seeking a new architecture for peace. Credit: INPS Japan

By Katsuhiro Asagiri
VATICAN CITY, Jul 13 2026 (IPS)

More than eight decades after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ushered humanity into the nuclear age, the world is confronting another technological revolution whose consequences extend far beyond science and industry.

Global Nobel Laureates Assembly on AI and Nuclear War

Against this backdrop, more than 200 participants — including around 30 Nobel laureates and representatives of Nobel Prize-winning organizations, former heads of state and government, leading artificial intelligence researchers, scientists, Catholic figures and civil society representatives — are set to gather from July 14 to 16 at Borgo Laudato Si’ in the Pontifical Gardens of Castel Gandolfo.

The Global Nobel Laureates Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War will bring together some of the world’s most prominent voices in science, technology, peacebuilding and ethics to consider one of the defining questions of the twenty-first century:

Can artificial intelligence become a force for peace, or will it deepen the dangers of war in an already unstable nuclear age?

The three-day gathering will conclude in Rome on July 16 with the presentation of the Rome Declaration for an Unarmed and Disarming Peace, intended to set out principles and recommendations for addressing artificial intelligence, nuclear weapons, autonomous weapons, digital governance and emerging models of technological development.

Source: Progressive Hub

The timing of the Assembly is no coincidence.

The international security environment has become increasingly fragile. Russia’s war in Ukraine has shaken Europe’s post-Cold War security order. Conflicts in the Middle East have heightened fears of wider regional escalation. Relations among the major powers have deteriorated, while nuclear rhetoric has returned to international politics with an intensity not seen for decades.

At the same time, all nine nuclear-armed states are modernizing or expanding their arsenals. Many of the arms-control arrangements that once helped manage strategic rivalry have weakened, expired or become politically paralyzed. Channels of communication among adversaries have narrowed, increasing the danger of misunderstanding and miscalculation.

Artificial intelligence is entering this volatile environment at extraordinary speed.

AI systems can already process vast quantities of intelligence, identify patterns, assist military planning, strengthen cyber capabilities and accelerate decisions that once required hours or days of human deliberation. They may eventually provide new tools for crisis prevention, verification and early warning.

But those same capabilities could also make crises more dangerous.

Artificial intelligence may shorten the time available to political and military leaders during emergencies. It may generate unreliable or misleading assessments, magnify disinformation, increase the vulnerability of command systems to cyberattacks and encourage states to delegate more authority to automated technologies.

A conceptual illustration of world leaders confronting the growing influence of artificial intelligence on military power and nuclear decision-making, as technological advances threaten to outpace political judgment and international governance. Credit: INPS Japan

The central concern is not necessarily that a machine will independently decide to launch a nuclear weapon. The more immediate danger is that AI-generated information, predictions or recommendations could influence human decision-makers during moments of extreme pressure, when information is incomplete and the consequences of error are irreversible.

Humanity is therefore confronting a challenge unlike any it has faced before.

The question is no longer simply how nuclear weapons should be controlled. It is also how the relationship between artificial intelligence, military power and nuclear decision-making should be governed before technological developments outpace political judgment.

Pope Leo XIV, photographed in October 2025 during an audience with President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the Vatican Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The choice of the Vatican as host is deeply symbolic.

The Holy See commands no nuclear arsenal and exercises little conventional military power. Yet it maintains diplomatic relations with most of the world’s states and has long sought to place human dignity, moral responsibility and the protection of civilians at the center of debates about war and peace.

The Assembly is being held at Borgo Laudato Si’, an educational and ecological center established in the gardens of the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo. According to the organizers, the meeting is inspired by Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica humanitas, devoted to the protection of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence.

Its guiding vision — an “Unarmed and Disarming Peace” — suggests a concept of peace that goes beyond the absence of war.

An unarmed peace rejects the assumption that security can be permanently sustained through ever-greater military force. A disarming peace seeks not only the reduction of weapons but also the transformation of the political fears, rivalries and economic structures that perpetuate militarization.

This approach broadens the discussion beyond questions of technological safety.

It asks what kind of society humanity wishes to build as increasingly powerful systems reshape politics, economics, communication and warfare. It also raises a deeper ethical question: whether innovation will remain subordinate to human dignity, or whether human beings will gradually be subordinated to the technologies they create.

Beyond Governments

Perhaps the Assembly’s most significant feature is its recognition that governments alone can no longer govern all the technologies shaping the future.

During the Cold War, nuclear diplomacy belonged primarily to states. Agreements such as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty were negotiated among governments because states controlled nuclear arsenals, delivery systems and the materials needed to build them.

Artificial intelligence presents a fundamentally different reality.

Many of the world’s most advanced AI systems are being developed by private companies, universities and research laboratories. Technology firms possess computing resources, data and specialized expertise that rival or exceed the capacities of many governments. Decisions made inside corporate research divisions can have global political, social and security consequences.

Effective governance will therefore require more than traditional diplomacy.

It will require sustained cooperation among states, technology companies, scientists, universities, international institutions, religious communities and civil society.

That is precisely why the Assembly will bring together Nobel laureates, AI companies, leading universities and research institutions, nuclear disarmament organizations, Catholic figures centered around the Vatican, and civil society organizations, including Soka Gakkai, a Buddhist-based movement engaged in peacebuilding, dialogue and nuclear abolition.

Global Nobel Laureates Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War

Participants and supporting institutions include representatives associated with OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic and AARU, as well as the Nobel Women’s Initiative, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, the Yunus Center and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Universities and research institutions from Europe, Asia, North America and Australia are also expected to take part.

The significance of this gathering lies not simply in the prominence of those attending, but in the diversity of the communities represented.

Instead of relying exclusively on governments, the Assembly reflects an emerging model of global governance in which science, technology, ethics, religion and civil society seek common ground in addressing shared existential risks.

From Warheads to Algorithms

For much of the nuclear age, arms-control negotiations focused on physical objects: warheads, missiles, bombers, submarines, nuclear materials and testing facilities.

The AI age introduces a different set of challenges.

Algorithms are less visible than missiles. Software can be modified rapidly. Data can cross national borders almost instantaneously. Commercial systems developed for peaceful purposes can also have military applications. Verification, accountability and transparency become far more difficult when the relevant technologies are embedded in code, networks and privately controlled computing infrastructure.

This means that future arms-control and security frameworks may need to govern not only weapons but also the digital systems that inform, guide or accelerate their use.

Questions that once appeared theoretical are becoming increasingly urgent.

Should artificial intelligence ever be integrated into nuclear command-and-control systems? What level of human oversight must be maintained over autonomous weapons? How should states respond when AI systems produce conflicting warnings during a crisis? Can private technology companies be held accountable when their products are adapted for military purposes? And what international institutions are capable of establishing credible safeguards?

The Assembly cannot resolve all these questions in three days.

But by placing nuclear experts, Nobel laureates, AI developers, scholars, religious figures and peace advocates in the same forum, it may help establish a common vocabulary for debates that have until now often taken place in isolation from one another.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, signed 20 September 2017 by 50 United Nations member states. Credit: UN Photo / Paulo Filgueiras

History suggests that humanity has repeatedly responded to existential threats by creating new ideas, institutions and norms.

The Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 1955 warned that nuclear weapons had placed the survival of the human species in jeopardy. The first Pugwash Conference in 1957 opened channels of communication among scientists divided by the Cold War. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty later became the central framework of the international nuclear order.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted in 2017, further strengthened the humanitarian and moral challenge to nuclear deterrence by declaring nuclear weapons incompatible with international humanitarian principles.

Whether the Global Nobel Laureates Assembly will eventually be regarded as part of that historical lineage remains uncertain.

Declarations issued at international conferences rarely transform policy overnight. They may lack legal force, enforcement mechanisms or immediate political support. Their language can be aspirational, and their influence may not become visible for years.

Yet declarations can also change the terms of international debate.

The Russell-Einstein Manifesto did not eliminate nuclear weapons, but it helped inspire a movement. The first Pugwash meeting did not end the Cold War, but it established relationships that later contributed to arms-control diplomacy. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was not initially binding, yet it became a foundational reference for international law and political legitimacy.

The importance of the Rome Declaration may therefore depend less on whether it produces immediate agreements than on whether it begins a sustained process involving governments, technology companies, universities, international organizations and civil society.

The larger question is whether it can help create norms before dangerous practices become entrenched.

Looking Toward the Rome Declaration

Palazzo Senatorio　Credit: Di Tournasol7 – Opera propria, CC BY-SA 4.0

The document is intended to address the age of artificial intelligence, nuclear and autonomous weapons, new digital protocols and emerging models of digital development. According to the organizers, it will seek to promote international security based on cooperation, human dignity, integral development and peace among peoples.

The critical test will be whether the Declaration moves beyond broad ethical appeals.

Will it call for meaningful human control over nuclear and autonomous weapons systems? Will it propose restrictions on the role of AI in nuclear decision-making? Will it outline responsibilities for private AI companies? Will it recommend new international monitoring, dialogue or verification mechanisms? And will it establish a continuing process capable of translating principles into policy?

The answers will determine whether the meeting remains primarily symbolic or becomes the starting point of a broader “Rome Process” on artificial intelligence, nuclear risk and human security.

More than eight decades after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, humanity once again faces technologies capable of reshaping the future of civilization.

Nuclear weapons remain the most immediate means by which human beings could destroy their own societies. Artificial intelligence, meanwhile, is beginning to influence the speed, complexity and character of the decisions that could determine whether those weapons are ever used.

The defining challenge is therefore no longer simply whether humanity can control nuclear arms.

It is whether humanity can build institutions capable of ensuring that artificial intelligence strengthens human judgment rather than displacing it, reduces the danger of catastrophic error rather than magnifying it, and serves peace rather than war.

The answer will not emerge from three days of deliberation at Castel Gandolfo.

But the conversation beginning there may help shape international debates over technology, security and human responsibility for years to come.

Credit: UN photo

INPS Japan will report from Castel Gandolfo and Rome during the Assembly and will publish follow-up analysis after the Rome Declaration is presented on July 16. This article is brought to you by INPS Japan in collaboration with Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with UN ECOSOC.

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For most individuals, the process of peace starts with the signing of a ceasefire or an agreement among politicians. However, those who live in regions experiencing violence understand that peace is made long before politicians meet at the negotiating table. Peace is created among communities by people who work everyday to ensure that no violence takes place, and that disputes are sorted out.

Muna Luqman, Yemeni peacebuilding advisor and humanitarian leader.

Speaking to IPS Inter Press Service, Yemeni peacebuilding advisor and humanitarian leader Muna Luqman challenged conventional thinking about who builds peace and where peacebuilding truly begins, “Communities never wait until peace happens,” Luqman said. “They’re working to protect peace on a daily basis.”

Based on her extensive experience working in Yemen for more than 15 years, Luqman explained how local communities, especially women, resolve disputes, provide crucial services, negotiate humanitarian assistance and create dialogical spaces way ahead of any intervention of international organizations.

Luqman is the founder and chairperson of Food for Humanity, has seen first-hand the changes conflict brings about in society. While living through the Yemeni civil war, she faced airstrikes and negotiated the evacuation of civilians caught up in the war zone. These experiences led her to realize that humanitarian response alone is inadequate.

“If we only respond to the consequences of conflict without addressing its causes, we will always be a step behind,” she reflected. Her experience also exposed one of the greatest challenges facing local peacebuilders and that is of recognition.

“We thought we would be the first to be supported,” she said, referring to local organisations that led humanitarian responses before international actors arrived. “But we found out that it was a long process.”

According to a report by UN Women, around 676 million lived within 50 kilometers of deadly conflict in 2024 – the highest figure since the 1990s. Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women, said, “Women and girls are being killed in record numbers, shut out of peace tables, and left unprotected as wars multiply. Women do not need more promises, they need power, protection, and equal participation.”

Data collected by the United Nations from 2020-2024 found that, “Women’s representation as negotiators, mediators and signatories in peace processes is far below the target set by the UN. In 2024, women made up only seven percent of negotiators on average worldwide, and nearly nine out of ten negotiation tracks included no women negotiators”. The report stated, women were slightly more represented in mediation roles, averaging 14 percent but still, two-thirds of mediation efforts did not include women.

The discrepancy for Luqman pointed to an underlying problem in international peacebuilding. While local groups responded immediately to communities in need, other institutions were bound by mandates, funding, and procedures. It becomes evident, she says, why true inclusion in peacebuilding should be more than merely symbolic in nature.

True inclusion requires recognizing women not as mere recipients of help or observers of processes, but as active participants in negotiating, mediating, and taking crucial decisions. It is proven that peace treaties are much more sustainable in those cases where women are actively involved in the negotiation process. Women broaden the agenda from purely political aspects like political power-sharing to such crucial areas as justice, education, health care, livelihoods, displacement, and community reconciliation.

Luqman believes that local women possess a unique understanding of these realities because they remain deeply embedded within their communities. “Women mediators are willing to prevent disagreements before they become violence,” she explained. She has witnessed women in Yemen securing the release of prisoners, organizing their communities to rebuild schools and water supplies, and preventing children from joining armed groups. This is often done discreetly, outside the limelight of the international community.

“The strength of women peacebuilders is their ability to mobilize their communities,” she said. However, it is precisely these women who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. They are threatened, intimidated, forced to flee, and often lack funds despite helping others. Protecting women peacebuilders must be a priority on the global agenda, Luqman asserts.

“They do this work while they are facing either lack of funding or no funding at all. They remain resilient, they remain vulnerable at the same time, and they remain under threats.”

She believes that the international community needs to go beyond recognizing the contribution of women and work to provide financial support to women-led organizations that are trusted and credible within the local communities.

While serving as the United Nations National Coordinator on Inclusion in the Peace Process of Yemen, Luqman developed an approach that would allow local people to speak up. The initiative did not consider participation just as a formal aspect but actually aimed to bring in the community perspective. “It wasn’t symbolic participation,” she told me. “We really took that analysis and used it in our system.” This is because peace processes cannot be made by the political elite only; they need to be inclusive of communities that have been experiencing conflict.

In Luqman’s opinion, local governance, climate challenges, livelihoods, transitional justice, and building trust are not marginal questions but rather central factors in avoiding further outbreaks of violence.

Luqman insists on the need for peacebuilding to involve listening: “Sometimes listening to the people themselves and giving them a space is in itself a peace process.”

In the context of rising complexity of conflicts, the importance of inclusion into peace processes has never been so urgent. Women’s involvement in the processes cannot be considered as some kind of equality issue or simply as an obligation under international mechanisms.

On the contrary, it is strategically necessary based on experience and community trust. The message from Luqman to policymakers is obvious: local women peacebuilders are not marginal figures in peacebuilding but its cornerstone. “The local women peacebuilders are the structure and the backbone of these societies,” Luqman said. “They are valuable. They should be treated as valuable assets. They should be supported and protected.” Constructing sustainable peace is not possible only through negotiations of the parties involved in armed conflict but also through investing in people who have done so many years of keeping communities together despite the situation being unrecognizable.

Sania Farooqui is an independent journalist and host of The Peace Brief, a platform dedicated to amplifying the voices of women in peacebuilding and human rights.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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CIVICUS speaks about efforts to use the 2026 FIFA World Cup to highlight Mexico’s enforced disappearance crisis with Ana Enamorado, a Honduran national who continues to search for her missing son in Mexico, and founder of the Regional Network of Migrant Families.

Ana Enamorado

How did your son Óscar go missing, and what’s known about his case?

My son Óscar was 19 when he went missing. He left Honduras in 2008, fleeing the violence, and was in the USA when some young men invited him to Mexico with the promise of a job, a good wage, an education and the chance to see me again. It was all a deception.

Those were the years of the war on drugs that President Felipe Calderón declared in 2006, when the cartels began forcibly recruiting young people to join their ranks. Óscar was taken to El Carrizo, in the municipality of San Sebastián del Oeste, Jalisco state. It’s an isolated place with no public transport and severe deprivation, which makes it very difficult to escape. I last spoke to him on 19 January 2010, and I haven’t heard his voice since.

Little is known about his case, and the little that’s known is marred by negligence. In December 2009, weeks before his last call, charred bodies were found in the same place, but the investigation led nowhere. In 2013, forensic authorities in Jalisco attempted to hand over some ashes to me without any DNA evidence to confirm they were my son’s. The forensic institute went so far as to cremate around 1,560 unidentified bodies in less than a decade, a practice that has left so many families with no way of knowing the truth.

The Mexican state only began searching for Óscar in 2020, 10 years after I reported him missing. To this day, I am still searching for him and demanding justice.

What obstacles do migrant families face when searching for missing loved ones?

A major obstacle is the indifference of the authorities in the country of origin, which in my case is Honduras. We families are left on our own, with no one to guide us. The consulate should be the first authority to assist us, and it should do so quickly, because the first few hours are crucial for finding a person alive. But it rarely does so. As a result, filing a missing person report and a formal complaint becomes almost impossible. And without that, it’s not possible to open an investigation file or access our rights.

Added to this is my immigration status. Although I have been living in Mexico for 14 years, I am still considered a ‘visitor on humanitarian grounds’ and, to retain this status, I have to prove every year that my son is still missing. Having to prove my tragedy time and time again just to be able to stay revictimises me. That’s why I initiated legal proceedings against the National Institute of Migration to change my status to that of a permanent resident. However, it continues to reject my application, leaving me in a precarious situation when it comes to accessing my basic rights.

Why did you decide to protest during the World Cup?

We took to the streets of the host cities to show the other side of Mexico: the corruption, violence, impunity and the state’s indifference towards the thousands of missing people. Although the Mexican state may wish to project an image of celebration and modernity through the World Cup, there can be no World Cup celebrations against the backdrop of the humanitarian crisis caused by disappearances.

In Mexico, there are over 135,000 missing people. To put this into perspective, that number is one and a half times the capacity of the Azteca Stadium, where several matches in this World Cup have been played, including the opening match. Added to this is a forensic crisis. There are over 75,000 unidentified bodies. That is 75,000 people who did not return home and whose families continue inquiring about their whereabouts.

And the number keeps rising. We estimate that, since the World Cup began on 11 June, over 1,200 further people have gone missing. On 30 June, three teenagers aged 14 and 15 disappeared in Guadalajara, one of the host cities, in broad daylight amid streets full of celebrating crowds. The authorities believe it may have been a case of recruitment by organised crime. This practice continues unabated, and the government shows no sign of wanting to stop it or of searching for the missing people, particularly when they are migrants.

How has the Mexican government responded to the protests?

The state is uncomfortable with us taking to the streets to protest because every time we do, we expose the harsh and painful reality it wants to hide. That’s why, instead of listening to us and searching for our loved ones, it has responded with criminalisation, mockery and repression.

At her morning press conference on the day of the World Cup opening ceremony, President Claudia Sheinbaum played down our demonstration, and the Secretary of the Interior insinuated that someone was paying us to take to the streets, announcing an investigation into how we are funded. It’s an accusation that’s as painful as it’s outrageous. We have always searched for our loved ones using our own resources.

Then came the repression. Riot police cordoned us off and encircled us to prevent us from reaching the stadiums. On 30 June, on Calzada de Tlalpan, one of Mexico City’s main avenues, they assaulted and detained members of the ‘Hasta Encontrarte’ (Until we find you) collective simply for carrying images bearing the faces of their loved ones. Physical violence adds to the emotional and psychological trauma we already bear. Meanwhile, federal and state forces were deployed to ensure the safety of tourists, an effort they have never made to search for our loved ones.

What are you demanding of the government and international bodies?

We demand, first and foremost, that the Mexican state make the search for missing people a real priority. We call on President Sheinbaum to meet with the families and collectives in person to reach genuine agreements on search, location and prevention. We want to know how many people have been found alive, to have proper investigations carried out and to have trained and empathetic staff who can provide us with real answers.

But this crisis extends beyond Mexico’s borders, and the response must do the same. The United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have offered their assistance. We call on the government to accept it. Such cooperation is urgent, because there are tens of thousands of people of other nationalities who have gone missing in Mexico, and searching for them requires the activation of international mechanisms. Many are women who have been trafficked, and most are taken out of the country, so finding them depends on governments working together.

Finally, we call on the international community to not turn a blind eye to what’s happening, and on the media to help us amplify our demands, so our voices reach the world just as World Cup goals do.

We won’t rest until we find them. They were taken alive, and we want them back alive.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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Mexico: ‘The World Cup is an opportunity to raise global awareness of the crisis of enforced disappearances’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Angélica Orozco 28.Jun.2026
The disappeared: Mexico’s industrial-scale human rights crisis CIVICUS Lens 22.Apr.2025

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Karen Hallberg

By Karen Hallberg
TOKYO, Japan, Jul 10 2026 (IPS)

Eighty years since the dawn of the nuclear age, which began with the first nuclear test in New Mexico, USA, and with the tragic atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, humanity faces a deep existential crisis. This crisis is much more unstable and unpredictable than the gravest Cold War confrontations. In 1955, when there were only three states with nuclear weapons and the first thermonuclear weapon was being developed, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto posed a profound question: “Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?” Today, with 9 states possessing nuclear weapons and several thousand thermonuclear devices, this question becomes an ultimate choice.

The Pugwash Conferences is deeply concerned about the deterioration of the international system, in which the threat and use of force has become preferable to diplomacy. Current military confrontations involving nuclear-weapon states pose an existential risk to civilization, a risk that can be drastically increased by a new wave of nuclear proliferation.

With the expiration of the New START between the United States and the Russian Federation, the international community has officially entered an era without a binding, verifiable agreement to constrain the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals. For the first time in more than fifty years, dating back to the era of the 1972 SALT I, the two preeminent nuclear powers are operating without the essential guardrails that provided control, stability, predictability and transparency to the global order and were instrumental in reducing the total number of nuclear warheads from around 70,000 in the mid-eighties to current ~12,200 (or a yield larger than 146,000 Hiroshima-bombs equivalent!). However, despite historic progress in reducing 9 global nuclear stockpiles, the current trajectory suggests a troubling reversal of those hard-won security gains in times of a resurgent nuclear arms race, heightened global tensions and military confrontations involving nuclear-armed states.

The ongoing expansion and modernization of the nuclear arsenals of most nuclear-armed states is adding new pressures to global strategic stability, particularly in the absence of any arms control dialogue. These developments reflect the growing salience of nuclear weapons in international security, undermining global non-proliferation and disarmament efforts, in particular, Art. VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which has definitely constrained the spread of nuclear weapons for more than half a century and is now under severe strain.

At the same time, the growing support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons reflects the determination of many states and civil society actors to advance the goal of the complete abolition of nuclear weapons. While differences remain regarding pathways to disarmament, the Treaty has reinforced the humanitarian imperative of eliminating nuclear weapons and has helped keep the vision of a nuclear-weapon-free world firmly on the international agenda.

Recent discussions about extending nuclear deterrence arrangements within Europe to additional non-nuclear-weapon states, together with emerging political voices advocating in favor of nuclear weapons in East Asia and other regions, risk igniting a new, uncontrollable wave of proliferation to safeguard their own survival.

Equally troubling are irresponsible threats by some nuclear-weapon states to resume nuclear testing. Such rhetoric contributes to a potentially dangerous escalation and threatens the continuation of the longstanding moratorium on nuclear explosive testing established in anticipation of the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which still awaits ratification by key states.

The current situation poses great challenges ahead, which can and should be addressed immediately, without delay:

– Nuclear-weapon states should reconfirm their Joint Statement issued on January 2022 on preventing nuclear war and avoiding a nuclear arms race sending a clear signal on the political will to the diminish the role played by nuclear weapons in international security. In doing so, they would also reaffirm their obligations under Article VI of the NPT, which commits all parties to pursue negotiations in good faith toward ending the nuclear arms race and achieving nuclear disarmament. 10

– Nuclear-armed states must recognize their responsibility to identify areas of common interest and engage in serious diplomatic efforts aimed at revitalizing multilateral arms control negotiations.

– All nuclear-armed states should reiterate their voluntary commitment to a moratorium on nuclear explosive testing and take the necessary steps to secure the prompt entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Any resumption of nuclear testing would represent a dangerous step toward renewed arms racing and strategic instability.

– Nuclear-armed states should strengthen negative security assurances by reaffirming that they will neither use nor threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-armed states, adopt no-first-use commitments, and work toward making these assurances legally binding.

– Strengthening the verification and monitoring role of the International Atomic Energy Agency will remain essential for ensuring compliance transparency, and confidence within the global non-proliferation regime, including non-nuclear-weapon states.

– Consolidate nuclear weapons free zones, in particular establish one in the Middle East, as agreed at the 1995 and 2010 NPT Review Conferences.

These measures could serve as practical confidence-building and risk-reduction steps, helping to increase global stability and preventing a spiraling “nuclear breakout”. They could also serve as a diplomatic bridge towards a more cooperative, comprehensive and modernized future security architecture capable of addressing modern challenges including artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, hypersonic weapons, missile defense systems, space-based military capabilities and autonomous weapons.

Raising public and political awareness of the existential risks posed by nuclear weapons is of utmost importance, as stated in the recent Declaration of the Nobel Laureate Assembly , “we call on scientists, academics, civil society, and communities of faith to help create the necessary pressure on global leaders to implement nuclear risk reduction measures.“ The responsibility lies with us all. Let us be inspired and guided by the closing words of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto: “We appeal as human beings to human beings: remember your humanity, and forget the rest.”

This text was contributed as the foreword to the Annual Report of a media project “Toward the World without Nuclear Weapons” promoted by INPS Japan in partnership with Soka Gakkai International. The report compiles project articles published between April 2025 and March 2026.

Note: This article is brought to you by IPS Noram in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.

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Excerpt:

Neda Korunovska, Vice President for Analytics and Results at the Roma Foundation for Europe.

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Jul 8 2026 (IPS)

Governments, donors, NGOs, development banks and businesses recently gathered in Gdansk, Poland, to discuss reconstruction in Ukraine even as Russia’s full-scale invasion continues.

But while billions of euros have been pledged for the country’s recovery, major questions remain over how reconstruction can be delivered effectively, transparently and equitably.

The war has disproportionately affected many marginalised communities, especially Roma families who often face barriers to housing, healthcare, education and employment. Without targeted measures, reconstruction programmes risk reinforcing existing inequalities, warn Roma rights advocates.

IPS spoke to Neda Korunovska, Vice President for Analytics and Results at the Roma Foundation for Europe, about why it is vital that Roma voices are taken into account in any reconstruction plans for the country.

IPS: How extensive is the construction of Ukraine going to have to be after the war? What kind of reconstruction is needed?

Neda Korunovska (NK): I think there are two things that need to be taken into consideration. One is the kind of physical reconstruction of the society of Ukraine and the other is an intangible reconstruction. A good thing is that every year a rapid assessment of the needs of the Ukrainian recovery is produced by the World Bank, UN institutions, EU institutions, and the Ukrainian government, and it basically sums up the country’s reconstruction needs, projecting them for about 10 years ahead. The Economic Institute in Kiev also produces an estimate [of the cost of reconstruction] but all these are economic models.

But what is more difficult to work out an estimate for is what is going to be needed for Ukrainian society to actually be an inclusive society. And this is where I think current estimates are falling short in terms of how much funding, but also intent, is going to be needed.

We know from our work that it is very difficult to be as inclusive as possible in reconstruction. Ukrainian society has inherited divisions which, during the war, have become even more polarised, for instance, those that are serving in the army, those that are not serving, those that are internally displaced, refugees, etc. This all needs to be taken into account in the discussions of social cohesion that are taking place.

Of course, one obstacle to any reconstruction is that the war is continuing and is protracted. There is new damage all the time, every year, and the funding priority is security and defence. There is a financial gap in every year in terms of what is needed just for emergency response as opposed to what is available in funding. This makes the situation for any reconstruction much more complex.

IPS: You mentioned divisions within Ukrainian society. Are there some people in Ukraine saying that when it comes to post-war reconstruction, certain groups have to take priority over others? Is that already happening?

NK: Officially, no, but unofficially, it is happening. In a recent report we did, we documented how this is happening with, for instance, new schemes for claiming compensation for damage to housing. Everything is formalised – to be registered as an internally displaced person (IDP), you need a valid ID from the occupied or war-affected zones. If you don’t have an ID or you don’t have an ID that is valid for your place of residence, even if you were living there and you come from that region, you are not entitled to assistance. So in these cases, or if the administration is overstretched, there is an informal prioritisation of people based on who someone knows. It’s the same in not just Ukraine but lots of post-Soviet countries – social networks are essential to be able to get, for instance, the right doctor’s appointment, etc. It is good if you know somebody who knows somebody. And this is also how things are going on informally [in Ukraine at the moment]. It’s about how quick you can get things done, because they cannot assist everyone at the moment with the resources they have. Things are being prioritised not formally, but informally, and groups that have less social capital, of course, will not be prioritised.

IPS: This could be especially true for Roma because in Roma communities there are many people who don’t have identification and it’s very difficult for them to actually sometimes prove home ownership and things like that. Are you particularly concerned that, when it comes to post-war reconstruction, Roma are going to be very left out?

NK: Yes, unfortunately, even during the war, the annual social cohesion index showed that there was a big gap [between Roma and the rest of society]. The only places where this has improved are in war-affected areas where people went through the hardest conditions together and stayed there and forged a level of kinship that didn’t exist prior to the war. Unfortunately, this does not translate to the rest of the Ukrainian territory, which is for us a real concern.

IPS: Are you worried that any other particular minority groups might be left out as well, not just Roma?

NK: Yes, but I think this risk is most acute for Roma because of a kind of widespread opinion in Ukraine that they don’t belong in Ukrainian society and the majority of Ukrainians would like to see them leave the country. But I think that all ethnic minorities will face challenges after the war, including Russians who stay in Ukraine.

IPS: But Roma are likely to face the biggest challenges, yes?

NK: Yes, because they will be starting at a level where the compound challenges that they face are the largest [of any minority in Ukraine] – in terms of education, in terms of the types of jobs that they serve, in terms of the language, in terms of literacy and ability to acquire languages, in terms of where they are located, where they live, i.e., in rural areas, isolated areas, informal settlements, et cetera. Of course, there are differences. Ukraine is quite a diverse country, so we have certain areas that are, let’s say, much better than others. But definitely the face deep challenges, and these have been compounded by the war and we don’t currently see a capacity or appetite to deal with this. And this is where our concern lies.

The priorities for reconstruction in Ukraine will be energy, de-mining land, transport, and housing. There will be a focus on the issues that affect the majority of the population. And this is why Roma are always left out, because we are talking about a minority that faces compound challenges. The image of Roma, which many people have held for centuries, is a negative one. It is not one of a productive teacher, a worker, an electrical engineer, et cetera. This is the root cause of some of the things that we see today, because it’s kind of always in the margin in any calculation.

IPS: Some Roma communities, like other communities across the country, have suffered damage to their homes during the war, and these need to be rebuilt. Are you worried, though, that some Roma communities will, when the war ends, get no compensation, that nothing will be rebuilt and that those communities will be just left to decay and the Roma who live there will be forced to leave and go somewhere else? Are you worried that this might happen?

NK: Yes, definitely. I’m worried this will happen unless there is a significant change in how the country documents repairs. Many Roma live in houses that they do not actually officially own for different reasons, such as difficult inheritance procedures, non-registration of property, and not undertaking other procedures – all of these procedures require co-payments, taxes, administrative taxes, etc., which unfortunately many Roma cannot afford because they prioritise survival, food, and heating over dealing with paperwork. These are all hard-working families that were acting in good faith but the whole issue of property ownership [among Roma] is a problem. And then there is the question of the properties themselves and how well built they are – some were built with rudimentary materials and are more prone to damage. This is a vulnerability for many Roma, but it is one that is not visible in the current compensation system.

IPS: So how is it possible to make sure that Roma communities are not left out of post-war reconstruction?

NK: As a foundation we argue that there should be political empowerment of Roma, but when you have such a marginalised community, in Ukraine specifically, we need to ensure that there is at least consultation with Roma to understand the challenges and to understand the details of the barriers they face so they are incorporated into the design of any reconstruction. There has to be an understanding in Ukraine that the new Ukraine which is being built must be inclusive and that support for this has to come from the political leadership, which has to speak openly about it and prioritise it.

We have seen in some other post-war periods in other countries that not dealing with social cohesion can give rise to certain risks. When you are in a war, nationalism, in a sense, patriotism, is built in, because this is the essence of defence. Some of the kind of paramilitary groups that killed Roma before the war became war heroes. How many of them have changed their beliefs? And what happens when peace comes? I am not suggesting in any way that people are going to go and kill Roma after the war, but research and experience from other conflicts have suggested that in post-war periods it is quite reasonable to expect an increase in domestic violence, femicides, and ethnic and racially motivated killings. et cetera. There is a question about who is contributing [to the war effort]. A lot of Roma theoretically have formal exemptions from military service because they have small children, for example, or if they are illiterate, they cannot be enlisted, etc. But they see Ukraine as their home country, despite the discrimination they face, and they feel that now is the time to defend Ukraine, to defend their homeland. And they’re fighting. And we hope that this will not be forgotten in the post-war recovery. Because this was forgotten in Kosovo, it was forgotten in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We’ve seen these examples.

IPS: When you speak to lawmakers, members of the government, and people in charge in Ukraine, do you feel that they’re aware of these potential risks and also are they aware of how important it is that Roma are included in any reconstruction?

NK: I have to be honest that I think, yes. The problem is that it is not a priority at the moment because they are fighting a war and they are trying to function as a state in parallel to fighting that war. The bandwidth of the political focus is quite narrow.

IPS: But are they already thinking about this in terms of post-war reconstruction?

NK: I think that in discussions they are doing the right things, but the question is, how do you transition from that to actually working with society? Ukraine is a very decentralised country – capacities at the regional and local levels are quite diverse. And here we also see differences in how Roma are treated. So I think it’s not just a question at the policy level but about the capacity of an administration to deal with what programmes will actually make sure that the work will be done right.

It’s not happening at the moment – we can see that with house-damage reconstruction, which has not been opened for informal housing, accepting alternative proof of ownership. But there are also problems with the damage being so vast that there is not enough funding for everything and so they are prioritising the formerly ‘clean’ cases.

IPS: Why is it vitally important that Roma are included in the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine?

NK: Many people might say that the country has gone through immense suffering and immense personal damage in terms of deaths of family members, friends, having to relocate, and suffering damage to their homes, so why should there be some kind of emphasis on the Roma? But the question is, what is going to be the main basis of the new Ukraine? Not dealing with the legacies that push Roma into informality, that push Roma out of school, etc., is not in the interest of Ukraine because, unfortunately, Ukraine has lost a lot and it really needs to mobilise everyone in Ukraine for the future. It has to find ways to allow everyone in Ukraine to be who they are and contribute to the economy, to the politics, and to the culture of Ukraine.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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A 12-year-old girl from northern Togo, orphaned and displaced to northern Benin with her siblings, is now attending school and benefiting from a cash programme, which supports vulnerable girls’ education and wellbeing. Credit: UNICEF/UNI970733/Njiokiktjien

By Ana Patricia Muñoz and George Laryea-Adjei
WASHINGTON DC / NEW YORK, Jul 8 2026 (IPS)

Almost half of the world’s population now lives in countries that spend more money paying interest on their debts than on education or health. New data shows the cost of borrowing for African countries in particular rose 91% since 2020. Rising debt payments have reduced governments’ capacity to invest in children and build their human capital.

This week UN officials and government leaders gather in New York for the High-level Political Forum, where the Sustainable Development Goal on financing and global partnership (SDG 17) comes up for its in-depth review. They must go beyond short-term fixes and drive sustainable solutions to the debt crisis and its impact on children’s futures. Too many countries are struggling to keep pace with debt payments and facing a stark and painful choice: spend less on children or default. This fiscal crunch has a disproportionate impact on girls, especially in marginalized and remote communities, as efforts to narrow the gender gap in educational attainment are undercut by debt servicing. In 2024, the 10 countries facing the worst barriers to girls’ education spent, on average, four times more on debt servicing than on education.

Debt choices today are also silently eroding children’s prospects and future economic growth. UNICEF analysis shows that African countries spend, on average, just 6.5 per cent of their child-related budgets on the critical first five years of life, while G20 countries invest roughly four times as much. As debt servicing consumes an increasing share of public resources in many countries, governments face difficult fiscal trade-offs that can further reduce investments in children. The result is not only a loss for this generation, but also lower productivity, diminished human capital and weaker long-term growth. The World Bank estimates that today’s children could lose up to half of their future lifetime earnings because of deficits in learning and human capital development.

Work by the International Budget Partnership shows that the global debt crisis is also an accountability crisis. The Open Budget Survey 2025 finds that 50% of surveyed countries do not provide information on the composition of debt in their budget proposals, and just 18% publish any information on the sustainability of government finances over the next ten years. In a recent assessment of 11 African countries, only one country published a borrowing plan that was connected to the annual budget cycle and linked borrowing to specific sectors or projects. In all 11 countries, parliaments approve borrowing without access to comprehensive information on how those funds will be used or what development outcomes they are expected to deliver. Debt crises will continue to recur if governments continue to borrow without telling oversight bodies or the public how they’re borrowing, why or on what terms.

Debt transparency alone will not solve the debt crisis unless it is matched by accountability and smarter financing choices.

Domestic constituencies who live with the consequences of debt decisions should be at the heart of accountability efforts – this includes children. Legal frameworks should mandate governments to release information about who is responsible for debt decisions, what is counted as debt, what it is being used for and what tradeoffs were considered. Governments should embed debt and fiscal sustainability information into the budget process so that there can be regular scrutiny by oversight bodies. Legislators, national auditors and independent legislative bodies need technical support and mandates to deliver informed and accessible analysis of the long-term fiscal implications and risks of these decisions. That analysis must also be accessible to the public. Equipping civil society groups so that they are better able to engage with debt information and better understand how these seemingly esoteric decisions ultimately impact their health centers, schools and children, must be part of any debt accountability agenda. These accountability levers are critical to ensure debt fuels development instead of holding it back, and that public spending choices reflect the rights and needs of children.

We also need financing solutions to address the current emergency and these efforts should support rather than displace domestic accountability. The SDG bond of the Government of Benin has shown that debt instruments linked to social outcomes and public reporting are already working. Debt is not inherently the enemy of development, but must be borrowed transparently, invested productively and subject to public scrutiny. Debt relief frameworks must catch up with reality: as sovereign debt shifts toward private, foreign-currency creditors existing restructuring mechanisms leave too many countries without meaningful relief. Reforming the legal frameworks that govern sovereign debt contracts is long overdue.

The Sevilla Commitment, adopted by leaders at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, underscored the value of pursuing these options and the importance of prioritizing investments in children. The High-level Political Forum should address how new financing options can avoid opacity by requiring governments to report to legislatures and the public how funds are used and by supporting civil society to track whether resources deliver tangible results.

When decisions with lifelong consequences are made behind closed doors, children inevitably lose first, and longest. We must use all the tools at our disposal to address the debt crisis and demand accountability to ensure public money works for all, especially for children and future generations.

Ana Patricia Muñoz is Executive Director, International Budget Partnership; George Laryea-Adjei is Director of Global Programme Division, UNICEF

IPS UN Bureau

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A child's painting of a fawn at the Conference Centre of Samarkand, where the Eighth GEF Assembly was held last month. The Bukhara deer, a species once pushed to the edge of survival by habitat loss and poaching, are now protected and introduced to the Zarafshan National Nature Park. Credit: ISD/ENB | Danny Skilton

By Kizito Makoye
SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan, Jul 7 2026 (IPS)

For most of the Eighth Global Environmental Facility (GEF) Assembly last month, the atmosphere inside Samarkand’s sprawling Congress Centre echoed a growing confidence of global environmental policymakers.

Delegates darted between plenary halls and side events discussing biodiversity targets, climate adaptation and ecosystem restoration. PowerPoint charts displayed shrinking forests. Investment bankers touted new financing tools. Smartly dressed bartenders served coffee in perfect air-conditioned comfort.

Yet despite this spectre of environmental diplomacy, a hard question lingered: How to mobilise private money when public coffers can no longer provide?

To many, the answer was blended finance.

The question became even more tangible on a humid Saturday morning when a group of delegates boarded low-emission coaches to Zarafshan National Nature Park on the outskirts of the ancient Silk Road city.

The excursion, many delegates later affirmed, offered a glimpse of a successful conservation model.

Walking through one of Central Asia’s surviving tugai forests – a riverside ecosystem that once stretched across much of the region – delegates witnessed the recovery of the Bukhara deer, a species once pushed to the edge of survival by habitat loss and poaching.

Wide-eyed delegates watched as rangers briskly hurled bundles of fresh forage, while several deer emerged from the reeds with the ease of animals that had learned to trust their caretakers.

A ranger works in an enclosure at the Zarafshan National Natural Park, one of Uzbekistan’s newest protected areas established to conserve the fragile riparian forests of the Zarafshan River and recover threatened wildlife, including the iconic Bukhara deer. The park illustrates the type of landscape where blended finance could help bridge funding gaps for ecosystem restoration, sustainable tourism and community livelihoods, provided investments deliver measurable conservation outcomes. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

For conservationists, the scene was a tangible sign of ecological recovery in a parched Uzbek steppe. For financiers, it carried a different meaning—evidence that restoration requires sustained investment long after donor attention has shifted elsewhere.

That tension – between ecological reality and financial logic – ran through nearly every conversation in Samarkand, where the GEF’s Eighth Assembly signalled a deeper shift toward blended finance as a core conservation funding model.

The GEF’s new replenishment cycle, dubbed GEF-9, will secure at least $3.9 billion in donor commitments through 2030. But the more consequential shift lies in its architecture, with a target of using roughly a quarter of the resources to crowd in private capital alongside public and concessional finance.

GEF officials explain that the institution’s approach differs from other blended finance initiatives by targeting only investments where markets have clearly failed.

“It is worth stating clearly at the outset that GEF’s own approach to blended finance has been deliberately targeted and highly catalytic,” Avril Benchimol, Senior Blended Finance Specialist at the GEF, told IPS. “By design, GEF’s concessional resources have been directed at transactions where market failure is demonstrable – frontier areas such as circular economy, nature-based solutions, conservation finance, and sustainable agriculture in challenging markets where private capital does not flow without a catalytic push.”

Samuel Wangwe, senior researcher at the Economic and Social Research Foundation, said this shift towards more blended finance initiatives reflects a broader transformation in development thinking.

“Blended finance is essentially an attempt to stretch scarce public resources further by bringing in private capital. That logic is understandable in today’s fiscal environment, but it does not remove the underlying development constraints that many countries face,” he said.

The logic is rooted in a fiscal reality widely acknowledged across development finance institutions: public budgets are insufficient to meet global environmental needs, with annual financing gaps for biodiversity and climate resilience running into hundreds of billions of dollars.

Blended finance is intended to bridge that gap by using public capital to absorb early-stage risk, improving the risk-return profile of projects that would not be viable for commercial investors.

A park ranger guides delegates through one of Uzbekistan’s protected landscapes, explaining ongoing conservation and restoration efforts. The visit highlighted how long-term biodiversity protection depends not only on strong environmental policies but also on innovative financing mechanisms capable of attracting private capital while safeguarding public conservation objectives. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

But Wangwe warned that the effectiveness of this model depends heavily on institutional strength.

“You cannot financialise ecosystems without strong governance systems. Where land rights are unclear or enforcement is weak, the risk does not disappear—it is simply priced differently, often at a higher cost to the country.”

The timing reflects broader strain in global public finance. Many donor governments face rising debt burdens, domestic political pressures and competing priorities from defence to healthcare. Development assistance budgets, once expected to expand alongside climate commitments, are instead substantially shrinking.

In that constrained environment, multilateral institutions are under pressure to demonstrate leverage – how much private capital can be mobilised per unit of public spending. As a result, blended finance has shifted from a niche development tool to a central pillar of environmental action, offering policymakers a politically palatable narrative: scarce public funds are not being reduced, but multiplied.

Wangwe, however, cautioned against over-reliance on this narrative.

“There is a tendency now to focus on how much money can be leveraged, rather than how effectively institutions can absorb and manage that investment. But without institutional depth, leverage becomes a hollow metric.”

GEF argues that its own experience suggests carefully structured concessional finance can mobilise substantially larger private investment than broader market averages.

“The concern about additionality is legitimate at the system level, and GEF takes it seriously as part of the broader conversation,” Benchimol said.

“GEF’s own mobilisation ratios have consistently outperformed the [market] average, in part because of the deliberate application of a minimum concessionality principle—using only as much concessional support as is necessary to make a transaction viable, and no more.”

Yet the promise of scale masks a more selective reality. Institutional investors – pension funds, insurers and asset managers – do not allocate capital based on environmental urgency. They respond to predictable revenue streams and manageable risk.

That distinction matters. Renewable energy projects increasingly fit that profile, offering long-term contracts and stable cash flows. Many conservation activities do not.

Ecosystem restoration, biodiversity protection and watershed management often generate public goods that are difficult to monetise. A restored forest may reduce carbon emissions and stabilise rainfall patterns, but it does not always produce direct financial returns.

As a result, blended finance works best where environmental projects can be partially ‘financialised’ – through carbon credits, ecotourism revenues or infrastructure-linked returns. Pure conservation projects remain harder to structure in bankable form.

Nowhere is this mismatch more visible than in Africa. The continent holds some of the world’s most critical biodiversity assets, from the Congo Basin to East Africa’s savannahs, yet continues to attract a relatively small share of global private environmental finance.

Contrary to common assumptions, the binding constraint is not global liquidity. Trillions of dollars sit in institutional portfolios seeking yield.

As Wangwe put it, “Africa is not short of opportunities. It is short of bankable structures that meet investor expectations. That gap is not technical alone—it is institutional and political.”

The result is a structural imbalance: countries with stronger institutions attract disproportionate flows of blended finance, while those facing the most severe environmental degradation remain dependent on grants and concessional funding.

GEF acknowledges that imbalance remains a genuine weakness of blended finance globally.

“The GEF fully shares the concern that blended finance instruments have not always reached the countries and communities with the greatest need,” Benchimol said.

“The concentration of blended finance flows in middle-income and relatively more bankable markets is a documented challenge, and addressing it is a priority as GEF shapes its future programming.”

This dynamic brings governance to the centre of the debate. Blended finance does not eliminate institutional risk; it re-prices it.

Guarantees, first-loss capital and concessional tranches can improve project economics, but they cannot substitute for credible legal systems or stable regulatory frameworks.

In practice, blended finance tends to cluster in environments where governance already functions relatively well. Where institutions are weaker, transaction costs rise and investor appetite declines.

That creates an uncomfortable implication: the places most in need of environmental investment are often the least able to attract it.

Wangwe added that this dynamic risks deepening inequality in conservation finance.

“If local communities are only seen as beneficiaries rather than stakeholders in financial structures, then blended finance risks repeating the same extractive patterns we have seen in other sectors, just under a greener label.”

GEF says future financing models must become far more country-led.

“Equity in blended finance requires genuine country ownership and voice—ensuring that recipient governments are partners in the design of financial structures rather than passive recipients of externally defined solutions,” Benchimol said.

Beyond technical design lies a more political question: who ultimately controls environmental assets as they become financialised?

Blended finance structures distribute risk and returns among governments, investors and local communities. But those distributions are not neutral.

Critics warn that conservation could increasingly resemble an investment class, where financial returns flow outward while ecological and social costs remain local.

“There is a risk that conservation becomes an asset class without community ownership,” Wangwe said. “That would replicate extractive dynamics under a green label.”

Despite its market-orientated framing, blended finance does not reduce the role of public institutions. It reconfigures it.

Governments and development agencies continue to provide first-loss capital, guarantees, project preparation funding and regulatory support. Without these interventions, most blended-finance transactions would not be viable.

Public finance, in other words, is not replaced – it is embedded deeper in deal structures, even as its presence becomes less visible in headline figures.

Wangwe stressed that this reality is often overlooked.

“The idea that private capital will replace public finance is misleading. In reality, public money is doing more of the heavy lifting than the rhetoric suggests – it is just now embedded deeper in the transaction structure.”

That raises a critical risk: if public spending is cut on the assumption that private capital will fill the gap, the entire model could weaken.

Closing the assembly, GEF interim CEO Claude Gascon noted that the model relies on cooperation and shared purpose.

He stressed the GEF was built on the understanding that no one can meet global environmental challenges alone and that it brings together countries, conventions, IPLCs, civil society, the private sector, and other stakeholders to deliver global environmental benefits.

“We need banks, institutional investors, corporations, and innovators to engage at a fundamentally different level. We need them not only to finance transition but also to shape it responsibly. We need business models that reward stewardship, not short-term extraction; disclosure and accountability systems that value long-term resilience; and governance frameworks that make environmental performance central to business success. The private sector has extraordinary reach, influence, and ingenuity. But with that influence comes responsibility.”

Back in Zarafshan National Nature Park, the Bukhara deer eventually retreated into the reeds as the delegation prepared to leave. The moment was brief, almost incidental, yet it underscored a central contradiction in global environmental finance.

Capital can accelerate conservation outcomes. It can reduce risk, improve coordination and expand funding. But it cannot substitute for the institutional and ecological conditions that determine whether recovery endures.

As delegates returned to Samarkand, optimism about blended finance remained intact. So did its central uncertainty.

For Africa, Wangwe argued, the challenge is not simply attracting investment but building the systems that can sustain it.

“The real test is not the volume of private investment mobilised, but whether ecosystems are restored, livelihoods are protected, and institutions are strengthened enough to sustain those gains beyond donor cycles.”

Despite the uncertainties, GEF says it intends to deepen – not scale back – its use of blended finance.

“GEF-9 is targeting 25% of GEF Trust Fund resources for blended finance, signalling a deliberate scaling of this approach – grounded in the conviction that blended finance, when properly structured and targeted, is not a subsidy for investments that markets would have made anyway, but a catalytic lever for investments that would not have happened at all,” Benchimol said.

The success of GEF-9 will therefore not be measured by how much private capital is mobilised but by where it flows – and whether it translates into lasting ecological recovery.

Note: This feature is published with the support of the GEF. IPS is solely responsible for the editorial content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the GEF.

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CARICOM Heads of Government during the opening ceremony of the 51st Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community in Gros Islet, Saint Lucia, on July 5, 2026. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
GROS ISLET, Saint Lucia , Jul 6 2026 (IPS)

Caribbean leaders are meeting in Saint Lucia for their annual summit, confronting a convergence of global and regional challenges ranging from rising living costs and climate change to crime, food security and geopolitical tensions.

The 51st Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the regional organisation that promotes economic integration, coordinates foreign policy and fosters cooperation among its 15 member states, runs until Wednesday.

Leaders are expected to discuss regional security, climate resilience, economic integration, trade, migration, food and water security and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.

The country’s Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre assumed the grouping’s rotating chairmanship.

He said he was taking over at a time of “profound uncertainty”, with Caribbean people feeling the effects of international instability in their daily lives.

“Our people feel these pressures every day,” Pierre said during the conference’s opening ceremony, citing the rising cost of food and energy, worsening climate impacts and growing concerns about crime and public safety.

He told the gathering that his six-month chairmanship would focus on ensuring regional integration delivers tangible benefits for Caribbean citizens rather than remaining confined to official meetings and declarations.

“Our people are asking a serious and legitimate question: What more can CARICOM do for me?” Pierre said. “We must make integration work for the ordinary citizen.”

The Saint Lucian leader outlined priorities that included strengthening regional unity, advancing the CARICOM Single Market and Economy, improving food and nutrition security, addressing violent crime and illegal firearms, expanding transportation links, increasing access to climate finance and developing a coordinated regional approach to artificial intelligence.

He also called for stronger support for young people, women, people with disabilities and other groups that have historically faced barriers to opportunity.

Pierre renewed CARICOM’s call for climate justice, arguing that Caribbean nations contribute little to global greenhouse gas emissions while bearing a disproportionate share of climate impacts. He urged the international community to expand access to climate finance, loss-and-damage funding and debt relief mechanisms that better reflect the vulnerability of small island developing states.

The summit comes as Caribbean governments continue to navigate the economic effects of global conflicts, supply chain disruptions and inflation while confronting increasingly severe hurricanes, prolonged droughts and other climate-related disasters that disproportionately affect small island developing states.

CARICOM Secretary-General Carla Barnett said the region’s founders envisioned cooperation as a practical response to external pressures.

“Then, as now, external factors and influences put at risk the vision of regional integration,” Barnett said, adding that leaders must accelerate implementation of long-standing regional commitments, particularly within the CARICOM Single Market and Economy.

Barnett pointed to progress in expanding the free movement of skilled workers, increasing agricultural production under the region’s food security strategy and strengthening international partnerships but said much work remains to implement agreed regional measures fully.

Outgoing CARICOM Chairman, Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis, Terrance Drew said his tenure reinforced the importance of unity during a period marked by global uncertainty, climate threats and questions about regional cohesion.

“The question is no longer whether CARICOM will survive,” Drew said. “The question now is how we strengthen CARICOM for the next generation.”

He said Caribbean governments had continued working together on food security, climate resilience, regional security, Haiti, reparatory justice and international diplomacy despite mounting external pressures.

Founded by the Treaty of Chaguaramas on July 4, 1973, CARICOM promotes economic integration, coordinated foreign policy and functional cooperation among its member states. The organisation now comprises 15 member states and seven associate members and works across areas including climate change, agriculture, education, health, security, trade, transportation and sustainable development.

This year’s meeting is being held under the theme ‘People, Partnerships, Prosperity: Promoting a Secure and Sustainable Future’. Leaders will continue discussions through July 8 before issuing a final communiqué expected to outline decisions on regional security, climate resilience, economic integration and other priorities identified during the conference.

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Credit: Connie France/AFP

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jul 3 2026 (IPS)

Right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori has won Peru’s presidential runoff, narrowly defeating leftist Roberto Sánchez to become the country’s ninth president in a decade. She inherits a system so engineered for dysfunction that rather than making compromises, she may decide the concentration of power is her only means of survival. The constitution that created this trap was written by her father.

A system built to fail

Keiko, daughter of authoritarian former president Alberto Fujimori, has finally succeeded in her fourth consecutive runoff, having lost in 2011, 2016 and 2021. She won with a margin of roughly a quarter of a percentage point over a candidate who is a close ally of jailed former president Pedro Castillo. Both sides alleged fraud, filed claims and sent their supporters onto the streets.

Peru is often described as a democracy without parties. The party system disintegrated in the 1990s and was never rebuilt. In its place came a sequence of improvised candidacies and personal electoral vehicles that rise and fall with their founders. For the first-round vote on 12 April, the largest ballot paper in Peru’s history listed 35 candidates. Fujimori came first with just 17.19 per cent. Ultimately, most Peruvians didn’t vote for either candidate who made the runoff. A president elected on that basis has a mandate so weak that rivals can dispute it from day one, and they do.

Congressional seats scatter across dozens of parties, none of which dominates. But parties can combine to reach the two-thirds threshold needed to invoke a constitutional clause to impeach and remove a president on the grounds of ‘permanent moral incapacity’, a mechanism Peru’s constitution leaves deliberately vague. The Congress elected in 2021 removed three presidents in one term.

Authoritarian incentives

The constitutional mechanism that enables political instability is the reason Fujimori’s presidency could be dangerous. As she enters office with a razor-thin margin and no congressional majority, she faces an immediate strategic choice. She can seek compromise with her opponents, but this might signal that the threat of impeachment works, inviting it. Or she can move to concentrate power and weaken the institutions that constrain the executive, denying her opponents the tools they could use to remove her.

Everything points towards the second option. Most presidents recently removed by Congress were, at the time of their removal, attempting to govern within the rules, and the rules were weaponised against them. Pedro Castillo tried a different approach, dissolving Congress pre-emptively to forestall his impeachment. He was immediately arrested and removed. A politician who has watched this dynamic consume eight predecessors might conclude that the only way to survive is to change the game.

Keiko’s father ruled Peru from 1990 to 2000 as an elected president who progressively dismantled the institutions that constrained him. Two years into his first term, citing the simultaneous crises of hyperinflation and insurgency, he dissolved Congress and suspended the constitution. The emergency was real, but it was also an opportunity. Fujimori rewrote the constitution to entrench executive power, won re-election in 1995 and then won a fraud-tainted third term before being forced from office within months. His government became synonymous with grand corruption and human rights atrocities, including the forced sterilisation of over 272,000 mostly Indigenous women. After he was forced out in 2000, he was convicted of homicide and kidnapping, and imprisoned.

The constitution Alberto Fujimori wrote to entrench his power is still in force. The moral incapacity clause that the 1993 constitution retained – useful to Fujimori when he controlled Congress – has become the primary weapon congressional majorities have used to remove president after president. The most significant recent constitutional change, the reinstatement of a two-chamber Congress, may end up increasing congressional power. This is the system Keiko now has to deal with.

The costs of dysfunction

Peru’s dysfunction has long been sustained by a comforting fiction: that while politics is chaotic, the economy runs itself. Macro fundamentals have remained relatively stable. Inflation in 2025 ran at around 1.5 per cent, and the economy grew 3.4 per cent in 2024. But economic growth has roughly halved over a decade of turmoil. Poverty, at 27.6 per cent in 2024, remains above pre-pandemic levels. Homicides stand at 10.7 per 100,000 people, alongside an epidemic of extortion.

Freedoms are deteriorating and those who protest pay the highest price. In 2025, attempts to change the pension system triggered Gen Z-led protests that quickly expressed broader anger at corruption, insecurity and political dysfunction. Security forces responded with violence. In December 2024, the CIVICUS Monitor, which tracks civic space conditions globally, downgraded Peru to repressed status, its second-worst rating, citing years of escalating state violence and the systematic harassment of human rights defenders and journalists, who political figures routinely smear as terrorists and traitors.

In March 2025, Congress passed a law giving the Peruvian Agency for International Cooperation extensive powers to control, censor and persecute civil society organisations that receive foreign funding, threatening fines of up to US$720,000 and criminalising any use of foreign funds to support legal action against the Peruvian state. It is, in effect, a law against accountability.

Danger ahead

Keiko Fujimori ran a law-and-order campaign under the slogan ‘Fujimori returns, order returns’, casting the fight against organised crime as a sequel to her father’s 1990s war against insurgency and promising mass deployments of police and military forces. Her party championed a 2025 amnesty law shielding security forces and civilian armed groups from prosecution for disappearances, killings and torture during that conflict, in direct defiance of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Keiko has been evasive about her father’s atrocities and has recast human rights as a matter of access to basic services rather than accountability for past abuses. Her record offers no grounds for optimism about civic space or democratic norms.

Keiko’s father justified breaking the rules that constrained him by pointing to insurgency and economic collapse. Keiko faces no insurgency and no hyperinflation, so if she moves to concentrate power, she will have to find her own justification, perhaps in a crime wave, a security emergency or a conspiracy of her enemies. The Fujimorist playbook could come back with a vengeance.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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