A dairy farmer holds her Kallari cow in the Solapur district of the western Indian state of Maharashtra. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
PUNE, India & ANTALYA, Türkiye, Nov 9 2026 (IPS)

Dairy farmer Sagar Pawar has to buy water and fodder at inflated rates to feed his brood of two buffaloes, three Guernsey cows and a calf. He lives in the Solapur district, which is already drought-prone, but now has to deal with the impacts of a strong El Niño as well.

Pawar was interviewed in the days leading up to the 31st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP31), which opened today in Antalya, Türkiye.

The opening coincided with the release of the World Meteorological Society’s new report, which confirms that 2026 will be one of four warmest years on record.

“The year 2026 continues the protracted streak of exceptional global temperatures, melting ice and rising sea levels, with a very strong El Niño event set to unleash even more heat and extreme weather well into 2027,” the report confirms, highlighting the knock-on risks to the environment, economy, and everyday life.

“Extreme weather has made headlines throughout 2026. Behind the headlines and the statistics in this report are people who suffered the loss of loved ones, threats to their health and safety, flooded homes, failed harvests, empty shelves, lack of water and choking air,” said Celeste Saulo, WMO Secretary General.

“The past four years have been the warmest in the 177-year observational record, and the heat in the oceans is breaking records for the tenth year in a row. The ongoing El Niño is forecast to be one of the strongest on record, and the heat it releases from the ocean will continue to fuel high temperatures and extreme weather into 2027. Forecasts underpinned by sustained observations are more important than ever to monitor our rapidly changing climate and help navigate the increasing risks to societies and economies.”

UN Secretary-General António Guterres reacted to the report, noting, “We have entered a new age of climate extremes. A supersized El Niño is colliding with a planet already superheated by manmade climate change. Climate records keep falling. The human costs keep rising. And those least responsible are suffering first and worst. Leaders must get serious by cutting emissions faster, accelerating a just transition from fossil fuels and delivering the finance and protection vulnerable countries need.

Those among the most vulnerable live in the Solapur district in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, which has long been semi-arid. Rainfall here averages between 427 and 552 mm during the monsoon months of June to September, with few major rivers for farmers to rely on.

Impact on Most Vulnerable

Farmers here have always cultivated millets, alongside gram, lentils, horticultural crops, and fodder, which require limited amounts of water. Dairy farming and horticulture have not just supplemented rural incomes here but are the mainstay of the (rural) economy.

This rain-shadow district, as well as the Marathwada and Vidarbha regions of the state, is familiar with droughts, especially this year due to a strong El Niño.

However, groundwater depletion has hit 47% more wells than in 2015, which was a drought year. In fact, there are many more talukas facing drought this year, including some in districts like Pune, which are not drought-prone.

Solapur district and its talukas (sub-divisions) remain the worst-hit. The entire Solapur district is parched and thirsty, except for a few villages near the Seena River in and around the pilgrim town/taluka of Pandharpur, with parts like Mohol receiving as little as 193.2 mm. Sangola, renowned for its pomegranate production, is one of the 305 talukas declared drought-stricken by the state government.

As against a normal average rainfall of 468.3 mm during the monsoon months, Sangola received just 229.1 mm, amounting to a 52 per cent deficit this year.

Even millets could not be sown this year because the soil lacked the minimal moisture, as Lalit Babar, founder of the Dr Ambedkar Agricultural Development and Research Institute, a non-governmental organisation focused on agricultural research, explained to me. A few farms that planted pomegranates last year are in a poor state, with stunted plants.

Normally, dairy farmers grow their fodder here. But this year, farms were unable to yield any fodder.

In fact, the entire state is facing a fodder crisis, with some districts left with only 63-65 days of fodder. The government is helping households with drinking water. But no water is being supplied for livestock.

Dairy farmer Sagar Pawar tells me, “The Gram Panchayat (rural self-governing body) gives us one tanker of water, amounting to 2 000 litres, once every four days. It is hardly enough.”

The Pawars have a borewell on their land, which is 400 metres deep. But water runs for just two minutes, the first minute yielding only muddy water. What is pumped out is just sufficient for the household.

Hence, Pawar has to buy water and fodder at inflated rates to feed his brood of two buffaloes, three Guernsey cows and a calf.

“The fodder in the market comes from the neighbouring state and is of very low quality, but beggars cannot be choosers,” he rues.

The Waghmode brothers – Raju and Deepak – own 17 animals, including four buffaloes, seven Guernsey and 3 Killari cows, besides five calves.

Alike other dairy farmers, they are compelled to buy their own fodder and water for their animals.

“We are trying to store fodder and water to safeguard ourselves. But our storage capacity is limited,” Raju Waghmode tells me. Hanumant Kadam is the biggest dairy farmer in Dongarwadi village in Sangola, with 60 milch animals – 54 Guernsey cows, two Killari cows, and four Jaffrabadi buffaloes.

In addition, he also breeds 40 sheep and a goat. His 8-acre farm normally grows fodder for his animals, besides a little millet for family consumption. The drought has hit him hard.

“I can only buy limited amounts of the required fodder and protein feed for my animals; hence, I feed them just enough for survival.”

Kadam needs an average of 5000 litres of water daily for his animals, which, at inflated rates, amounts to a colossal sum. This means feeding a Guernsey cow just 15-20 kg of fodder, as against its normal requirement of 30 kg per day.

The same applies to his Indian killari breed, buffaloes, goats, and sheep. Consequently, milk yield has dropped. His Guernsey cows now yield only 5 litres per day, as against the normal 11 litres per day, while the milk yield from his Killari cows stands at 1 litre, as against 3 litres daily.

A dairy farmer needs fodder, protein feed and water for every animal to profit from his brood. With inflated costs, most farmers cannot afford to keep their livestock. Dairy farmer Battu Waghmode had to sell off his 30 cows and buffaloes at a throwaway price. The Atpadkars’ 3-acre farm cannot yield fodder for their buffaloes, goats and sheep.

“Our borewell can yield water for only an hour daily, which is just enough for our family,” Chandan Atpadkar tells me. Hence, they have decided to sell all their animals for now.

Rural distress can be assessed from the fact that non-banking financial institutions (NBFCs), which are major players in rural India, are curbing all lending as a cautionary move.

Government Relief for Villagers

The state government has announced an examination fee waiver for students in the 305 talukas declared drought-stricken to help the affected people. Financial relief has also been announced for the affected population, with water tankers being arranged for drinking purposes through urban local and rural self-governing bodies.

However, livelihood issues have been generally overlooked, as farmers point out, although the government has announced plans for a fodder bank to provide for future emergencies. The government has sought drought-mitigation proposals from district collectors within a fortnight while seeking immediate information on fodder and water availability at the village level.

There is also a move to grow spineless cactus as a substitute fodder for cattle across the drought-prone Marathwada region. But farmers remain sceptical. “We need immediate relief, right now.”

In Dongarwadi village in Sangola, water can be accessed only by 15 percent of the population, since water tankers cannot reach families who live on their farms, away from the asphalt roads of the main village settlement. Hence, water tankers arranged by the grassroots development organisation, Dr Ambedkar Sheti Vikas va Sanshodhan Sanstha, are the only lifeline for locals.

Role of Climate Finance

The drought in Maharashtra has come at a time when some other natural disasters have also struck South Asia. Massive floods in Northeast India and flash floods in Nepal have devastated wide swathes of land. These natural disasters have once again emphasised the necessity of climate finance for adaptation and mitigation, as well as for building resilience in the Global South, which the forthcoming COP 31 aims to address.

This issue assumes especial importance in view of the forecasts made by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) for the October-December season, given the high global sea surface temperatures. Sea-surface temperatures reflect strengthening El Niño.

Notably, the commitment by developed countries to mobilise US$100 billion annually in climate finance for developing countries, which was reinforced at the 2010 Cancun climate conference and incorporated into the 2015 Paris Agreement, was not achieved by the original 2020 deadline. Despite the establishment of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and a Climate Finance Delivery Plan, the target was only reached in 2022, when developed countries provided and mobilised US$115.9 billion.

However, developing countries maintain that this amount falls far short of their needs. The NEED’S Report, or UNFCCC’s Second Report on the Determination of the Needs of Developing Country Parties, published in 2025, estimates that between US$5 trillion and US$6.9 trillion is required to implement the climate adaptation and mitigation measures identified in developing countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) by 2030. The report notes that this figure does not capture the full extent of their climate finance needs.

As Shravan Shankar, a climate finance expert and CEO of CLIMAKE, explains, the original thinking was that prioritising emissions reduction would help limit the future costs of adapting to climate change.

“Adaptation was acknowledged, but it was still seen as a ‘future’ need,” he says. “The idea was that if we mobilise enough towards mitigation, we will be able to sufficiently reduce emissions, reduce the impact of climate change, and consequently reduce adaptation and resilience needs.”

However, the scale and urgency of the climate challenge have since changed considerably. Countries’ net-zero commitments mean that mitigation must now extend beyond renewable energy and clean mobility to more complex areas such as industrial decarbonisation and agricultural emissions reduction. These sectors are harder to commercialise and cannot necessarily follow the same investment pathways as renewable energy.

More significantly, the consequences of climate change are already being felt, making adaptation and resilience an immediate priority rather than a future consideration.

“Arguably the most significant development is that the effects of climate change are clear and present, and they are devastating,” Shankar says.

This presents a particularly difficult challenge for low-income developing economies, which often lack the financial resources and institutional capacity to protect their populations and economies against increasingly severe climate impacts. Adaptation requires investment in practical measures, from climate-resilient seeds and agricultural inputs to irrigation systems, reliable water access and improved farming practices to prevent food losses.

As Shankar points out, these countries need resources to implement measures that can protect livelihoods and strengthen resilience to drought, water stress and rising temperatures. Yet these investments often struggle to attract private capital because, unlike many renewable energy projects, they do not necessarily generate direct commercial returns.

Echoing Shankar’s views on the global emphasis on mitigation so far, Arun Krishnan, Program Director of Climate Finance at the World Resources Institute (WRI) in India, feels the need to look at adaptation and mitigation separately.

Much of the mitigation, such as utility-scale solar in favourable markets, has become commercially bankable and can attract mainstream finance without concessional support. The financing challenge lies increasingly in adaptation and in areas of mitigation that are not yet commercially viable.

“Developing countries need finance for adaptation and hard-to-finance mitigation at a much greater scale and on far better terms. Adaptation remains one of the most underfunded areas because it generates benefits largely through avoided losses rather than direct revenue,” Krishnan said.

Yet it is often vulnerable communities that experience climate impacts first and most acutely.

Emphasising the need for accessibility to climate finance for those who need it most, he calls for more grants and concessional finance. Calling for blended finance, guarantees and risk-sharing mechanisms to mobilise private capital herein, Krishnan advocates a stronger role for regulators like central banks, as well as development banks and rural and cooperative lenders, to channel finance to farmers and small businesses.

The challenge for the Global South is not merely to bridge the enormous gap between financial commitments and estimated requirements but also to distinguish the incremental costs of climate change from pre-existing developmental deficits and vulnerabilities that amplify disaster impacts, says Dr Nilanjan Ghosh, Vice President, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), and a distinguished ecological economist with expertise in climate finance.

“Adaptation finance must, therefore, be embedded within a broader framework of development resilience, encompassing water governance, ecosystem restoration, climate-resilient infrastructure, institutional preparedness and disaster-risk reduction.”

These discussions are even more urgent, as the WMO State of the Climate Update 2026 shows that the past 12 years have individually been the warmest on record, with the past four years being the top four. The global average surface temperature for January–September 2026 was about 1.47 °C above the pre-industrial average. This figure is likely to rise through the end of the year due to the warming effect of El Niño, which has been intensifying since August and is expected to be the strongest on record by December.

Earth’s energy imbalance is rising, and the earth system is accumulating heat at an accelerating rate. The imbalance reached its highest level since monitoring began, as greenhouse gases trap unprecedented amounts of heat and upset the equilibrium between incoming energy from the sun and outgoing energy. The ocean absorbs 90% of this excess heat, and 2026 is on track to be the tenth successive year of record ocean warmth.

Sea level is the highest on record, and sea-surface temperatures hit monthly records during 2026. The long-term retreat of glaciers continues, with the annual mass loss of ice in 2025 filling five Olympic pools every second of the year. Freshwater storage has been dwindling since 2014.

The report commented on several natural disasters across the world caused by climate extremes including the Indian monsoon rainfall deficit from June to September, which affected about 705 000. The monsoon began with June rainfall around 40% below normal. All-India rainfall was around 12% below normal by 30 September, raising concerns for agriculture and water resources.

Additional reporting: Cecilia Russell
IPS UN Bureau Report

Excerpt:

Houses damaged by the flood in Trishuli Bazaar, Nuwakot. Credit: Sharada Bashyal/Oxfam

By Umar Manzoor Shah
NAIROBI & SRINAGAR, India, Nov 5 2026 (IPS)

The world’s wealthiest people are driving a disproportionate share of climate pollution while poorer communities bear the heaviest costs of floods, heatwaves, food insecurity and other climate disasters, according to a new report by Oxfam International.

The report, Disaster Divide: How Climate Chaos Deepens Inequality and Enriches the Few, published on October 27, 2026, argues that climate change is not simply an environmental crisis. It is also deepening existing economic and social inequalities, leaving people with the fewest resources struggling to survive and recover from increasingly destructive events.

The report highlights a widening divide between those who contribute most to global emissions and those who are most exposed to their consequences. Wealthy households can often afford safer homes, insurance, private transport and alternative accommodation when disasters strike. Poorer families, meanwhile, may lose their homes, livelihoods and savings, sometimes without the means to rebuild them.

“The richest 0.1% of people generate more consumption-based emissions than the poorest 3.5 billion combined,” says the report, highlighting the enormous gap between the environmental footprints of the wealthiest and the world’s poorest populations.

Oxfam argues that addressing the climate crisis requires more than cutting emissions. Governments must also confront the concentration of wealth, improve access to climate finance and ensure that disaster recovery policies protect vulnerable communities rather than disproportionately benefiting those who are already wealthy.

Mateo Adarve Zuluaga, Global Research and Advocacy Lead at Oxfam GB. Credit: Oxfam

In an exclusive interview with IPS, Mateo Adarve Zuluaga, Global Research and Advocacy Lead at Oxfam GB, said that the report shows that wealth can buy protection from the climate crisis. He said that the richest can purchase safer homes in better-protected communities and easily absorb rising food and water costs, while billionaires go as far as buying islands and building underground bunkers.

“California’s wildfires illustrate this starkly. Early warning systems alert wealthy residents, who hire private firefighters and evacuate by helicopter to five-star hotels, often with bills prepaid by their insurers. Those insurers charge up to six-figure annual premiums, and such policies are typically available only for properties valued above US$1 million.”

According to Zuluaga, poorer communities cannot cope in the same way, and in Altadena, a historically Black and brown middle-class community with a legacy of generational home ownership, many homeowners had no insurance or only partial cover.

He said that when the 2025 wildfires struck, countless families lost their homes, and with them, the main source of wealth built over decades. Desperate, many sold their ruined properties at discounted rates to predatory real estate companies, giving up both financial security and community ties.

“More broadly, for people already living in poverty, every flood, drought, wildfire or heatwave strips away scarce resources, destroying livelihoods and homes and pushing many into debt, displacement or homelessness. Hit by successive shocks, they struggle to recover and fall deeper into poverty. The report calls climate disasters “inequality machines”: a vicious cycle in which inequality creates the conditions for disaster, and disaster in turn deepens inequality. This is the disaster divide.”

When asked if the report estimates that the richest 1% have been responsible for around 20% of global warming since 1990 and that what policy measures should governments introduce to ensure that the wealthiest individuals and major polluters bear a fairer share of the costs of climate change? Zuluaga said  that the emissions of the super-rich and major corporations are driving the climate crisis, and together with historically high-emitting rich countries, they carry a responsibility to cut emissions first and fastest.

He added that they must also help redress the damage they have caused, including its impact on low-income countries and people living in poverty.

According to Zuluaga, governments should begin by adopting ambitious national climate plans aligned with the Paris Agreement and the fair share principle, cutting emissions fast enough to keep warming to 1.5°C.

He said that under this principle, the richest countries and the richest individuals, whose emissions far exceed everyone else’s, must lead the way with rapid, deep reductions.

“Taxation is the second key tool. Governments should impose permanent progressive taxes on the wealth and income of the richest 1% and introduce a permanent rich polluter tax on fossil fuel corporations so that profits above a low benchmark face a higher rate. Wealth and income from polluting investments should be taxed at additional higher rates, alongside windfall taxes on excess profits gained through market control. Punitive taxes on high-emitting luxury items and activities, such as private jets, would further discourage the most extreme emissions,” Zuluaga said, adding that finally, governments should regulate corporations and investors to cut emissions radically and fairly.

This means compelling them to disclose their Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions across operations and supply chains, report regularly on progress, and set ambitious science-based targets with clear pathways for reducing emissions across all scopes in line with the Paris Agreement.

When asked if the research done in the report highlights the role of billionaire investments in high-emission industries and that how governments can hold wealthy investors accountable for climate damage without allowing corporations to shift the costs onto workers and low-income consumers?

Zuluaga termed it part of the just transition dilemma, and it can be addressed by making the wealthiest and most polluting actors pay for their pollution.

“Governments should introduce a polluter profits tax on fossil fuel companies, ensuring renewables become more profitable than fossil fuels, with revenues funding climate action in the Global South. Since the richest 1% have seen their wealth surge by US$33.9 trillion since 2015 while billionaires pay only around 0.3% in real taxes, taxing the super-rich is both feasible and fair. Governments should also end tax abuse by multinationals through effective global tax reforms,” he said.

To protect workers and consumers, energy should be treated as a human right and public good, with public and community ownership, transparency and community oversight guarding against elite capture. Finally, governments should shift away from the “Wall Street Consensus”, which socialises risk and privatises profit, so costs do not fall on ordinary people.

Activists at COP30. Credit: Karelia Pallan/Oxfam America

Speaking about the safeguards governments should introduce to ensure that public disaster-relief funds reach vulnerable people rather than reinforcing existing inequalities,

Resilience, according to Zuluaga, should not be measured by how much hardship people can endure but by how well societies look after one another. For too long, he said, the burden has fallen on the poor while the wealthy escape responsibility. To change this, governments must curb corporate power and ensure that climate response serves human needs rather than shareholder profit.

“First, governments should regulate corporate conduct in emergencies through enforceable codes and standards. Profit ceilings or excess profits taxes can prevent firms from profiteering on emergency contracts, while permanent windfall taxes on crisis profiteers, including a polluter profit tax, can fund climate action and be reactivated whenever disaster strikes. Temporary caps on prices and margins for essential goods during declared disasters would protect people at their most vulnerable. Insurance markets also need oversight to prevent excessive premiums or withdrawal of coverage, supported by tools such as government-backed reinsurance, catastrophe pools and affordability programmes.”

Second, he said, food systems require particular attention, and that the governments should stop further market concentration in agricultural inputs and commodities through windfall taxes, ban or tightly regulate speculative trading in food during crises, and cap the prices of essential food and farming inputs in emergencies.

“Finally, the public sector must be strengthened to lead disaster response and recovery, reducing reliance on private contractors. Public finance should take priority over private finance and be delivered as grants rather than loans, so relief does not deepen the debt of affected communities.”

Pubudini Wickramaratne, Land Rights Policy Lead at Oxfam International. Credit: Oxfam

Pubudini Wickramaratne, Land Rights Policy Lead at Oxfam International, in an interview with IPS said that Nepal is a powerful example of one of the greatest injustices of the climate crisis: those who have done the least to cause it are often suffering its worst consequences.

She said that despite contributing less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, Nepal is experiencing increasingly severe climate impacts, from glacier melt and flooding to extreme heat and landslides.

“This reflects a much wider pattern across South Asia and the world. The people and countries most exposed to climate disasters are often those with the smallest carbon footprints. Meanwhile, a relatively small, wealthy segment of the global population is responsible for a disproportionate share of emissions. Our report sh

ows that the richest 1% account for around 17% of global emissions, while the richest 0.1% have contributed nearly 400 times more than the poorest half of humanity to the increased likelihood of the extreme heat events we are experiencing today,” Wickramaratne said.

Meanwhile, Oxfam argues that funding should prioritise vulnerable populations and not create additional debt burdens for countries already struggling with climate-related losses.

The report also challenges governments to examine the role of public policy in determining who benefits from economic growth and who bears its environmental costs.

Reducing emissions, it argues, must be accompanied by measures that make societies fairer and better prepared for climate shocks.

The report does not present climate disasters as isolated events that affect everyone equally. Instead, it describes a cycle in which inequality increases exposure to harm, disasters deepen poverty, and the resulting economic losses make future recovery more difficult.

It says that breaking that cycle will require both climate action and policies that address the distribution of wealth and resources.

With climate-related disasters becoming an increasingly pressing challenge for governments worldwide, Oxfam argues that the measure of an effective response should not be limited to the amount of money spent or infrastructure rebuilt.

It should, as per the report, also consider whether people who have contributed least to global warming can access the protection and support they need  and whether they are able to recover without being pushed further into poverty.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Shared memories of nuclear suffering in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Semipalatinsk are helping drive new cooperation between Japan and Kazakhstan, linking nuclear disarmament, interfaith dialogue and peace education for future generations. Credit: INPS Japan

By Katsuhiro Asagiri
ASTANA / TOKYO, Nov 5 2026 (IPS)

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and decades of nuclear testing at Semipalatinsk left Japan and Kazakhstan with different histories of nuclear suffering. Those experiences have helped sustain a partnership that is now finding new avenues through interfaith dialogue.

Soka Gakkai International, or SGI, has worked with Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry, its United Nations mission and civil society organizations to explain the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and bring governments and activists together to discuss disarmament.

The Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions is providing another setting in which that cooperation can develop. On June 30, Soka Gakkai and Kazakhstan’s International Center for Interfaith and Interreligious Dialogue, known as ICIID, signed a memorandum of understanding in Tokyo. They are now discussing practical initiatives, including preserving the memory of nuclear suffering and educating young people about peace.

“The priority is not to create another programme on paper, but to identify two or three areas where we can do something together and demonstrate real results,” Gulsana Kozhabay, the center’s board chair, said in written responses to INPS Japan.

Yoshiyuki Nagaoka, executive director of Soka Gakkai’s Office of Public Affairs, who represented the organization at last year’s eighth congress, said in a separate written interview that the memorandum had brought their cooperation into “a new stage.”

Their responses point to an effort to build on existing disarmament partnerships by bringing survivors’ testimony and peace education more fully into the interfaith forum’s work.

With the MoU: Bakhytzhan Suyundikov, chargé d’affaires ad interim of the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Japan (second left); Gulsana Kozhabay, chair of the board of the ICIID (center left); Shigeo Hasegawa, general director of Soka Gakkai in Japan (center right) and Yoshiyuki Nagaoka, executive director of Soka Gakkai’s Office of Public Affairs (extreme right). Credit: Seikyo Shimbun

A Partnership Rooted in Nuclear Experience

For Kazakhstan, disarmament is inseparable from national history.

The Soviet Union conducted 456 nuclear tests at Semipalatinsk between 1949 and 1989. Kazakhstan closed the site in August 1991, shortly before independence, and subsequently relinquished the nuclear weapons left on its territory after the Soviet collapse.

The first USSR nuclear test “Joe 1” at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, 29 August 1949. Credit: CTBTO

Kozhabay said the humanitarian dimension was particularly important at a time when nuclear weapons were increasingly discussed in terms of deterrence and strategic balance.

“These histories give both our countries a particular responsibility to keep the human consequences of nuclear weapons visible,” she wrote.

Soka Gakkai representatives began participating in the Congress at Kazakhstan’s invitation in 2018. The following year, an SGI delegation visited Semey and the former Semipalatinsk nuclear test site.

Soka Gakkai emphasized the significance of its delegation having witnessed the realities of the site firsthand and said it hoped to explore opportunities for more people to visit and deepen their commitment to peace and nuclear abolition.

Those exchanges have also helped produce a tangible record of suffering: I Want to Live On: The Untold Stories of the Polygon, a documentary made through cooperation between SGI and Kazakhstan’s nongovernmental Center for International Security and Policy, or CISP.

SGI described the film as a project developed with an NGO through exchanges dating back to 2018. It brings the experiences of people affected by nuclear testing into the debate over nuclear weapons.

Building on Diplomatic Cooperation

SGI’s partnership with Kazakhstan has also developed in settings where governments and civil society meet.

Documentary “I want to Live on” produced by CISP supported by SGI. Credit:CISP

SGI and Kazakhstan’s U.N. mission have co-hosted side events at Meetings of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and during Preparatory Committee sessions for Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conferences. These gatherings, he said, have brought together government officials and civil society representatives to help build international support for nuclear abolition.

In 2023, SGI worked with Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, CISP and other partners to support a regional conference on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and the Central Asian nuclear-weapon-free zone. Representatives of all five Central Asian states participated.

In March 2025, Kazakhstan’s U.N. mission, CISP and SGI co-hosted a screening of the documentary at the United Nations alongside a nuclear-ban treaty meeting, connecting communities’ experiences with international policy discussions.

“What matters, I believe, is that these efforts continue, rather than remain one-off initiatives,” Nagaoka said.

He expressed a determination to deepen exchanges with Kazakhstan and build further examples of cooperation between civil society and intergovernmental diplomacy.

The memorandum with ICIID does not replace those relationships with the Foreign Ministry, the U.N. mission or nongovernmental organizations. Rather, the interviews suggest an effort to draw on their accumulated experience for new educational and exchange programs within an interfaith framework.

A Group photo of participants of the regional conference on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and nuclear-free-zone in Central Asia held on August 29, 2023. Credit: Jibek Joly TV Channel

From Religious Dialogue to Peace Education

Founded in 2003, the Congress has established a continuing forum for representatives of different faiths. At its 24th Secretariat meeting in Astana on Oct. 7, participants repeatedly asked what the trust built through those encounters should now produce.

Mohamed Abdelsalam, Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Elders. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri/INPS Japan

Mohamed Abdelsalam, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Elders, warned that “a declaration that is not implemented loses its functionality.” He called for clear responsibilities and follow-through that could be assessed against results.

Kozhabay sees youth peace education as a starting point for cooperation with Soka Gakkai. She proposed connecting the experiences of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Semipalatinsk through youth exchanges, educational programs and public dialogue.

Drawing on the experience of Soka educational institutions in peace education and nuclear abolition education, Soka Gakkai is also exploring the possibility of sharing educational programs for young people through cooperation with Kazakhstan.

One project already under discussion is a Kazakh-language edition of six essays on peace by the late Daisaku Ikeda, former president of SGI. Editions already existed in English, Russian and Uzbek, with publication in Kazakh planned for 2027.

The book is not the partnership’s overarching objective. It is one initial undertaking intended to encourage young people to think about peace.

Kozhabay said she did not want cooperation confined to a predetermined list of projects. She welcomed Soka Gakkai’s proposals for joint publications, educational materials and cultural exchanges, as well as opportunities for her center to participate in the organization’s international initiatives.

“For me, a genuine partnership should work in both directions,” she said.

Yoshiyuki Nagaoka, executive director of Soka Gakkai’s Office of Public Affairs. Credit: Soka Gakkai

The potential areas of cooperation extend beyond nuclear abolition and peace education.

At the October meeting, the Secretariat adopted a document on religions’ role in addressing climate change and an ethical code for artificial intelligence in religious contexts.

Kozhabay similarly proposed bringing religious leaders, researchers, technology specialists and young people together to discuss digital manipulation, reliable religious information and human responsibility.

Japan’s Association of Shinto Shrines, Jinja Honcho, also contributed to the climate document. Its involvement illustrates how cooperation with Japan draws on more than one religious tradition.

Both documents are advisory, however. Further discussions are also needed before proposals for educational use of the documentary, environmental cooperation or AI-related exchanges become new joint programs. Existing achievements and prospective projects must be distinguished.

The meeting also supported a Kazakhstan–Holy See initiative concerning the rights of children with incurable diseases. The common thread connecting these different subjects is an effort to translate shared ethical convictions into cooperation that protects human dignity.

Religious leaders, representatives of international organizations and Kazakh officials gather for the 24th Secretariat meeting of the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions at the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation in Astana on October 7, 2026. The gathering reflected Kazakhstan’s longstanding efforts to turn interfaith dialogue into practical international cooperation. Credit: The press service of the congress.

Erlan Karin,Vice President of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Left). Photo Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri/INPS Japan

Vice President Erlan Karin, who chaired the meeting, emphasized the need to turn decisions into action. He asked the Secretariat and its partners to prepare a concept and phased plan for a proposed Global Movement for Peace, with initial results in 2027, ahead of the ninth congress in 2028.

Kozhabay was explicit about the limits of the Congress’s authority.

“The Congress cannot negotiate arms-control treaties, and it should not pretend to replace governments, diplomats or international legal mechanisms,” she wrote.

Its contribution, she said, was to preserve awareness of nuclear weapons’ humanitarian consequences, engage younger generations and maintain dialogue across political divides. Even without negotiating agreements, it could help build the public, ethical and humanitarian support needed to sustain them.

That is where the two interviewees’ views converge: remembering nuclear suffering should not be confined to looking backward. Education and international cooperation can carry that memory into decisions about the future.

Paolo S. Affatato of Agenzia Fides(Left) and Bishop Bailey Wells(Right). Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri/INPS Japan

“Certainly, I think it does have impact,” she replied, while expressing a wish for greater influence at government level.

“There’s nothing like meeting in person to build those relationships,” she said.

What those relationships produce is the next question. Cooperation developed over years between SGI and Kazakhstan’s diplomatic institutions and civil society is now informing discussions of new projects with ICIID.

For Kozhabay, success over the next decade should be measured not simply by the number of meetings held, but by what was “actually created, implemented or changed” because people came together.

For those seeking to preserve the memories of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Semipalatinsk, that is more than a question about the future of interfaith dialogue. It is a question of what can be done now to prevent nuclear suffering from being repeated.

This article is brought to you by INPS Japan in collaboration with Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with UN ECOSOC.

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

By Saber Azam
GENEVA, Nov 2 2026 (IPS)

Émile Zola, the well-known French journalist, novelist, playwright, and key figure in theatrical naturalism, who played a significant role in France’s “political liberalization,” inspired me to speak out.

Saber Azam

I do not claim the knowledge, charisma, distinction, or public recognition of the renowned writer. Yet I use my pen and raise my voice to express my indignation at injustice and prejudice against humanity and to decry those who have turned the world into an explosive time bomb. The world’s tragic state must sicken all who care about humankind’s destiny. International law and order are frequently violated, and bloody, unlawful wars are waged. When countless innocent children, women, and men are regularly slaughtered; when space is at risk of militarization; when treachery becomes the “art of the deal” in every field; when rights, virtue, and decency are systematically violated; when bigotry is practiced everywhere; when conflicts become a source of enormous wealth for a few; when notorious criminals are protected; and when family and other human bonds are destroyed, every active conscience must awaken and act to stop the madness. Our world faces not only threats of insecurity, social and financial collapse, religious confrontation and wars, and climate disasters, but also serious moral decay and ruin. These crises worsen daily.

I do not intend to write literary pieces or politically acceptable articles, but rather to make my points known in plain language despite the risks. Therefore, I raise my voice and declare:

I Accuse the World Leaders

After World War II, the United Nations (UN) was established to “maintain international peace and security … take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace … develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples … achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian nature, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.” Thus, this body was created with a “world-loving” spirit.

To this end, the Security Council, a powerful 15-member body, was established to act on behalf of all countries to “[maintain] international peace and security.” Its resolutions are binding. Five “superpowers”—the United States, the Soviet Union/Russian Federation, China, the United Kingdom, and France—were granted not only permanent membership in this esteemed body but also the right to veto proposals before the Council. The rest of the world had to settle for the remaining ten seats, allocated for two-year terms according to an uneven geographic distribution. This arrangement glaringly disregards the historical injustices committed against hundreds of millions of indigenous populations across the Americas, Asia, Africa, the Oceanic Islands, and Australia, as well as the principle of majority rule.

At the same time, “with a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations,” the 54-member Economic and Social Council was established under Article 60 of the UN Charter to strengthen cooperation among nations in social and economic development and in universal respect for human rights and dignity. Each member state serves on this body for three years.

On the legal front, the 15-member International Court of Justice was also established to peacefully resolve disputes among states. Each judge serves a nine-year term. Article 65 of the UN Charter provides that this institution will intervene “at the request of whatever body [Member States] may be authorized by or in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations” to file a legal complaint against another state.

With the above internationally recognized political, social, economic, and judicial structures in place to maintain and strengthen peaceful cooperation, there was hope that they would be used earnestly for their intended purposes; that wars and destruction would end; that future generations would live in peace; that social and economic progress would be equitable; and that all challenges would be resolved in accordance with the UN Charter.

By 17 September 2026, the five permanent members of the Security Council, primarily the former Soviet Union/Russian Federation and the United States, had vetoed at least 248 resolutions to protect their interests and those of their closest allies, ignoring the “world-loving” spirit of cooperation they had previously embraced.

Article 4 of the Charter ties UN membership directly to a state’s “peace-loving” nature and its willingness to accept the obligations set out in the Charter. Articles 5 and 6 authorize the Security Council to recommend preventive or enforcement measures to the General Assembly, including suspending or expelling a member state that consistently violates the Charter’s principles. However, since its establishment in 1945, no rogue member state has been expelled from the UN.

Article 52 of the Charter states that nothing precludes the establishment of regional peace and security entities, provided their aims and activities are consistent with the UN’s. The article therefore implicitly recommends that, on matters of peace and security, disputes between or among states, and social, political, and economic development, all countries use the diverse “world-loving” UN structures. However, repeated Soviet vetoes in the Security Council may have prompted the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in April 1949 and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) in February 1955. The Soviet Union requested NATO membership in 1954 but was denied. These regional military alliances certainly “pushed” the communist giant to establish the rival Warsaw Pact in May 1955, contributing to the Cold War and significantly diminishing the UN’s role in world peace and security.

Meanwhile, the Organization of American States was created in April 1948. The European Coal and Steel Community was established in April 1951, leading to the European Economic Community under the Rome Treaty in March 1957 and the European Union under the Maastricht Treaty in February 1992. These developments prompted other regions to establish their own structures to protect their interests. The Organization of African Unity was created in May 1963 and became the African Union in July 2002 under the Sirte Declaration. Other regional entities included the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (August 1967) and the Organization of Islamic Conference (1972), which became the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (June 2011). Additional military, political, and economic organizations of varying importance were created in other regions, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (April 1996), the Union of South American States (May 2008), and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (December 2011).

The International Court of Justice has been largely ineffective. Superpowers pressure it to support their “preferred belligerent” in interstate conflicts. The International Criminal Court, established in 2002 despite a long history of calls for its creation to punish genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, has been systematically hampered by powerful and wealthy countries from fulfilling its duties properly and consistently.

As a result, UN structures have failed to achieve peace, justice, prosperity, and progress for all, and most other entities have also fallen short of these objectives. The self-centered approach of influential countries, particularly the five permanent members of the Security Council, drives this flagrant disregard for the much-needed “world-loving” spirit of cooperation.

[To be continued]

Saber Azam is a former UN official. He is the author of Soraya: The Other Princess and Hell’s Mouth: A Journey to the Heart of West African Jungles. His third book, Nowhere to Go, will be published soon.

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

This is the first article in a four-part series. The remaining three will follow.

WFP warehouse workers unloading supplies in Haiti. Credit: WFP

By WFP
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Nov 2 2026 (IPS)

Warnings by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) that Haiti’s fragile food security gains could quickly unravel are becoming a reality. New analysis indicates acute hunger in the country is continuing its upward trajectory and is set to reach record levels. Violence, economic instability, poor agricultural performance and displacement, along with the growing impact of El Niño, are driving this bleak outlook.

According to the latest analysis from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), 6.35 million people are likely to be acutely food insecure from March through June 2027. This is an increase of more than half a million people compared to the same period in 2026. Almost two million people within this group will likely face Emergency (IPC 4) levels of hunger – this means they are likely to experience severe food shortages and may resort to extreme measures to meet basic food needs.

The dire estimate follows WFP’s warning earlier this year that modest improvements, compared to earlier projections, remained fragile and that sustained support was essential to protect any progress against entrenched food insecurity. WFP is urging the international community to step up and help Haiti.

With more than 1.5 million Haitians forced to flee their homes, people living in areas controlled by armed groups as well as those taking shelter in displacement sites are particularly vulnerable. Displaced families are unable to work or grow their own food. Most live in unhygienic and overcrowded conditions. Even with humanitarian food assistance providing some level of safety net, families are struggling to secure a meal every day.

“Our teams are witnessing increasing levels of desperation as violence continues to displace families,” said Lauren Landis, WFP Country Director in Haiti. “Many have been displaced multiple times and are arriving with nothing but the clothes on their backs. This, combined with the conditions they’re forced to live in, creates conditions ripe for hunger and malnutrition to take hold.”

Hunger outside urban centers is also projected to deepen. Food insecurity across several rural areas expected to deteriorate from Crisis (IPC 3) to Emergency (IPC 4) levels from March-June 2027 when compared to the same period in 2026. El Niño is causing concurrent droughts and floods that are already reducing harvests and compromising farmers’ capacities to prepare for the next planting season. At the same time, agricultural and market supply chains are constrained by the presence of armed groups, making it challenging for farmers to deliver their products to local markets.

“This multifaceted crisis reminds us how important it is to not just provide life-saving emergency food assistance, but also to scale up longer-term investments that help communities withstand shocks and protect their livelihoods from events like El Niño,” said Landis.

So far this year, WFP has worked together with the Government to support 2.6 million Haitians with assistance including emergency food and cash transfers, school meals (74 per cent of which are made with food grown by local farmers), social protection programmes, and malnutrition prevention for babies and young children.

WFP also supports vulnerable communities through anticipatory cash transfers, the rehabilitation of water management infrastructure and rural roads, and micro-insurance that protects farmers against crop losses caused by drought or excessive rainfall.

WFP urgently requires USD 78 million to sustain these operations through March.

IPS UN Bureau

Lana Nusseibeh from United Arab Emirates, candidate for the position of the next Secretary-General, briefs reporters after the informal dialogue held with the candidates for the position of the next Secretary-General. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 30 2026 (IPS)

As the race for the next UN Secretary-General moves forward, the campaign of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Assistant Minister for Political Affairs, Lana Nusseibeh, has faced significant pushback over the country’s involvement in the ongoing Sudanese Civil War.

Over the past three years, the conflict in Sudan has deteriorated into one of the world’s most dire humanitarian crises, marked by mass civilian displacement and casualties, rampant human rights abuses, and widespread hunger.

This month marks one year since the sharp escalation in hostilities in El Fasher following the siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), during which civilians were subjected to severe human rights violations and persistent obstructions to humanitarian aid, and entire communities were displaced.

Extensive data from the UN, human rights organizations, and U.S. intelligence show that the UAE has been a major supplier of weapons, vehicles, and logistical support to the RSF. In July, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN MENA) urged the UN General Assembly and member states to impose an immediate arms embargo on the UAE, citing grave acts of genocide targeting non-Arab communities in Darfur.

On October 21, the UAE announced that Nusseibeh would enter the race to become the next UN Secretary-General, seeking to succeed incumbent Secretary-General António Guterres following the completion of his second term on December 31. Nusseibeh has previously dismissed claims of Emirati involvement in RSF activities as “baseless,” describing them as disinformation to “deflect responsibility and undermine international efforts to address the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.”

On October 27, a press briefing brought together international policy experts, human rights advocates, and Sudanese survivors to discuss Nusseibeh’s campaign and its potential implications for the UN’s credibility and ability to protect civilians.

Speaking at the event, Ibrahim Alduma, a native of El Fasher and Chief Programs Officer at Sudan Action Hub, shared a personal account of the civilian toll the country experienced following last year’s escalation. Alduma recounted how his family was trapped in El Fasher when hostiltiies erupted, faced with persistent telecommunications disruptions, to the point where he didn’t know if they were still alive. He also shared that his childhood friend was killed during the escalation, only to find out two days after the fact.

Alduma highlighted the U.S. government’s determination in February 2025 that the RSF had committed genocide and the following sanctions that were imposed on seven comapnies affiliated with the RSF, all of which were either based in or directly linked to the UAE.

“(Nusseibeh) is the one who was lobbying to remove UAE from the resolution of the European Parliament, and now she is running for United Nations Secretary General. So, mainly when we talk about policy, I know that the world has known everything about what happened in El Fasher, but the question is not if they’re informed or not,” Alduma said.

Kenneth Roth, former Executive Director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) and a speaker at the briefing, noted that while member states face growing pressure to elect a female Secretary-General, Nusseibeh’s late entry reflects a broader difficulty within the UN to reach a consensus. Roth described Nusseibeh’s candidacy as both “inappropriate” and “unsuitable.”

“At this stage, I think it’s really beyond dispute that the UAE was sending arms and mercenaries to the RSF. I think it’s fair to say the RSF would not have been able to be nearly as successful militarily as it was and has been without that support from the UAE,” said Roth. “After having basically put El Fasher under siege for some 500 days a year ago, it (the RSF) went in and just started slaughtering people. Another genocide, and the reason I think Lana Nusseibeh is an utterly inappropriate candidate for UN Secretary-General is that she denies this reality.”

Roth further noted that Nusseibeh’s repeated denial of the UAE’s involvement in RSF military activity is not based on factual findings, declaring that she will “destroy her credibility.” He compared her to former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, conversely describing Annan’s approach as firmly rooted in human rights and advocacy.

“We cannot afford to have the UN led by somebody who is a genocide denier, and indeed somebody who heads a government that has been aiding and abetting genocide, that is basically criminally complicit in that genocide, and she’s a lead person in covering that up,” said Roth.

Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, emphasized the role of Western intelligence in tracking the crisis. He highlighted that U.S. and British intelligence actively tracked and were aware of substantial levels of Emirati involvement, concluding that the UAE provided the RSF with the support needed to execute its human rights violations.

“For those of us who worked in El Fasher, we first warned El Fasher to the U.N. Security Council in a private briefing in July 2023 to see diplomats asking how we make sure this doesn’t happen again. It’s a slap in the face for the dead and for the survivors. Let’s be clear. It’s a second dehumanization of these people because it’s acting like somehow this is a murder mystery. That this is Colombo. This is murder,” said Raymond.

“The intelligence worked. The early warning worked. These people died for one reason, because their lives matter less than the diplomatic, economic, and security relationships between the U.S., the U.K., and the U.A.E. That’s it. If you think there’s somehow a bigger thing here, there isn’t. That’s why they died, because they were just less important.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Credit: UN Women/Samar Abu Elouf

By UN Women
NEW YORK, Oct 30 2026 (IPS)

More than 37,000 civilians were killed in conflict last year. Women and girls accounted for one in four of these deaths – double their proportion in 2021 – according to the 2026 UN Secretary-General’s report on Women, Peace, and Security, released today.

Approximately 750 million women and girls now live within 50 kilometers of an active conflict, 40 million more than in 2024, and more than at any time since 1990.

“More women and girls are trapped in wars than at any point in decades. Yet military spending keeps rising and development assistance keeps falling, even as investing in women’s leadership, conflict prevention, and peacebuilding has never been more urgent”, said UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous.

For women and girls caught in war, the threat goes beyond bombs. Cases of conflict-related sexual violence verified by the United Nations nearly quadrupled between 2022 and 2025. War also drives women deeper into poverty and increases their unpaid care work. Around 170 million women and girls live in both conflict zones and extreme poverty, surviving on less than USD 3 a day. They account for almost 40 per cent of all women and girls living in extreme poverty globally. In conflict-affected countries, women and girls spend five times as many hours on unpaid domestic and care work as men and boys, double the global average.

These impacts are compounded by changing warfare and declining respect for international law. The increasing use of drones and long-range weapons in populated areas, including deliberate attacks on schools, markets, and hospitals – central to women’s daily lives – raises further safety concerns. Emerging AI-enabled military technologies add to these risks, particularly for women and girls already facing violence, displacement, and insecurity.

Even amid these challenges, women are working to protect communities and build peace.

“Every day, women around the world are working to end wars and build peace – protecting survivors, keeping communities together, and stopping violence before it starts. Their work is one of the best investments the world can make in peace”, continued the UN Women Executive Director.

Despite these contributions, the report shows that in 2025, women made up only five per cent of negotiators across 57 peace processes worldwide, down from seven per cent the year before.

Women’s exclusion from peace negotiations is compounded by a lack of investment in their work. Global military expenditure hit a record USD 2.9 trillion in 2025. Meanwhile, 40 per cent of women’s organizations in crisis-affected settings expect to shut down temporarily or permanently within the next year because of severe funding shortfalls. Women’s organizations are the backbone of lasting peace. They mediate local tensions, shelter the displaced, support survivors, and hold communities together. Their survival is essential to sustaining that peace.

UN Women calls for the protection of all women and girls and their rights, their meaningful participation in peace and security, and sustained investment in women-led conflict prevention and peacebuilding. We call for international law to be upheld and for an end to impunity.

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

Members of the Global Catholic Congress pose with a poster supporting an end to child marriage. Credit: JRC

By Kizito Makoye
ROME & DAR ES SALAAM, Oct 27 2026 (IPS)

The message from Just Rights for Children (JRC) was clear: protecting children must take precedence over customs used to justify their marriage.

The Global Catholic Congress, representing 44 countries, has endorsed JRC’s campaign to end child marriage by 2030. Announced in Rome on 22 October, the commitment brings influential faith leaders into a global effort to end a practice that continues to deprive millions of children, particularly girls, of their childhood.

“Every child deserves a childhood filled with dignity, education, safety and hope,” said Rajeev Kochuparambil, president of the Global Catholic Congress, announcing its support for the campaign.

“Ending child marriage is a collective moral responsibility that calls upon families, communities and faith institutions to stand together.”

Welcoming the congress’s support, JRC founder Bhuwan Ribhu said faith leaders could play a decisive role in preventing child marriage.

“When faith stands with justice and the protection of children, child marriage can end in one day,” he said.

His words convey a sense of urgency that global progress has yet to match.

UNICEF estimated in 2023 that 640 million girls and women alive at the time had married in childhood. About one in five young women aged 20–24 had married before turning 18, down from nearly one in four a decade earlier. Despite this progress, the rate of decline remained insufficient to eliminate child marriage by 2030.

Behind these figures are girls whose marriages can interrupt their education, restrict their independence and limit their future economic opportunities. UNFPA describes child marriage as both a consequence and a driver of gender inequality, with girls from poorer households and rural communities disproportionately affected.

For the JRC campaign, religious leaders provide a way to reach families and communities where they make decisions about marriage.

According to JRC, the Rome gathering brought together senior Catholic clergy, bishops, archbishops and community leaders from across several continents, including India, the United States, Canada, Africa, Australia, Singapore, the Middle East and Europe. Participants signed a joint pledge to help end child marriage and mobilise faith communities to protect children’s dignity, safety and freedom.

The commitment places responsibility on institutions whose relationships with families extend beyond wedding ceremonies. The campaign seeks to encourage faith leaders to challenge harmful social norms, engage parents and mobilise communities to intervene before a child marriage takes place.

The alliance reflects the international reach of the challenge. UNICEF’s assessment found that South Asia accounted for 45 percent of the world’s child brides, followed by sub-Saharan Africa with 20 percent. India alone accounted for approximately one-third of the global total.

JRC’s approach combines community mobilisation with intervention when a child faces an imminent marriage. According to the organisation, its work involves engaging parents, faith leaders and those involved in wedding ceremonies through counselling and persuasion, with legal action where necessary. Children, friends and relatives can also alert its teams to planned marriages.

The organisation also seeks to address the pressures that can lead families to arrange early marriages by connecting vulnerable households with government assistance and scholarship programmes.

This broader approach matters because changing the law alone cannot address all the social and economic pressures that sustain child marriage. The World Bank has highlighted the importance of combining legal reform with education, economic opportunities and efforts to change social norms.

The Rome pledge comes amid wider international efforts to end child, early and forced marriage. On 4 September 2026, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution establishing 27 November as the annual International Day for the Elimination of Child, Early and Forced Marriage. The first observance will take place next month. Ribhu has been among those advocating for the establishment of the international day.

IPS UN Bureau Report

By Mandeep S.Tiwana
NEW YORK, Oct 27 2026 (IPS)

Notwithstanding last minute shenanigans and the possibility of backroom deals by powerful states, two women from Latin America are leading contenders in the race for the UN’s next Secretary-General. After 80-plus years of men-only leadership, momentum is building to break the glass ceiling at the global institution dedicated to saving future generations from the scourge of war.

Design flaws in the somewhat opaque appointment process that bestow arbitrary veto powers on the five permanent UN Security Council members could, however, torpedo the aspiration for equitable representation for women at the helm for the world body. But there is still time to build public pressure on governments to do the right thing by appointing a feminist woman leader from Latin America and the Caribbean in deference to the principle of regional rotation.

UN in crisis

The next Secretary-General will preside over a fractious UN facing one of its hardest tests. Russia and the USA, which as Security Council permanent members are supposed to maintain international peace and security, are actively violating the UN Charter’s ban on aggression. Their ill-conceived invasions of Ukraine and Iran are causing large-scale death and destruction.

The USA has also recently imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court, making it harder to pursue justice for the Israeli genocide of Palestinians and conflicts fuelled by powerful states in Congo, Sudan and Yemen. China, another permanent Council member, continues to provide cover for crimes against humanity committed by Myanmar’s brutal military junta, currently embroiled in a civil war against dissidents.

Demands on the UN are increasing. Over 100 million forcibly displaced people need the UN’s support. But the institution faces a deep financial crisis caused by delays in payments of dues by bigger countries and an unnecessarily complicated funding model. The funding crisis comes as the challenges are mounting up. Climate commitments are being undermined by fossil fuel lobbies and petrostates as the world hurtles towards tipping points. Repressive states are pushing to reverse hard-won human rights that the UN is supposed to protect, including sexual and reproductive freedoms for women. Some two-thirds of Sustainable Development Goals targets, which seek to promote social progress and better standards of living, are not being met, driven by a combination of inadequate resourcing and escalating attacks on civic space.

The UN needs a leader who can break the mould by being much more than a bureaucrat beholden to states. The next Secretary-General should seek to derive legitimacy by representing the needs and aspirations of over eight billion people around the world. With confidence in multilateralism at breaking point, the exercise of feminist leadership principles that combine active listening, courage, consensus building and empathy for victims of abuses, will be crucial.

She must be able to bravely stand up for the UN Charter and its commitment to human dignity and justice under international law. When Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev demanded that Dag Hammarskjöld resign as Secretary-General in 1960, he reminded the UN General Assembly that big powers are not the ones that need the UN for protection: “it is all the others.” In 2004, Kofi Annan had the courage to call the US invasion of Iraq illegal in a rebuke to US President George W. Bush.

Given the pressures, it may be a good idea for the next Secretary-General to declare they will stand for only one term, thereby avoiding the trap of being overly cautious towards the most powerful states in their first term so they can be re-elected. Security Council permanent members have shown they will block re-appointments if a Secretary-General does not do their bidding. In 1996, Boutros Boutros Ghali was denied a second term because of a US veto.

Civic engagement needed

A deep commitment to human rights and the quest for transparency, accountability and participation will determine how the next Secretary-General will be remembered by future generations in how approached this hard and often thankless job. Civic engagement should be at the heart of the UN’s agenda. Just 75 of 193 UN member states, accounting for only seven per cent of the world’s population, respect their people’s freedoms to organise, speak out and protest peacefully.

To start changing this, in her first 100 days, the next Secretary-General should appoint a UN Civil Society Envoy to drive the UN’s outreach to people and civil society around the world, elevate the issue of reprisals against activists who engage with the UN and highlight unfair blocking by states of civil society organisations that seek to participate in the UN’s work.

From the time of its founding in 1945 amid the ruins of war, oppressed people have looked to the UN to be the conscience of the world. In the second half of the 20th century, the UN, through leaders like U Thant, championed the aspirations of discriminated and colonised peoples for self-rule and dignity. The next Secretary-General should prioritise the voices of excluded peoples by bringing the voices of those on the sharp end of repression into rooms where decisions are made. She can build consensus the feminist way, by never letting a door close.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis in the early 1960s, U Thant kept communication channels open with both the world’s superpowers, proposed the standstill that helped pull the world back from the brink of nuclear war and then persuaded Cuban leader Fidel Castro to de-escalate the situation. The next Secretary-General’s moral clarity can shape the world of tomorrow. She must be mindful of the needs and aspirations of young people who have the greatest to gain from a functioning UN but have the least voice.

Her leadership must be bold, inventive and unafraid to fail. Dag Hammarskjöld invented the UN’s peacekeeping role during the 1956 Suez crisis, going beyond the UN Charter. He died in 1961 attempting to broker a ceasefire in the Congo. Kofi Annan publicly owned the UN’s failures in Rwanda and Srebrenica, then turned those lessons into the Responsibility to Protect. The world’s first woman Secretary-General must help the UN win back legitimacy and trust among the world’s people. To do that, she will need to be creative and not be constrained by tradition or fear of failure.

Mandeep S. Tiwana is the secretary general of civil society alliance, CIVICUS. He also serves as CIVICUS’s representative to the UN headquarters in New York.

IPS UN Bureau

IPS UN Bureau

Bangladesh has achieved remarkable economic progress over the past few decades. Its garment industry has become globally important, millions of people have entered the workforce, and private businesses have expanded across manufacturing, services, technology and trade. But economic growth alone does not create a healthy business environment. Businesses also need predictable laws, safe workplaces, fair competition, protection of property and contracts, and respect for the rights of workers, consumers and communities.

Shahiduzzaman

There has been progress, but significant gaps remain. The World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys have repeatedly identified corruption, infrastructure, access to finance and regulatory obstacles among the challenges faced by businesses in Bangladesh. These problems increase the cost and uncertainty of doing business, particularly for smaller enterprises. The World Bank has also emphasised that effective regulations and institutions governing business registration, licensing, inspections and property rights are essential for reducing business risks while protecting consumers, public health and safety.

Corruption is particularly damaging because it creates an uneven playing field. When businesses believe that personal connections or unofficial payments are necessary to obtain services, licences or approvals, honest businesses can be placed at a disadvantage. It also weakens confidence in government institutions and discourages investment.

The problem is not necessarily a lack of laws. Bangladesh has numerous laws and regulatory agencies. The deeper problem is often implementation and enforcement. Rules that are reasonable on paper have little value if they are applied selectively, slowly or inconsistently.

This gap is also visible in the rule of law. The World Justice Project’s 2025 Rule of Law Index ranked Bangladesh 125th among 143 countries, although Bangladesh’s overall score improved by 1.3 per cent from the previous year. The index examines areas including fundamental rights, regulatory enforcement, civil justice, criminal justice and order and security.

Human rights and workplace safety are another critical part of responsible business.

Bangladesh has made important progress since the Rana Plaza disaster, particularly in the garment sector. More recently, the country took a significant step by ratifying ILO Conventions 155 and 187 on occupational safety and health and Convention 190 on violence and harassment at work in November 2025. The ILO described these ratifications as an important commitment to safer workplaces and workers’ rights.

However, ratification is not the same as implementation. The ILO itself makes clear that ratification represents a commitment to progressively align national laws and practices with international standards; it does not mean that full compliance automatically exists on the day of ratification.

The real challenge is therefore to ensure that workplace safety rules are consistently enforced, labour inspectors have adequate resources and independence, and workers can report violations without fear of retaliation.

Public safety and institutional trust are equally important. A business environment cannot be stable when citizens lack confidence in the institutions responsible for law enforcement and justice. The Asia Foundation’s 2024 survey of 6,510 Bangladeshis found that only 20.5 per cent considered the police to have very high integrity. Trust in the judiciary was 38.2 per cent. The survey also showed that trust in both institutions had declined from 2022 levels.

Other countries demonstrate that stronger institutions and economic development can advance together. Singapore provides one example of the importance of consistent enforcement and institutional integrity. According to Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, Singapore scored 84 out of 100 and ranked third among 182 countries. The index measures perceptions of public-sector corruption, based on expert assessments and business surveys.

Vietnam provides another useful comparison because, like Bangladesh, it has built a strong export-oriented manufacturing economy. The World Bank says Vietnam’s economic success over recent decades has been strongly supported by export-oriented foreign investment, but argues that further growth requires regulatory reform and higher productivity. Vietnam has introduced a programme to simplify or reduce business regulations and, by December 2023, had simplified or reduced 2,789 regulations. Its National Public Services Portal had also digitised more than 70 per cent of public administrative services.

So, what should Bangladesh do?

First, the government must close the gap between laws and enforcement. Regulations should be clear, simple and applied equally.

Second, government services such as licences, permits, taxation, customs and inspections should increasingly be digitised. Clear deadlines, published fees and traceable decisions can reduce opportunities for unofficial payments.

Third, regulatory agencies must be more accountable. Complaints against officials should be independently investigated, and disciplinary measures should follow transparent procedures.

Fourth, labour inspection must be strengthened. Workplace safety should not become a priority only after accidents occur. Employers who violate safety standards should face meaningful consequences, while compliant businesses should not be placed at a competitive disadvantage.

Fifth, police and justice institutions need to rebuild public confidence through professional training, independent complaint mechanisms, timely investigations and equal application of the law.

Finally, businesses, workers, civil society and consumers should have meaningful opportunities to participate in regulatory reform. Policies imposed without consultation often fail to address problems experienced on the ground.

Bangladesh does not have to choose between business growth and human rights. In fact, sustainable economic growth increasingly depends on both. Safe workers are more productive, predictable regulations encourage investment, fair competition rewards innovation, and trusted institutions reduce the risks and costs of doing business.

The ultimate test is simple: Can an entrepreneur compete without connections? Can a worker work without fear? Can a consumer obtain justice? Can a business receive government services without unofficial payments? And can every citizen expect the law to be applied fairly?

If Bangladesh can answer these questions through effective institutions rather than promises, it can build a business environment based not only on economic opportunity, but also on human rights, public safety, fairness and public trust.

Shahiduzzaman is the Editor and CEO of News Network. shahiduzzaman@newsnetwork-bd.org

This story was originally published by The Financial Express

Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 23 2026 (IPS)

The international day for the eradication of poverty, commemorated last week, was a grim reminder that the UN will not achieve its highly-ambitious target of helping eradicate extreme poverty—”in all its forms”– by 2030.

According to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres eradicating poverty by 2030 requires urgent political will, massive investments, and a commitment to justice rather than charity.

But that is unlikely to happen by the targeted date?

UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters last week the message to donors is that there is a crucial importance towards focusing aid on eliminating poverty as much as possible.

“It’s a disgrace that so many people – really, hundreds of millions of people around the world – still face acute poverty. Because of that, and because there’s still such a large gap in the needs that are to be addressed, it’s unlikely that we’re going to meet the targets by 2030. But the Secretary-General, as you know, continues to push for determination. The idea being, as he puts it, that he is neither hopeful nor pessimistic, but determined. And that’s what we have to do in the fight against poverty.”

Guterres has described poverty as an “insult” to human dignity, a denial of fundamental human rights, and an issue of social justice.

In 2026, an estimated 826 million people (or 1 in 10 people worldwide) were living in extreme poverty. If current trends continue, 9% of the world’s population will still live in extreme poverty by 2030.

Richard Ponzio, Director of the Global Governance, Justice & Security Program and a Senior Fellow at the Washington-based Stimson Center, told Inter Press Service (IPS) ending poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030 is Goal #1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“While we saw tremendous progress on a similar Millennium Development Goal poverty alleviation effort from 2000-2015 — thanks in large part to advances in two large developing countries at the time (China and India) — we have seen less progress overall during the present period (2015-2030) for multiple reasons, including growing debt burdens, the COVID-19 pandemic, continued environmental degradation, and the drag on global economic growth stemming from tariffs and new major wars.”

Despite these obstacles, he pointed out, the Secretary-General and his UN system’s continued determination to fight acute global poverty merits the support and commensurate levels of commitment and determination by the world body’s 193 member states.

In the run-up to next September’s SDG Summit in New York, international efforts, including innovative developments strategies and new financing approaches, should be redoubled in support of the “No Poverty” SDG — while ensuring that steps to eradicate extreme poverty remain a central plank of an emerging Post-2030 Development Agenda, he declared.

Max Lawson, Oxfam International’s Head of Inequality Policy, told IPS extreme poverty can be ended by 2030—“but only if we radically reduce inequality.”

“Right now, for every new dollar of wealth created in the world, the richest one percent pocket 41 cents ―and the entire bottom half of humanity gets just a single cent. While everyday people are hit hard by rising prices, wars, and pandemics, billionaires have more than doubled their fortunes,” said Lawson.

According to one report, poverty has many dimensions. Its primary causes include unemployment, social exclusion, and the high vulnerability of certain populations to disasters, disease, and other crises that prevent them from earning a productive living.

The UN’s SDGs are a collection of 17 global goals and 169 specific targets adopted by UN Member States in September 2015 under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

These goals also include an end to worldwide hunger, the need for quality education, good health and well-being, among others.

Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director, The Oakland Institute, told IPS: “As we look for solutions to end poverty, we need to focus on the causes of poverty.”

The international day for the eradication of poverty should be the day to eradicate wars around the world, she argued.

Global military spending continues to rise. Trump’s proposed defense budget for 2027 – a record high of US$1.5 trillion, nearly doubling the 2023 budget – is in line with projections estimating global military spending could reach $6.6 trillion by 2035.

The buildup of the military industrial complex comes at the expense of common good. A small fraction of annual military budgets – less than $300 billion could help eliminate extreme poverty. $93 billion per year – less than 4% of yearly global military spending – could help address global hunger, she said.

Today, over half the world’s 1.1 billion poor live in conflict situations. War diverts necessary funds for public health, education, and social safety nets. Destruction and pillage of war manufactures poverty and then maintains it,” said Mittal.

Danielle Nierenberg, President and Founder, Food Tank, told IPS “determination is good but in order to be effective, we need to have courage.”

With the cutbacks to international aid including the systemic dismantlement of USAID, we need to stand up to those who the aid is a waste of money, she said.

Millions of people are dying unnecessarily when only a very small percentage of rich countries budgets could help save them. Aid benefits us all—it’s not only the moral thing to do, but it helps strengthen national security, declared Nierenberg.

Frederic Mousseau, Policy Director at the Oakland Institute, told IPS focusing on “donors” to address the poverty and climate crises that the world faces today is misdirected.

Poverty goes hand in hand with growing inequities and cannot be addressed separately. There is plenty of money to go around to solve both these crises.

According to Oxfam, US$9 trillion could be raised just from increasing taxes on the wealth and income of the top one percent richest people and the profits of 722 of the world’s biggest corporations.

As the wealth of the billionaires and the largest corporations keeps increasing to insane levels, there is no other way to address poverty than to tax it. The UN should lead the way on an international tax reform that will allow a redistribution of the wealth towards the poor and the adaptation to the climate crisis, declared Mousseau.

According to the SDG 2026 report, poverty has many dimensions. Its primary causes include unemployment, social exclusion, and the high vulnerability of certain populations to disasters, disease, and other crises that prevent them from earning a productive living.

Why should I care about other people’s economic situation?

There are many reasons, but the simplest is that as human beings, our well-being is deeply interconnected. Growing inequality hurts economic growth and undermines social cohesion. This raises political and social tensions and, in some circumstances, drives instability and conflict.

Why is social protection so important?

Strong social protection systems are essential to cushion the blow of economic shocks and prevent vulnerable families from falling into poverty.

While social protection measures did expand during the COVID-19 crisis, approximately 46% of the world’s population—about 3.8 billion people, including 1.4 billion children—remained entirely unprotected in 2023.

In response to the subsequent cost-of-living crisis, 105 countries and territories announced nearly 350 social protection measures between February 2022 and February 2023. However, 80% of these programs were only short-term. To truly achieve the SDGs, nations must build permanent, universal, and sustainable social protection systems for all.

The contribution of science to end poverty has been significant. For example, it has enabled access to safe drinking water, reduced deaths caused by water-borne diseases, and improved hygiene to reduce health risks related to unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation.

• If current trends continue, 9% of the world’s population may still live in extreme poverty by 2030, and only one in five countries will succeed in halving their national poverty levels.
• In 2025, 7.9% of the global workforce (284 million workers) lived in extreme poverty, down from 11% in 2015.
• For the first time on record, over half of the world’s population receives at least one social protection benefit. Despite this milestone, 3.8 billion people remain completely uncovered.
• Development aid focused on poverty reduction has fallen sharply, erasing a decade of progress and returning to 2015 levels.
• Advanced economies spend a significantly higher share of government budgets on essential services (like education, health, and social protection) compared to emerging and developing nations.
• Guaranteeing basic social security floors in low- and middle-income countries requires an additional $1.4 trillion annually, equal to 3.3% of their combined GDP in 2024.

Source: The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026

IPS UN Bureau Report

The Sámi, Europe's last recognised Indigenous community, continue to have their livelihood and lifestyle threatened. Credit: Johan Mikaelsson/IPS

By Johan Mikaelsson
SÁPMI, Norway, Oct 21 2026 (IPS)

The Sámi, Europe’s last recognised Indigenous community, have faced threats to their existence throughout history. Norway, in 2024, apologised for its forced assimilation policy following the findings of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, and in September 2026 Sweden has recently been told to do the same.

Despite the growing understanding of how their culture and economic livelihoods have been threatened, their precarious lifestyle is again under threat, ironically from something that is usually considered positive: the ‘green revolution’.

Kautokeino, in Norway’s far north, feels like a capital of Sápmi, the homeland of the Sámi people. The region is associated with the Scandinavian mountain range and the vast territories traversed by reindeer. Much of it lies above the Arctic Circle, stretching across Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in Russia.

In Kautokeino, 95 percent of the population are Sámi, and Northern Sámi is the main language. One in every two inhabitants owns reindeer. So does municipal council leader Anders S. Buljo, who once worked full-time in reindeer herding, a livelihood his son has since taken over.

“Right now, the reindeer are in the higher mountains closer to the coast and out on the islands,” Buljo explains, standing on a hilltop with a 360-degree view across the vast landscape.

In September, the reindeer move inland to their winter grazing grounds. The Sámi were once nomadic, following the reindeer’s seasonal movements across the landscape. Reindeer herding remains deeply intertwined with Sámi culture, and both reindeer-herding Sámi and those who rely on hunting and fishing maintain a strong connection to nature.

Beyond the houses clustered in the settlement, the landscape is largely untouched: tens of kilometres of tundra and rolling hills dotted with low trees, marshes, lakes and flowing streams. Rounded, barren mountains stretch towards the horizon, where higher peaks remain covered in snow and ice throughout the year.

The reindeer were once wild, hunted by the Sámi with bows and arrows and spears. Traces of trapping pits, used for thousands of years, can still be found in the terrain.

Over time, the Sámi began gathering reindeer into herds at certain times of the year, separating them and slaughtering selected animals. As the Sámi were brought under state administration, Sámi reindeer-herding communities were established. Each has hundreds or thousands of reindeer, yet the obstacles facing the livelihood continue to mount.

“Wind power, mines and holiday villages are taking up more and more space. At least here, tourism is manageable, as there are no large ski resorts,” says Buljo.

Forestry, agriculture, mining, construction, hydropower, snowmobile trails, ski-lift systems and a growing network of roads and railways are increasingly affecting Sápmi. Helicopters ferry hunters and skiers into the mountains, and skiing from mountain peaks by helicopter is permitted in Sweden.

“It is incredible how little people know about the Sámi and Indigenous peoples, especially further south. We need to build understanding,” Buljo says.

The wind farm at Fosen is a telling example. In 2021, Norway’s Supreme Court ruled that the wind turbines built there were illegal because they infringed on the reindeer herders’ right to practise their culture.

“They build first and ask questions afterwards. The courts established that it was a human rights violation. But the wind turbines are still there,” Buljo says.

Like Indigenous peoples across the Americas, nation states forcibly displaced the Sámi through violence and legislation.

“This continued into the 1970s. We see similar tendencies even today, as the Fosen case shows.”

Anything associated with the “green transition” is often presented as inherently positive. Yet beneath the rhetoric lie the economic interests of states and corporations.

“How green is the transition, really? When the last ore has been extracted from the mountains and the last peak has been fitted with a wind turbine, there will be no reason to stay,” Buljo says.

His municipality can nevertheless influence the direction of development and, for example, prevent mines from opening.

“In 2019, the Supreme Court recognised reindeer husbandry as a traditional use of the land, improving its legal position. And we have come a little further in Norway than in Sweden and Finland.”

In 1979, Karesuando in Sweden’s far north hosted the Davvi Suvva festival, which brought together Indigenous people from around the world. In the opening speech, preserved in the documentary We Are All Brothers and Sisters, Oula Näkkäläjärvi, spokesperson for the Sámi, said:

“We, Indigenous people, have one thing in common: we want to live in harmony with nature, and we can.”

That conviction remains. Yet technological progress and economic growth are transforming lives everywhere, with profound consequences for Indigenous peoples. The price of “development” is an escalating climate crisis. Above the Arctic Circle, the changes are increasingly visible: milder winters, warmer summers and shrinking glaciers. Flora and fauna are being affected in front of us.

Norway and Denmark are among the 24 countries that have ratified the International Labour Organization’s Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169). Neither Sweden nor Finland has signed this key instrument for the protection of Indigenous rights.

The genocide of Indigenous peoples in North America began with colonisation and continued well into the 20th century. Neither the United States nor Canada has ratified ILO Convention 169. In the Nordic countries, the Sámi did not put up armed resistance. Living dispersed across the region, they were gradually pushed off lands they had inhabited for millennia.

In Norway, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission worked from 2018 to 2023. Alongside an official apology to the Sámi people, concrete measures have been taken. Finland’s Sámi Truth and Reconciliation Commission published its report in December 2025. In Sweden, the Truth Commission for the Sami People presented its report on 30 September 2026.

The auditorium at Mid Sweden University in Östersund was filled. Hundreds of Sámi had travelled from across Sápmi to witness a historic moment, one that many hoped would mark the beginning of something new.

“Sweden’s assimilation policy has been very successful,” says Marja-Kristin Skum, her remark edged with irony.

Skum is Sámi, a reindeer owner, teacher and language researcher at the Sámi University of Applied Sciences in Kautokeino. As part of the Truth Commission’s work, she interviewed people willing to share their experiences. Most were between 60 and 70 years old, but even children gave testimony. The accounts leave little doubt that state policies have left deep scars.

“Here is the truth. But what does reconciliation look like? This is not just about us Sámi. The majority population and the state also have work to do. How are we to repair all the damage that has been done? This wound has never healed,” Skum says.

Although policies in Norway, Finland and Sweden have differed, the three countries face many of the same questions about their past and present. Liv Inger Somby, rector of the Sámi University of Applied Sciences in Kautokeino, travelled more than 1,000 kilometres to Östersund to attend the presentation of the Swedish report, which calls for “an official apology, compensation, and national redress for historical injustices.”

“Of course, what is happening in Sweden is being followed in Norway, too. We essentially have no borders in Sápmi, and we need to keep working across national boundaries. It is very important that we stand strong together,” Somby says.

From the 18th century onwards, farmers from southern Sweden were granted land in the north, where timber, silver, iron ore, gold and other natural resources awaited exploitation. From the 1950s onwards, numerous hydropower plants with huge dams were built, submerging large areas of land under water.

Well into the 20th century, the Sámi were prevented from speaking their own language and forbidden to practise their religion and spirituality, both deeply intertwined with nature and the landscape. In the 2020s, Sámi culture is experiencing what some describe as a “boom”, with growing visibility in film, literature and music and recognition in the cultural sphere.

Ol-Ánte Sikku, chairman of The Gaaltije Foundation, a South Sami cultural centre and museum in Östersund, reflects on what comes next.

“A truth commission cannot be repeated, and its report cannot simply be put on a shelf. Something has to come of it. If it does not happen now, it never will,” he says. Sikku also notes that the political and social climate has become harsher since the commission began its work.

“With mining and resource exploitation, the ‘green transition’, defence, rearmament and space initiatives, Sámi interests can be seen as obstacles.”

When political leaders suggest, implicitly or explicitly, that the Sámi are standing in the way of development, they fuel hostility.

Whether Sweden’s Truth Commission will lead to concrete action remains to be seen. Its report now passes into the hands of a new government. Sweden held a parliamentary election on 13 September, but negotiations to form a government may take time.

A possible left-green-centre coalition is expected to place greater emphasis on environmental protection than the outgoing right-wing government. Economic interests, however, continue to carry considerable weight.

The pressure on Sápmi is intense. Proposals and applications range from extensions to ski-lift systems to large wind farms and mines. Even foreign companies can obtain permits for test drilling. Sweden is often described as a country covered in forest, but 90 percent is managed land, planted with spruce or pine and harvested after 80–120 years.

There is a Sámi saying: “If the Sámi take care of the reindeer, the reindeer take care of the Sámi.”

Today, this relationship involves far more than the practical work of herding. For Sámi reindeer-herding communities, it also means a constant struggle through legal and administrative processes, with documents to read, prepare and respond to.

The recently approved establishment of another mine near Kiruna is a case in point. The project will affect the Gabna Sámi reindeer-herding community, once again restricting the reindeer’s ability to move freely through the landscape.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Communities face multi-layered crises in Afghanistan, including underlying poverty, climate-related shocks and the aftermath of four decades of conflict. Credit: UNAMA/Ahmad Khalid Khaliqi

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 21 2026 (IPS)

In recent months, Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis has severely deteriorated, with the UN reporting record-high levels of acute malnutrition and hunger. Compounded by rampant human rights violations, limited access to basic services, and persistent barriers to humanitarian aid, the UN warns that conditions could considerably worsen in the coming months.

The latest figures from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) show that approximately 15.9 million people—32 percent of the analyzed population—are currently facing Crisis-levels of hunger (IPC Phase 3) or worse. Of those, roughly 3.4 million face Emergency-levels of hunger (IPC Phase 4), just one step away from the highest level, which could entail the onset of famine.

IPC projects that food insecurity could surge from November to April during the winter lean season. As agricultural activity slows down, unemployment remains widespread, and harsh weather hinders aid delivery and basic services, IPC estimates that nearly 19.2 million people—including 10 million children—could face Crisis-levels of hunger or worse, with 5 million at risk of Emergency-levels of hunger.

The World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warn that food assistance, agricultural support, and healthcare operations must be scaled up ahead of the winter season. WFP Country Director John Aylieff stressed that the “window to act” is rapidly closing if families are to survive the winter “with dignity.” Meanwhile, FAO Representative Richard Trenchard underscored that creating dependable income is essential in preparing communities to withstand future shocks.

Ashish Damle, Save the Children’s Country Director in Afghanistan, warned that the country is trapped in a “deadly” hunger crisis with “no end in sight,” as humanitarian needs rise while critical aid funding dries up. Young people are projected to bear the heaviest burdens, as roughly 4.04 million children under five will require treatment for acute malnutrition in 2027—a 9 percent increase from 2026. Severe acute malnutrition is forecast to surge by 16 percent in the coming year, rising from 942,000 in 2026 to 1.1 million in 2027.

With winter approaching, Damle stressed that harsh weather conditions will make survival even harder for children already facing acute malnutrition.“Our doctors and nurses witness the devastating consequences of the hunger crisis every day: malnourished children arriving at our clinics, mothers going hungry so their families have something to eat, and parents desperately seeking help as their children’s health deteriorates,” said Damle.

Despite recent rainfall improvements and promising harvests, widespread unemployment and weak purchasing power still keep adequate nutrition out of reach for most families, even when it is available. Conditions are compounded by the return of over 1.2 million Afghans from Iran and Pakistan in 2026, further stretching already limited resources.

“I saw firsthand that this crisis is not simply about whether food exists, but whether people can afford it, whether they can earn an income, access basic services, or whether they have anything left to fall back on when the next shock comes,” said Olga Cherevko, Spokesperson for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). She added that years of conflict, economic instability, and climate shocks have severely eroded community resilience, leaving families with little capacity to adapt to new shocks.

Cherevko highlighted the Taliban’s systematic exclusion of women and girls from education and public life as a primary driver of the crisis. Figures from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) show that Afghanistan stands to lose up to 20,000 women teachers and 5,400 female health workers by the end of the decade. She emphasized that barring women and girls from society has alarming implications for access to healthcare, dietary diversity, education, and the ability to sustain livelihoods.

On October 15, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) issued a report detailing the persistence of human rights abuses between July and September. During this period, UNAMA documented over 50 cases of women arrested or detained relating to the hijab. Women continue to be barred from accessing health clinics and markets without a male guardian (mahram).

The mission also recorded around 443 cases of arbitrary detention and 97 instances of ill-treatment over minor infractions such as hijab violations, trimmed beards, skipped prayers, and listening to music. It further documented public corporal punishments of 28 individuals, including six women, and the detention of 14 former security force members, with at least four others killed.

Beyond individual rights, Afghanistan has also experienced a severe breakdown of civic space conditions over the past year, marked by the arbitrary suspension of multiple media outlets without clear reasons or opportunities for appeal. New legislation enacted in August bans all demonstrations and protests, effectively silencing civilian dissent across the country.

Cherevko emphasized the need for sustained, expanded humanitarian aid while calling for strategic investments in long-term resilience. She highlighted agriculture, rural livelihoods, local markets, employment, water systems, and health services as key areas for investment, stressing that expanding opportunities for women in the workforce is essential in building communities that are less dependent on emergency assistance.

“We cannot keep asking humanitarian aid to compensate indefinitely for the absence of economic opportunity and essential public services. We must act before winter, not after families have exhausted their options,” said Cherevko.

Ground operations remain significantly constrained due to persistent funding shortfalls. According to OCHA, as of mid-September, the agency had received just 31 percent of the funding needed to support Afghanistan’s 21.9 million vulnerable people. Earlier in August, WFP warned that these shortfalls had forced nutrition programs to scale back when they are needed the most, leaving more children at risk of being malnourished.

Despite these shortfalls, the UN and its partners continue to work on the ground to deliver emergency and essential services, reaching roughly 8.3 million people with at least one form of assistance between January and July.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Credit: UN Photo/Luke Powell

By FAO and WFP
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct 20 2026 (IPS)

Nearly 40 percent of the population of Afghanistan is projected to face high levels of acute food insecurity this winter, and cases of acute malnutrition are expected to soar during 2027, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned.

This is according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis, which projects that approximately 19.2 million people (38% of the population) will face high levels of acute food insecurity during the November-April lean season, which lasts through the winter. This is an increase from 17.4 million projected for the same period a year earlier.

An estimated five million of those who are acutely food insecure will be facing emergency levels of hunger (IPC Phase 4) – double the number projected for April-September 2026 – meaning immediate food assistance and urgent emergency agriculture support are needed to prevent deaths and total livelihood collapse. The most severe classifications are projected in Badakhshan, Badghis, Daykundi, Ghor, Samangan, Sar-e-Pul and rural Ghazni.

Acute malnutrition is beginning to define the crisis in Afghanistan with mothers and children at the forefront. Malnutrition cases are expected to increase by nearly 10 percent compared to 2026 to four million. One-quarter of these are expected to be severe and life-threatening. Prevention and treatment services are lagging well behind despite cases increasing, leaving women and particularly children more exposed.

The crisis in Afghanistan is being driven by several shocks that are affecting Afghan families and the humanitarian response. More than 1.2 million Afghans have been forced to return home from Iran and Pakistan this year, adding pressure to already overstretched communities. Border closures and disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and other critical trade routes are also driving up prices for basic goods. At the same time, dramatic funding shortfalls are limiting humanitarian assistance just as needs are growing. All these issues are converging to drive hunger and malnutrition higher, particularly as winter approaches.

Improved harvests have not restored families’ access to nutritious food

Favorable rainfall supported crop production and pasture recovery in 2026, benefiting many farming households. The anticipated El Niño season could also bring above-average rainfall, helping replenish water sources, restore pasture and support winter and spring crops. Timely agricultural support could help farmers turn favorable conditions into food and income, but rainfall alone will not secure the next harvest. High fertilizer and agricultural input costs and low crop prices may force poorer farmers to plant less or use fewer inputs. Wetter conditions also increase the risk of localized flooding, erosion, crop damage and plant and animal disease.

However, improved harvests and greater food availability are not necessarily translating into improved food security. Persistent unemployment means many families who do not grow their own food cannot afford a nutritious diet, even when food is available. Winter will bring fewer opportunities for agricultural work, further reducing incomes and increasing the need for humanitarian assistance.

Scale up support before needs deepen further

FAO and WFP are calling for urgent funding to scale up food assistance, emergency agricultural support, and malnutrition prevention and treatment. Support must reach families before winter restricts access to vulnerable communities and farmers miss critical planting windows. Afghanistan cannot afford another year of worsening hunger and malnutrition.

Richard Trenchard, FAO Representative in Afghanistan:

“This year’s strong harvest shows what Afghan farmers can achieve. But for a parent with no steady income, nutritious food in the market can still be out of reach for their family. The drumbeat of shock and crisis is relentless, but we know progress is possible. Past experience shows that timely, targeted food and emergency agricultural assistance can bring acute food insecurity down. Helping families grow or afford nutritious food for their children can also help prevent malnutrition long before children need treatment. We need to scale up these practical solutions now, act ahead of foreseeable shocks and invest in processing and local agribusinesses that connect farmers to markets and create jobs. Families need support to get through this winter and opportunities to earn a dependable living that helps them withstand the next shock.”

John Aylieff, WFP Country Director in Afghanistan

“Hunger and malnutrition are tightening their grip on Afghanistan’s families, pushing more people towards the brink just as resources to respond are running short. This crisis is increasingly being defined by the gap between growing needs and shrinking funding. We still have a window to act, but it is closing fast. With urgent support, families can get through the winter with dignity. Without it, many will face impossible choices no parent should have to make.”

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

Iyá Patrícia d’Xangô (Mãe Patrícia) and her husband, Ogan Cézar d’Oxalá (Cézar Paulo Fogolari), cleaning their religious site three months after the mudslide in 2024.

By Carla Ruas
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Oct 19 2026 (IPS)

In 2024, as floodwaters approached Lutalo Canti’s home in Porto Alegre, Brazil, he lifted some furniture off the floor and left in a hurry. Extreme rainfall in the country’s southern region had caused local rivers to overflow. The flooding would eventually reach more than 400 municipalities and impact over 2 million people.

When waters finally receded, Canti, 61, was shocked to see the damage to his house, which also served as a terreiro—a sacred space for the practice of Afro-Brazilian religions.

These beliefs, which date back to enslaved Africans and their descendants, have around 1.85 million followers in Brazil, per the latest national census. Terreiros are at the heart of these traditions, serving as spaces where religious leaders honor deities and spiritual entities.

Between water damage, sewage contamination, and mold, he estimates losses to the house around US$15,000 (R$80,000). About half the damage was to his home, and the rest to religious objects, including ceremonial clothing and sacred figures.

Lutalo Canti estimates flood losses of around US$15,000 to his home and terreiro, which is pictured here before the flood. Credit: Lutalo Canti

Two years later, Canti still hasn’t recovered everything lost and feels largely left out of donations and other recovery efforts. “We have received no help. Nothing,” he told IPS. He blames religious racism.

A new study shows that Canti is not alone. Since the floods, researchers from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) and the region’s Council of Terreiro People have been surveying the regional terreiros. The findings, which are just now being published, document widespread reports of discrimination during and after the disaster.

“Terreiros experienced severe religious racism,” said Cláudia Pires, one of the researchers involved in the study. “That includes difficulties accessing food and water, lack of access to their own spaces, as well as delays or a complete lack of response from public authorities to their needs.”

Immediately after the disaster, out of 711 terreiros surveyed, almost all (94.1%) reported structural damage—with more than half of those completely destroyed.

In the months that followed, more in-depth interviews with 241 terreiro leaders indicated an ongoing crisis. Follow-up data shows that more than 80% of those leaders reported emotional harm and forced displacement.

As they struggled to recover, many of them suspended religious gatherings for months, while 3.5% closed permanently. “That was the saddest finding for us,” said Tanara Furtado, a co-author of the study. “It may seem like a small number, but it represents the disappearance of history, ancestry, and traditions. For Afro-Brazilian religions, that is profound.”

Lutalo Canti lost religious objects, including ceremonial clothing and sacred figures, in a severe flood. Credit: Lutalo Canti

Barriers to Receiving Aid

The study shows discrimination reports beginning in the early days of the disaster.

While many flood victims were evacuated to shelters, Afro-Brazilian religious practitioners often did not feel welcome in these spaces. “When people saw their guias (sacred necklaces), they were treated badly,” Furtado said. “Many ended up staying in friends’ and relatives’ homes, sometimes 25 people sharing a house with a single bathroom and no running water.”

And even as donations poured in from across Brazil, several reported much of that aid failed to reach them.

In a telephone interview, Pai Valdir de Oxalá, 55, recalled the challenges of accessing basic supplies. The babalorixá, or Afro-Brazilian religious leader, is the president of the Council of Terreiro Peoples of the State of Rio Grande do Sul (CPTERGS).

After his own terreiro was flooded in the municipality of Guaíba, he arranged for an out-of-state organization to send food, water, and other supplies to around 400 followers of nearby terreiros.

“When the truck arrived, they noticed our religion and refused to leave the donations unless I said a Christian prayer,” he recalled. “This goes against my beliefs and is an aggressive form of religious racism. But I had no choice. People didn’t have what to eat, drink, or wear. So I prayed.”

Iyá Paty de Xangô, also known as Mãe Patrícia, says she continued to face discrimination long after the disaster. The floods triggered a landslide that buried her religious site in the municipality of Feliz. The property includes several residences, ritual spaces, and a library.

“We submitted more than 40 official requests to city hall asking for help,” she said. “Even though we are a public-utility institution, it took them two months to come over with machinery, while other private properties were being cleared.”

In 2024, a technical report by Brazil’s Federal Public Defender’s Office (DPU) concluded that the local government showed “resistance to providing emergency assistance and repairing the damage” at her site. The document also found that public authorities had been “selective in providing assistance to religious entities.”

At the time, the municipality of Feliz attributed the delay in assistance to the scale of the disaster. In a letter, officials stated that they did “not have sufficient personnel and machinery to respond to all requests immediately.”

Patrícia eventually turned to the courts. In July 2025, she sued the municipality, the state government, and the owners of a neighboring property, seeking measures to protect her site from future landslides.

Religious Racism in a Changing Climate

Baba Hendrix, a theologian and babalorixá spiritual leader, argues that the climate crisis is amplifying vulnerabilities that have long existed in these communities. “This is simply the continuation of a historical process,” he said. “Since at least the 19th century, Afro-Brazilian religious traditions have faced persecution.”

He believes the root of this racism lies in Brazilian society’s extreme “Christian-centrism,” which he says has led to intolerance toward other religions. He also points to longstanding anti-Black racism. “When Christian-centrism and racism converge, they produce this religious racism that we are seeing.”

Hendrix says this discrimination now spans across many parts of society. “We have faced persecution from the police to the medical establishment,” he said. “Laws against quackery and charlatanism were even created specifically to persecute Afro-Brazilian religious traditions.”

The UFRGS study suggests these experiences remain widespread. Of the 241 religious leaders interviewed, 70.8% said they had suffered religious racism from neighbors, public authorities, police, Evangelicals, Catholics, and others. Of those, 47% said they experienced it frequently.

Researchers argue that this discrimination has in turn made these communities more vulnerable to climate disasters. Pires said many terreiros have been pushed to peripheral areas that are overlooked in city planning. “When it rains, these peripheral areas end up being sacrificed,” she said. “I think sacrifice is a very important word here.”

Super El Niño

As a powerful El Niño brings more extreme weather to southern Brazil, the researchers continue monitoring terreiros across the region. Since August, almost 100 have reported damage related to extreme weather.

“This is our new normal,” said Furtado. “We have terreiros that were affected by the 2024 floods and are already being affected again by winds, rains, and floods.”

In the municipality of Canoas, babalorixá Júlio César Santos, 47, has been watching the weather closely. In 2024, his terreiro, where he practices Umbanda among other Afro-Brazilian traditions, was completely submerged. Nearly two years later, the space remains unfinished, despite more than US$15,000 (R$80,000) spent on repairs.

“When it rains, I get very nervous,” he said. “It’s a fear that stays with us.”

Santos has thought about leaving his house due to the risk of future flooding but says he does not have the funds to buy a new home. He was found ineligible for a housing assistance program for flood victims. “It’s not as simple as finding another house,” he said. “I need land and access to nature to practice my religion.”

He also needs the approval of orixás—spiritual deities—to move his terreiro to another location. “It is the orixá who will choose,” he said. “It is not me, Júlio, who decides.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Singer-songwriter Yusuf ‘Cat Stevens’ Islam speaks during the closing session of the Global Tipping Points Conference in Kuala Lumpur. Credit: Zofeen T. Ebrahim

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 16 2026 (IPS)

With the city enveloped in a cloak of haze, the urgency of tackling the climate crisis could hardly have been clearer as the four-day Global Tipping Points Conference 2026 drew to a close at Malaysia’s Sunway University on Thursday.

At the conference, speakers stressed the need for humanity to remain within planetary boundaries, or the “safe operating space”.

Crossing these boundaries could have catastrophic consequences, warned Professor Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and one of the conference organisers.

He highlighted the dangers of triggering irreversible changes in major Earth systems. Some of the bulwarks have already been breached, manifesting themselves in the form of collapsed ice sheets, bleached corals, shrinking wildlife habitats and the slow death of rainforests.

Dong Wang’s park in Bangkok. Credit: Zofeen T. Ebrahim

‘Tipping points’ conference brings together climate scientists, activists, and finance gurus; highlights success stories from around the world

All of this threatens food security, causes displacement, damages human health and destabilises economies.

With plenty of reasons to be pessimistic – social and political polarisation, rising inequality and poverty, and wars among them – the message was nevertheless one of urgency rather than despair. “The science has matured, evidence is there… it is time for action… that’s the natural step,” said Sultan Nazrin Shah of Perak.

But there is another side to the tipping-point story.

Professor Timothy Lenton, chair of Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter and one of the organisers, spoke about “positive tipping points.” Lenton, who has studied tipping points since the 1990s, argued these could help societies move towards more sustainable futures. Citing Pakistan’s solar boom and Norway’s rapid adoption of electric vehicles, he pointed to transformative shifts that can happen within a relatively short period.

But protecting ecosystems is as important as technologies, said Acehnese forest conservator Farwiza Farhan, while making a compelling case for the protection of the Leuser Ecosystem – a tropical rainforest reserve in Sumatra and one of the last places on Earth where tigers, elephants, rhinos and orangutans coexist in the wild.

Others turned to imagining the future. Anab Jain, co-founder of London-based Superflux, described Mitigation of Shock, an immersive installation set in a fictional 2050. Visitors enter an imagined apartment shaped by a future in which some of the most severe impacts of climate change have already occurred. More than 100,000 people have visited it since 2017, she said.

Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, broadened the discussion to social, economic and political tipping points. If these systems tipped in the wrong direction, he warned, they could trigger a “cascade of devastating consequences.”

Planetary changes and social, economic and political conditions are deeply interconnected, said Sachs, making cooperation essential to averting disaster. He repeatedly pointed to poverty and inequality as forces that could deepen instability but argued that all was not lost. The tools for change – economic wellbeing, social inclusion, environmental sustainability, and peace and cooperation among nations – already exist, he said.

Discussions also covered deforestation, land-use change, governance failures and the rise of artificial intelligence. Turning tools into action, however, requires money, policy and political will.

“But where’s the money?” many asked, urging encouragement for supportive policies and a pipeline of “bankable projects” that protect nature, so that economic incentives favour regeneration over extraction. One such approach came from Dr Ralph Chami, founder of Blue Green Future, who outlined his concept of “regenerative GDP”, i.e. recognising the value of “living nature” and accounting for it on the balance sheet.

Timothy Lenton explaining the positive tipping points. Credit: Zofeen T. Ebrahim

“Why kill the goose that lays the [golden] egg?” he asked, contrasting a living coral reef in the Maldives – which provides a habitat for fish and plays a role in the marine carbon cycle – with a bleached one that can threaten both tourism and fisheries.

But money and markets are only part of the equation. Dr Jemilah Mahmood, executive director of the Centre for Planetary Health at Sunway University, insisted on channelling youth energy. “Give them space at policy [discussions], send them to COPs not as tokenism, but let them negotiate. It’s their future,” she said.

As an example of what young people can achieve, Mahmood pointed to Pacific Island law students whose campaign helped bring climate change and human rights before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Their efforts contributed to a landmark advisory opinion in July 2025, clarifying states’ legal obligations on climate change. Climate litigation and the role of legal action in holding governments accountable also featured in the wider conversation.

The highlight of the conference was definitely the success stories from around the world that offered the most tangible hope.

For example, Chinese urban planner Dong Wang, who specialises in sponge cities and ecological planning, shared a low-cost, low-maintenance and replicable project in the heart of Bangkok – the transformation of a former tobacco factory into the 102-acre Benjakitti Forest Park, to which more than 200 bird species have since returned.

Eva Gladek of Metabolic, who spoke about NetZeroCities, showed how 17 old houseboats in Amsterdam were retrofitted with clean technologies and transformed into energy-efficient offices and workspaces.

Mumbai-based Sheela Patel, director of the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres, drew on five decades of work with people living in informal settlements to highlight another kind of urban resilience. Through the ‘Roof Over Our Heads’ campaign, women supported by young professionals are helping make homes more resilient to rain, strong winds and extreme heat.

And these efforts are not simply one-off experiments. Patel said the work has been documented and shared, with more than 100 labs established across 20 countries to help communities test and replicate solutions. Gladek, meanwhile, is helping 100 European cities work towards climate neutrality.

The thought-provoking conference had opened on a note of faith, with Sultan Nazrin Shah speaking of humanity’s responsibility to care for the planet, which he said “comes with privilege and obligation” but is “not a burden to be feared”.

It ended on a rather philosophical and spiritual note, with British singer-writer Yusuf ‘Cat Stevens’ Islam urging people to become the change rather than expecting the world to change. “Never stop being a child, as there is light in their eyes and they see hope,” he said, also stressing the need to bring spirituality into education. “Look how the curriculum has been colonised.”

For positive tipping points to hold, science alone will not be enough, concluded Mahmood. It will also need the voices of those whose futures are at stake.

Note: Published with the permission of Dawn.

IPS UN Bureau Report

UN DESA Assistant Secretary-General Bjørg Sandkjær (right) and Rashmi Banga, Chief of the Development Research Branch, brief journalists at UN Headquarters on the launch of the 2026 World Social Report, emphasizing the need for social inclusion as economic, digital, and climate transformations widen existing divides. Credit: UN DESA / P. Vasic

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 16 2026 (IPS)

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) new report, which addresses the rapid global transformations driven by artificial intelligence (AI), demographic shifts, climate change, and conflict, highlights the widening disparities in employment, social inclusion, and access to services.

The report titled The New Economics of Social Inclusion: Making Transformations Work for All was released on October 5.

Despite decades of progress in income, health, and education that drove development worldwide, the report warns that millions of people risk falling behind. Drawing on data collected over 25 years and across 168 countries, this year’s edition introduces a new Socially Inclusive Transformation (SIT) dashboard, which examines how a nation’s economic, digital, and energy transformations align with social and economic inclusion.

“On one hand, rapid transformations are reshaping our world: digital technologies, artificial intelligence, renewable energy, and the demographic and economic transition,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres during a press briefing at the UN Headquarters coinciding with the report’s release. “On the other hand, these transformations are not working for all. Poverty and deprivation are widespread. Billions are locked out of opportunities because of income, gender, age, disability, ethnicity, or many other fault lines that undermine equality.”

In 2025, UN DESA found that roughly 58 percent of workers were informally employed, while approximately 27 percent of young women aged 15 to 24 were neither employed nor in education or training programs. The same year, UN DESA estimated that around 26 percent of the world’s population, or 2.2 billion, still lacked internet access. Roughly 730 million people lacked access to electricity. The report underscores that even among digitally connected communities, affordability and service quality continue to hinder meaningful participation.

Between 2000 and 2024, the agency reported that more than 50 countries experienced rising income inequality, including in 23 high-income countries. These gaps continue to stifle productivity and weaken community resilience to economic shocks from technological shifts, climate disasters, and geopolitical tensions.

Marginalized groups—including women and girls, youths, disabled persons, migrants, and Indigenous peoples—disproportionately experience limited access to essential resources, economic opportunities, and decision-making processes.

Rashmi Banga, Chief, Development Research Branch, Economic Analysis and Policy Division at UN DESA, stressed that transformations do not automatically translate into inclusion. She noted that none of the top five best-performing countries in transformation, specifically Malta, Ireland, the U.S., Singapore, and China, rank among the top five in inclusiveness, which mainly consist of European countries. The report reveals that numerous African countries continue to fall behind, especially with the proliferation of new digital technologies and the energy transition.

The report highlights the compounding climate crisis as a major driver of social exclusion, noting that approximately 887 million of the 1.1 billion people living in multidimensional poverty are also exposed to at least one major climate hazard. These impacts are most pronounced in regions entrenched in humanitarian crises, where communities have the fewest resources to adapt, significantly threatening long-term economic resilience.

Guterres warned that cascading global shocks, such as the Middle East crisis, are compounding existing threats through rising food, fertilizer, and fuel prices, resulting in more than 100 countries lowering their gross-domestic product forecasts this year alone.

UN DESA also identifies the growing digital divide driven by artificial intelligence as a major threat to social inclusion. While the report shows AI’s potential in enhancing agricultural productivity and generating meaningful gains for rural communities, it warns that significant threats remain. Entire communities with limited affordable, digital connectivity, coupled with insufficient digital skills, risk falling further behind.

Bjørg Sandkjær, UN DESA’s Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination, told reporters that AI often reproduces “biases that exist in the world today” during hiring processes. She warned that this has severe implications for employment, particularly for women.

Banga added that equitable and effective AI governance is critical in preventing these biases and fostering economic and social inclusion. She highlighted India and China as examples of countries implementing AI education into school curriculum, while France has established access to digital infrastructure as a legal right.

Additional data from the report reveals that delaying social inclusion carries a “measurable economic cost.” UN DESA estimates show that if investments in social protection mechanisms are delayed by another decade, countries could face a potential decline in economic output by roughly 12 percent compared to countries that invested early. Conversely, efforts to include young people in employment could raise national GDP by 9.6 percent over the next decade.

“Inclusive societies are more productive, resilient, and prosperous,” said Guterres. “The report urges investments in education, job creation, and skill training, so all people can benefit from technological advancements and the growth of new industries. It calls for inclusive institutions and policymaking to ensure all voices are represented, and it advocates equity-focused approaches to labor markets and taxation to open opportunities for all people, no matter who they are or where they live.”

Banga emphasized that national investments alone cannot achieve adequate social inclusion without strong international cooperation. Multilateral support is pivotal in expanding fiscal space, providing long-term development financing, and widening access to digital infrastructure. Sandkjær called on governments to reframe social inclusion not only as an economic imperative, but as a strategic investment in long-term stability, resilience, and productivity. She also urged for greater integration of social commitments into macroeconomic planning.

“As transformations gather pace, there is no time to be lost by bringing social commitments into the heart of economic policymaking; we can unleash a virtuous cycle of greater inclusion and stronger growth,” said Sandkjær.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Woodlands in nearly every forested country face threats from climate-change-driven fires and deforestation pressures fueled by economic interests exploiting natural resources. Credit: Imran Schah/IPS

By Stephanie Dowlen
MALMO, Sweden, Oct 16 2026 (IPS)

On Monday, governments from across the world will gather in Armenia for COP17, the UN biodiversity summit, to assess progress on the global agreement to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. For anyone who cares about the livability of our planet for future generations, and the richness of life on earth, the stakes could hardly be higher. Policy makers will debate targets, implementation, and the lack of money to protect nature, in particular the failure of developed countries to fulfil their obligations. But there is a more basic question that should put at the center of those discussions: what happens when the financial system governments are counting on to fund nature protection is also financing its destruction?

A new analysis by the Forests & Finance coalition provides an alarming answer. Since 2020, banks have provided $595 billion to companies operating in high-risk agribusiness and metal and mineral mining sectors across tropical forest regions. Of that, $351 billion went to agro-commodities and $244 billion to mining. These are among the primary industries driving deforestation, land degradation, pollution and conflicts with communities across the tropical forest regions of South America, Southeast Asia and Central and West Africa.

The significance of that figure goes beyond the amount of money involved. It exposes a fundamental weakness in the way the biodiversity crisis is being addressed. Governments have committed under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to aligning financial flows with biodiversity goals, yet financial institutions remain largely free to finance nature destruction as a risk to themselves rather than as harm they may in fact be helping to cause.

Nature-related risks are not like ordinary financial risks. A bank might assess how drought could affect a company’s revenues without adequately considering whether the company itself helped create that vulnerability by clearing forests, draining wetlands or degrading watersheds. By the time those consequences appear on a balance sheet, an ecosystem may already have crossed a threshold from which recovery is extremely difficult. The report finds that current financial risk frameworks and sustainability policies remain woefully ill-equipped to assess these real-world impacts.

The consequences are already visible in some of the world’s most important forest landscapes. In Brazil, banks have provided $83 billion to the soy sector since 2020, including $6.8 billion this year alone, despite the collapse in January of the Amazon Soy Moratorium, which had been credited with reducing soy-driven deforestation by 69 percent in monitored areas. The withdrawal of major exporters from the agreement removed a critical safeguard and traceability system keeping forests standing, yet banks have not publicly taken a position on its collapse.

Indonesia presents a similarly disturbing pattern. Banks have provided $67.1 billion to the country’s notoriously destructive pulp and palm oil sectors since 2020, including financing for companies associated with repeated breaches of their own commitments to avoid deforestation, peatland development and exploitation. Peat drainage and deforestation leave landscapes less able to retain water and resist fire, increasing the vulnerability of communities to climate extremes.

At the same time, the financial flows behind mining are growing rapidly. Governments and companies are scrambling to secure copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt and other minerals needed for energy technologies, while demand is also being driven by geopolitical competition and the expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure. Financing for mining in tropical forest-rich countries increased 55 percent between 2016 and 2025, with lithium financing increasing more than elevenfold and nickel financing by 183 percent.

There is a danger in treating every new mine as part of a clean transition simply because its minerals may eventually be used in low-carbon technologies. Mining in tropical forest regions is associated with ecosystem destruction, pollution, land conflicts, violence and violations of Indigenous Peoples’ rights. A transition that sacrifices some of the world’s most biodiverse landscapes and the people who depend on them is not sustainable, whatever the end product.

What makes this particularly troubling is how little protection many banks actually require before providing this financing. The average score in the report’s assessment of bank policies covering forest-risk agro-commodities is only 25 percent, while 39 percent of banks assessed scored below 20 percent. JPMorgan Chase, one of the world’s largest and most influential banks, scored just 18 percent.

Voluntary commitments have done little to close this gap. Governments now need to establish binding rules requiring financial institutions to conduct meaningful environmental and human rights due diligence across corporate groups and supply chains, disclose where their money is going and what impacts that financing is associated with, and face consequences when they finance severe and unresolved harms.

Financial regulators also need to recognize biodiversity loss as more than a distant environmental concern. Tropical forests underpin food systems, water supplies and economic activity, while their degradation can create cascading risks across economies. Yet there is still no equivalent to the regulatory framework used for financial institutions considered systemically important, even as the degradation of these natural systems threatens consequences that extend far beyond individual companies or projects.

But banks should not wait for governments to act. They can establish clear red lines against deforestation, ecosystem conversion and serious human rights abuses, make those requirements enforceable in financing agreements, independently verify compliance and suspend or terminate financing when clients fail to address serious violations. Those safeguards must respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights, including Free, Prior and Informed Consent, and provide affected communities with meaningful access to remedy.

The choice facing governments at COP17 is therefore not simply how much money to mobilize for biodiversity. It is whether they are prepared to stop the financial system from undermining those investments in the first place.

The evidence is increasingly difficult to dismiss. Hundreds of billions of dollars are flowing into industries that are rapidly degrading the natural systems on which economies, and the web of life, depend. Governments have already promised to align financial flows with biodiversity goals. Now they need to make that commitment real.

At COP17, following the money would be a good place to start.

IPS UN Bureau

Kenia Inés Hernández Montalván. Credit: @CDHVitoria

By Clare Quirk
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Oct 15 2026 (IPS)

Kenia Hernández is an Indigenous Mexican lawyer and human rights defender dedicated to advancing women’s rights and social justice.

Arrested in October 2020, she has faced multiple criminal proceedings that human rights organisations, including CIVICUS, have denounced as politically motivated and linked to the criminalisation of her activism. This piece is the second in our series on the campaign that advocates for the immediate release of unjustly imprisoned or persecuted human rights defenders globally.

Additional reference: Five years of resistance: The case of Kenia Hernández and the battle against the fabrication of crimes 

Additional research and reporting: Cecilia Russell
Note: This feature is published with the support of CIVICUS: Stand As My Witness Campaign.
IPS is solely responsible for the editorial content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of CIVICUS.

IPS UN Bureau Report

A group of UN Staffers outside the Secretariat. Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 13 2026 (IPS)

The United Nations has once again revived a longstanding problem that has been left lingering behind closed doors for decades – racism and racial discrimination at the UN Secretariat.

A message sent to UN staffers last week reads: “The United Nations is founded on the bedrock principle that all people are equal in rights and dignity. Racism has no place in our Organization, and we are committed to fighting it on every front”.

“But racism often hides within systems, becoming entrenched through policies and practices that may appear neutral, but in fact reinforce biases and deepen inequities. Bringing these patterns to light is crucial, and for that we need data.”

“That is why, on 17 October, we will be launching a voluntary race data collection initiative. This exercise invites all Secretariat staff to provide information about their race, to help the Organization better identify and address discrimination. It is optional. It is anonymous. And it is one of the best tools we have to discover where action is needed.”

Approximately 3,600 to 4,800 Secretariat staff members, including UN agencies, are based in New York.

Meanwhile, the UN Secretariat in New York, faltered ingloriously last year, as it withdrew its own online survey on racism, in which it asked staffers to identify themselves either as “black, brown, white, mixed/multi-racial, and any other”.

But the most offensive of the categories listed in the survey was “yellow” – a longstanding Western racist description of Asians, including Japanese, Chinese and Koreans.

Subsequently, a non-apologetic message emailed to staffers read: “The United Nations Survey on Racism has been taken offline and will be revised and reissued, taking into account the legitimate concerns expressed by staff.”

Dr Palitha Kohona, a former Chief of the UN Treaty Section in the Office of Legal Affairs (OLA) told Inter Press Service (IPS) racism today is not overly evident at the United Nations which was founded on ideals that were very much ahead of their times, but an undercurrent of racial superiority and racial bias exists among certain elements of the Organization. This is evident in certain appointments and deep-seated attitudes, even among some delegates.

“Racism in international bodies could be traced even to the founding of the League of Nations where President Woodrow Wilson strenuously opposed the Japanese proposal to incorporate the principle of racial equality in the constitution of the Organization. His vision of international order was hierarchical and implicitly based on a racial hierarchy that placed white, Western nations at the top”.

While the United Nations is staffed by many enlightened individuals, some bias based on race still prevails at the highest levels, he pointed out, despite the organization itself having been headed by two Asians and an African in recent times.

“Curiously certain positions have been held only by Europeans. For example, the position of the UN Legal Counsel has been held only by white Europeans. There are other positions apparently reserved for European countries”.

Some delegates are also still affected by racial prejudices of an unenlightened past.

In a well reported incident, the not-so-white chairman of the WEOGs ( a Western European group) from a Southern European country once told the recently-arrived Australian delegate (an Australian citizen of Asian ancestry) that the developing countries of the Group of 77 were meeting in an adjoining room—(implying he was an Asian at the wrong meeting).

In an Organization created on the high ideals of equality and merit there is no logical reason for reserving certain positions on the basis of race, even sub consciously.

“Having gone a long way in minimizing gender bias, it is time to ensure that all vestiges of racial bias are also eliminated. One way to ensure equality and equity in appointments might be to subject all appointments to an open application process with selections being made by racially and gender mixed panels,” declared Dr Kohona, a one-time Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN, and until recently, Ambassador to China.

Ian Richards, President of the UN Geneva Staff Union told IPS: “We are concerned this is being tackled very much from a North American perspective.”

“Race is only a useful indicator if it is combined with where you grew up, which indicates opportunities or disadvantages in formative years, and where you work now. Each region has its own history and attitudes. We don’t feel this has been taken on board,” he said.

Meanwhile, the circular to staffers also points out that by understanding how colleagues identify their race, we can:

•     Pinpoint areas where racial bias or disparities may exist;

•     Examine institutional factors that may contribute to racist misconduct, underreporting of incidents, or barriers to racial justice; and

•     Develop remedial measures to build a workplace free from racial discrimination.

Staff will be invited to participate by selecting a race category on Inspira. To ensure data protection and maintain privacy, your data will be anonymized and aggregated. It will not be used in connection with any individual human resources management processes, such as recruitment or promotions. It will not be visible to recruiters or hiring managers.

The collection of race data will be managed strictly in line with the parameters outlined in General Assembly resolutions A/RES/80/238 and A/RES/80/243 B, as well as the provisions set out in ST/SGB/2024/3.

The racial categories listed echo the language used in past United Nations staff engagement surveys. An additional question will ask staff if they consider themselves to be a member of a racialized community.

Speaking on condition of anonymity. a former UN staff member expressed concerns about the UN Secretariat Administration’s proposed race data collection initiative, particularly regarding its methodology, suitability for the UN’s diverse global workforce, and safeguards for sensitive personal information.

It was pointed out that a fundamental question remains unanswered: Is the lack of race-disaggregated data genuinely preventing the Organization from addressing racism, or does the real problem lie in the implementation of existing policies, the enforcement of accountability, and the failure to translate commitments into effective action?

This distinction must be established before sensitive personal data are collected on such a scale.

“Any approach to addressing racism and racial discrimination within the UN should also recognize the experiences of affinity groups and other minority and underrepresented communities, whose experiences of exclusion may not be adequately captured by standardized racial classifications”.

The absence of meaningful consultation with staff representatives, together with insufficient clarity regarding the conceptual or empirical basis for the selected racial categories, data protection measures, future use of the data, and independent oversight, further undermines confidence in the initiative.

The United Nations must demonstrate its commitment to equality through action, transparency, and accountability. Collecting sensitive racial data must not become a substitute for enforcing existing protections, addressing substantiated concerns, and correcting discriminatory institutional practices, the former staff member said.

“The ultimate measure of success is not how much data the Organization collects, but whether it can demonstrate that racism has been reduced, accountability strengthened, and the working environment made fairer for all staff”.

IPS UN Bureau Report

The protracted demise of dollar-gold convertibility and associated fixed exchange rates did not end dollar hegemony. With crucial and timely help from political allies, confidence in the dollar system has persisted, albeit much diminished.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

But the BW payments arrangements and the US promise of dollar convertibility to gold were not sustainable. As Robert Triffin noted in 1960, the system was ‘failing by design’ from the outset, which US authorities denied and refused to address.

Vietnam War spending, rising inflation, and a run on US gold reserves forced this decision after allied Western central banks quietly gave up defending the gold-dollar peg in 1968.

Decades later, then-US Undersecretary for Monetary Affairs Paul Volcker revealed he had initiated a Treasury working group in 1969.

As the US balance of payments was already proving unsustainable, suspending gold-dollar convertibility was no longer considered an option to be avoided at all costs.

Portraying the gold peg’s failure as due to arithmetic, not politics, Volcker argued that suspending it involved implementing contingency planning that the group had long considered.

Two days before, Nixon summoned 15 advisors to a secret retreat at Camp David to draft his announcement. He also imposed a 90-day wage-price ‘freeze’ and a 10% tariff on imports.

Thus, Nixon presented the suspension of dollar convertibility to gold as part of a larger economic policy reform package, rather than as the long-overdue default on earlier US pledges.

With his 1972 re-election campaign approaching, Nixon and his Treasury Secretary, John Connally, claimed to be ‘freeing’ US economic policy by ending dollar-gold convertibility and associated fixed exchange rate obligations.

Clearly, Nixon’s mid-August 1971 announcement was not an improvised response to an emergency or even the sudden break he implied, although the Volcker group preferred a more ‘controlled demolition’.

US dollar, others’ problem
When allied finance ministers were negotiating a replacement arrangement in Rome in November 1971, Connally bluntly told them that the dollar was America’s currency but their problem, belatedly confessing to BW’s true nature.

Nonetheless, their December 1971 Smithsonian Agreement still sought to patch things up rather than explicitly abandon the 1944 arrangement and the later efforts to defend it.

The dollar was devalued against gold for the first time since 1934, with its price rising from $35 to $38 an ounce. Trading bands around other currencies were widened to give central banks more flexibility.

Nixon pronounced the 1971 Smithsonian Agreement the most significant monetary arrangement in world history before the dollar was devalued again 14 months later, in February 1973.

National authorities politically aligned with the US had defended it, but eventually stopped paying to maintain the charade. Thus, a year and a half after August 1971, BW was finally buried.

Within weeks, the major currencies abandoned fixed exchange rates altogether, allowing them to float against one another. Although the transition to floating rates was not smooth, it has survived, with modifications, ever since.

But the ‘settlement gap’ time lag under floating exchange rates is so problematic that international banking regulators have long sought to reform the way cross-border currency trades are cleared.

Charade over?
Although BW is now long gone, the dollar system has proven durable. The end of gold convertibility was not fatal to the dollar’s role at the centre of world finance.

Instead, the end of the BW dollar-gold convertibility obligation removed one constraint on it. After the final break with gold in 1973, the dollar was only backed by US government promises.

Gold’s formal demonetisation was confirmed with the 1976 Jamaica Accords when IMF member governments quietly amended its charter to strip the precious metal of any official role.

Freed from its earlier BW obligation to redeem dollars with gold, the US has financed its trade, current account, and fiscal deficits, as well as foreign and domestic government spending, with ever more dollar debt.

The world has increasingly financed the growth of US debt as the dollar remains the main currency in which most international trade, especially in commodities, is priced and settled.

The IMF had policed fixed exchange rates and gold-dollar convertibility for over two decades after the war. It has since changed roles to oversee floating exchange rates, selectively serve as ‘lender of last resort’ and manage sovereign debt crises.

International oil transactions were mainly settled in ‘petrodollars’, due to an arrangement with Saudi and other Gulf producers to use oil sales revenue to buy US Treasury securities.

The status quo is now based on others’ willingness to hold dollars. But growing concerns about US willingness to honour its commitments have caused governments to consider alternatives. But dollar hegemony has weathered such recent storms so far.

IPS UN Bureau

The awarding of the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to distinguished South African jurist and international judge Navanethem “Navi” Pillay is about more than just the recognition of an exceptional individual in the global fight for justice.

Navi Pillay-Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

Pillay’s recognition affirms the conviction that international law, however imperfectly applied, remains indispensable to a peaceful world.

Making history

It is a proud moment for South Africa. She becomes the fifth South African to receive this honour, following resistance leader Chief Albert Luthuli in 1960, religious leader and activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 1984, and former presidents Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk in 1993.

She is the first South African woman to receive the peace award. Her prize is a further break with its historical tendency to mostly honour “highly educated white men from Europe and the US”.

Similar to her South African predecessors, the struggle against apartheid and white minority rule features as a crucial element of her contribution. However, there is an important difference. While Mandela became a global symbol of reconciliation, Pillay took the lessons of South Africa’s struggle into the international arena. There she became leader and institution builder in her own right.

She had the daunting task of being one of the very first international judges responsible for forging into being international institutions intended to ensure that those responsible for the gravest human rights violations are held accountable.

She was on the first bench of judges of both the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, established by the United Nations (UN) following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) from 2003 to 2008.

Her personality and drive endowed these fledgling institutions with gravitas and legitimacy. Through her pioneering contributions, she has come to personify the global quest for accountability.

The Navi Pillay I know

As a scholar of international human rights law, I first met Pillay when she was president of the Rwanda tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania. She struck me then, and over time continued to impress me, as someone remarkably approachable. Humble, unassuming and generous with her time, she is also often described as courageous, principled, and unwavering.

I smiled when, in her characteristically down-to-earth reply to the Nobel committee praising her courage, she insisted she was merely applying her independent legal mind to the stark principles of justice.

When I first met her, I was with a group of human rights students from the University of Pretoria visiting Tanzania to observe proceedings. Judge Pillay’s demanding schedule prevented her from spending much time with us during the day. Yet she offered to meet us at her hotel that evening. To our surprise, she arrived driving herself, without a chauffeur or an entourage. She spent many hours answering questions and discussing the work of the tribunal.

Similar encounters continued over subsequent years. To me, these moments revealed her understanding of human rights institutions not as remote structures, but as belonging to people. This included young Africans who she hoped would one day help shape their future.

From apartheid to global justice

Pillay’s story is held together by a central belief, whether in response to apartheid in South Africa, genocide in Rwanda or the occupation of Palestinian territory: that law can restrain abusive power, protect victims and hold the powerful to account. She simply applied it on a bigger stage each time.

Born in 1941 in Durban, to a family of Indian Tamil origin, Pillay experienced racial and gender discrimination first-hand. Despite this, she built a legal career. In 1967 she became the first woman of colour to establish a legal practice in her province.

Like many lawyers opposed to apartheid, she sought to use the very legal system that sustained injustice to challenge its abuses. She represented political activists, exposed torture and challenged the treatment of political prisoners.

She was also involved in the Women’s National Coalition, which helped shape the equality provisions of South Africa’s democratic constitution. These prohibit discrimination on grounds including race, sex and sexual orientation. After apartheid ended, Mandela in 1995 appointed her as a High Court judge.

Rape as a crime against humanity

Later that year she took up office in Tanzania, where one of her most enduring global contributions came in the Rwanda tribunal’s landmark 1998 judgement.

During the trial of Jean-Paul Akayesu, accused of the slaughter of thousands, Pillay and another judge questioned witnesses about sexual violence. They helped bring these experiences into the open and contributed to the amendment of the indictment to include rape.

The result was a judgment that recognised rape as a crime against humanity. It established that rape and sexual violence could also constitute acts of genocide.

The decision constituted the first conviction for genocide by an international criminal tribunal and the first conviction of an individual for rape as a crime against humanity by such a tribunal. This opened the way for greater accountability for crimes committed disproportionately against women and girls.

As Pillay put it:

From time immemorial, rape has been regarded as spoils of war. Now it will be considered a war crime.

Human rights within the UN

From 2008 to 2014, Pillay served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the first woman from the global south to hold this position.

It required a different form of leadership. Rather than deciding cases as a judge, she had to engage governments, confront violations and persuade states to honour their international obligations. During her tenure, she managed to steer the UN’s human rights work through turbulent times, including the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the Arab Spring, and civil war in Syria. Her voice was a steadfast pillar of clarity: human rights could not be sacrificed to economic expediency, national sovereignty or political convenience.

Her tenure coincided with significant advances within the UN. She was a consistent advocate for the rights of equality based on sexual orientation and gender identity, anti-discrimination laws, and proper recording of hate crimes.

In 2001, her home city, Durban, hosted the UN’s World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. The Durban Declaration set an international agenda against racism and xenophobia. It also acknowledged slavery as a crime against humanity.

Although she had no official role in the 2001 conference, as UN high commissioner she was closely involved in the subsequent review process. She defended the declaration against misrepresentation. She emphasised its condemnation of antisemitism, remembrance of the Holocaust and recognition of Israel’s right to security.

Despite boycotts by several western states, including the US, she helped steer the 2009 Durban Review Conference towards a consensus reaffirming the declaration, supported by 182 states. Her role exemplified her determination to overcome division and backlash without compromising fundamental human rights principles.

Pillay’s term was also characterised by a distinctive contribution to women’s rights by championing the recognition of preventable maternal deaths as a human rights issue, rather than merely a public health concern. Under her leadership, the UN Human Rights Office developed groundbreaking guidance in 2012 requiring governments to address discrimination, maternal healthcare and accountability for avoidable deaths.

Palestine and genocide

More recently, she took up her last official UN duty as chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel. The commission’s investigations and findings, including on the war in Gaza, have generated considerable controversy and strong criticism, particularly from Israel and the US.

Her dedication to this task illustrates an essential feature of her work: the application of legal principles becomes most difficult, and most necessary, when politically powerful actors reject scrutiny.

A time when hope is needed

The timing of this award is therefore particularly telling. It comes as, only days earlier, US president Donald Trump had called the ICC “evil” and urged all its members to resign. Responding to the prize, the US imposed sanctions on the ICC.

By honouring a former ICC judge, the Nobel committee chose to defend the very institutions that are now “under attack”, with their judges “sanctioned”.

The award also comes amid Israel’s growing international isolation. Pillay and her team concluded in 2025 that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.

The commission’s findings do not constitute a binding judicial determination. But they do represent a significant contribution to documenting alleged atrocities and advancing the pursuit of accountability, despite intense political opposition.

Even as Pillay recently celebrated her 85th birthday, she may soon have another word on genocide. Since 2019, she has been sitting as an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice in the case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar concerning alleged genocide against the Rohingya. Following a public hearing in January 2026, a judgment in this case is expected later this year, or in early 2027.

Her Nobel Prize does not suggest that international justice has triumphed. But it reminds us that the structures built to advance it remain worth defending. Recognising Pillay is an affirmation of what has been achieved, but also about what must not be lost.

Frans Viljoen – Professor of International Human Rights Law, SARChI Chair in International Constitutional Law, University of Pretoria

This story was originally published by The Conversation.

IPS UN Bureau

Photos of the Rasuwa flood missing line the walls of the Teaching Hospital, Tribhuvan University. Credit: Brandon Kohrt

By Diwash Gahatraj
KATHMANDU, Oct 12 2026 (IPS)

Nearly three decades ago, in the final stretch of Nepal’s civil war, Dr Brandon Kohrt sat with parents whose sons had been conscripted as child soldiers and never returned.

Nobody could tell them what had happened, whether their sons were alive somewhere, whether they were dead, or even where to begin looking. That absence of an answer, Kohrt says, never really left those families. It is the same absence now facing thousands of households across Nepal, after catastrophic floods swept away entire communities.

On August 26, floods and landslides tore down the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli river valleys in Nepal’s Rasuwa district, killing well over a thousand people and leaving thousands more missing, one of the deadliest natural disasters in the country’s recent history.

Kohrt has spent nearly 25 years in Nepal, long enough to watch the country move through this same unresolved grief again and again, first during that war, then after a devastating earthquake, and now, once more, before a wall of missing-persons photographs at Kathmandu’s Teaching Hospital.

Only a small fraction of the recovered bodies have been identified so far. These missing men and women are not just numbers — they add up to a history that stretches back decades in Nepal to that same conflict and the earthquakes that followed it, when entire families waited years for people who never returned. Tracking these disappearances and the psychological toll they leave on families and Nepali society at large has occupied Kohrt ever since.

Kohrt is a professor of psychiatry, global health, and anthropology at George Washington University and has served since 2006 as a technical advisor to the Transcultural Psychosocial Organization Nepal.

Much of his work centres on ambiguous loss, the specific, suspended grief that comes when someone is gone but there’s no body, no confirmation, and nothing to mourn against. The term was coined in the 1970s by Pauline Boss, an American family therapist who began studying it through the wives of US soldiers missing in action in Vietnam, women who couldn’t say for certain whether they were married or widowed.

Boss found the condition wasn’t confined to one culture or one kind of disaster. Researchers have since studied it among families of the disappeared during Argentina’s military dictatorship, families of migrants lost crossing borders in Europe and Africa, and among the families with whom Kohrt sat decades ago. He has worked directly with Boss for over a decade and has applied her framework in Nepal for years before this disaster ever struck.

In the weeks since the floods struck, that gap between the dead and the missing has filled with people. Nepali families search alongside Indian, American, Ukrainian, and Malaysian families thousands of miles away, all waiting on the same uncertain word.

IPS spoke with him about what that grief looks like this time, what’s changed for him after his years of returning to the same wound, and what he’s learned, watching people find ways to keep living without an answer.

Dr Brandon Kohrt, professor of psychiatry, global health, and anthropology at George Washington University and technical advisor to the Transcultural Psychosocial Organisation, Nepal.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

IPS: For readers encountering the term for the first time, what is ambiguous loss?

Kohrt: It’s an important psychological concept, and I want to say at the outset, it is not a mental illness. It’s something anyone can go through. It’s when you still have the psychological sense of someone’s presence in your life, typically a loved one, but there is no physical evidence of either their life or their death. There’s no phone call, no video, nothing to prove they’re still living. But there’s also no body, no proof that they’re deceased.

Nearly every culture has rituals around a body that help us mourn and accept a loss. When there’s no body, we’re stuck in emotional limbo, caught between hope and despair. Some people jump right away to accept their loved one is gone, even without confirmation. Others maintain hope beyond even expectations of reality. We’re all on a different spectrum, and it’s very personal, very individualised. Ambiguous loss is also a real risk factor for what we call complicated grief, a longer, more psychologically difficult kind of mourning, with a higher risk of depression and anxiety.

With 6,145 people still missing in Nepal and only a fraction of recovered remains identified, that state of unresolved uncertainty isn’t abstract. It’s the present condition of thousands of families right now. IPS asked Kohrt how Nepal has faced this same experience before.

IPS: You’ve now worked in Nepal through the Maoist conflict, the 2015 earthquake, and this flood. What connects them?

Kohrt: I first came to Nepal in 1996, right at the start of the civil war. Toward the end of it, I worked with an organisation here, TPO Nepal, on the mental health needs of former child soldiers. Some of those parents never found out what happened to their children. Ambiguous loss was part of the psychosocial reality here even then, decades before this flood, and those families often carried an added burden – communities sometimes treated them with suspicion or blame simply for having a missing relative linked to the conflict, something families searching after this flood aren’t facing in the same way, since so many communities have been affected together.

After the 2015 earthquake, most bodies were recovered, and families were able to do funeral rites, but there are still villages, not far from where this disaster has struck now, where landslides buried people who were never found. This isn’t Nepal’s first experience with this exact kind of unresolved loss in some of these same communities.

A house damaged by the Rasuwa flood. Credit: Brandon Kohrt

IPS: In Nepal specifically, are there rituals that help families cope when there’s no body?

Kohrt: There’s a ritual called Kush Kriya, using grass to essentially perform a substitute funeral when there’s no body. It’s very helpful, but people need to be ready for it. Some may feel like they haven’t exhausted every possible avenue to find their loved one, and they’ll refuse to do it. There’s also a different ritual, Bakal Garne, more like a promise or a wish, maybe to a temple, maybe releasing fish into a river. That one doesn’t require accepting death. You can do a Bakal Garne hoping for your loved one’s safe return or simply hoping to find their body so you can do the cremation you need to do.

Even without an old ritual to lean on, Kohrt says, people still need something to actively do.

IPS: You mentioned people in Nepal are giving DNA samples right now, sometimes more than one, in different countries. What does that process do for a family psychologically?

Brandon Kohrt: Providing a DNA sample has a symbolic meaning that goes beyond its forensic purpose. You’re taking a piece of yourself and giving it in hopes of finding your loved one. Even if the result never confirms anything, the act itself becomes almost another form of ritual. People need to feel active and engaged, rather than passive and helpless.

That instinct, to act rather than wait, is something Kohrt has watched play out across every disaster he’s worked through in Nepal.

IPS: Does arriving at a disaster site feel different to you now than it did 25 years ago, or does something in you brace the same way each time?

Brandon Kohrt: With the earthquake, you could walk through neighbourhoods and see and touch the destruction right in front of you. But with the flood, when I arrived in Nuwakot, I could see some destroyed buildings and others submerged in mud. What you can’t see are all the buildings, bridges, vehicles, and people that were taken by the flood and washed away. This is much more a disaster of absence than a typical disaster of ruins. This will be something much more common with climate change-related disasters, where places gradually and abruptly disappear.

Professionally, the biggest difference is going from being hands-on in the response to being more of a supportive observer. Foreign expertise really isn’t needed anymore; there’s such a strong local Nepali mental health emergency response community now, from psychiatrists to community psychosocial workers.

One colleague, who I first hired at TPO Nepal twenty years ago, is now leading donor coordination and setting out a vision for what’s needed over the next three years. If foreign aid and development is successful, you should get to a point where disaster response is led locally, like we’re seeing in Nepal now.

IPS: You described the photo wall at Teaching Hospital. What does it do to you personally, standing there again?

Kohrt: It was really difficult standing in front of the wall of photos. What is so hard is thinking that behind each photo there are so many family members and friends wondering what happened to this person. Some are holding out hope; some are trying to accept the loss and move toward grief. Each face represents someone who was a sister, a mother, a daughter, a friend, a neighbour, or a coworker to all these other people. For every face we see, there are scores of people suffering.

A house damaged by the Rasuwa flood. Credit: Brandon Kohrt

IPS: Do you find yourself getting better at holding this kind of grief over the years, or does it stay just as hard each time?

Brandon Kohrt: I would say I am better at connecting with grief, acknowledging and sharing in others’ grief. A year after the earthquakes, I was in Nepal when one of my brothers died in the United States. I didn’t make it home in time to see his body before he went to the hospital morgue and was cremated.

I remember how hard it was grieving without having seen his body. That pales in comparison to the ambiguous loss thousands of families in Nepal are experiencing as the search for bodies continues. But it’s something that comes up for me when I talk to grieving families and hear their stories. It cracks open a window to allow the flow of empathy.

IPS: After all these years, what have you learned about how people manage to keep living when there is no answer forthcoming?

Brandon Kohrt: It’s how people move on. People have an incredible ability to carry a lot inside of them – pain, loss, unfulfilled hope, and grief – and keep moving forward in life. A lot of what people went through with the flood will be something they carry with them psychologically, but day-to-day survival requires focusing on taking care of children, caring for elderly relatives, and finding a new place to live. This shouldn’t be confused with recovery or resilience. It’s just getting by, which so many people do after a disaster. What good psychosocial and mental health support does is be available for those moments when some of that pain and grief can surface so that when people are ready, they have that support waiting for them.

IPS UN Bureau Report

A mother and her child stand in the wreckage of their destroyed home in Toamasina, Madagascar, following a devastating cyclone. Credit: UNICEF/Tsiory Ny Aina Andriantsoarana

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 9 2026 (IPS)

New figures from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) project that the impending 2026-2027 El Niño cycle could be one of the strongest on record. Marked by unusually wet and dry conditions, this cycle is forecast to trigger a host of extreme weather events, threatening the health, security, education, and development of over 347 million children worldwide.

“For children, El Niño is far more than a weather pattern. It can mean increased displacement, malnutrition, water shortages, and disease outbreaks. Children are also at risk of schools closing, while families could experience added financial hardship,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell, emphasizing that anticipatory action is critical in protecting communities from climate shocks in the coming months.

Nearly half of the world’s children—roughly 1.1 billion—are already exposed to at least three overlapping climate hazards, including droughts, extreme heat, and floods. The impending El Niño cycle could affect children and communities across nearly 100 countries and territories between October and December 2026.

Rohini Sampoornam Swaminathan, UNICEF Statistics and Monitoring Manager, tells IPS that children are uniquely vulnerable because of their early developmental stage and dependence on essential services and caregivers. This significantly limits their ability to withstand climate shocks, especially as basic services begin to disappear when extreme weather hits.

“Communities may not have fully recovered from one shock before another one strikes, causing the impacts to compound over time,” she said.

The Asia-Pacific region is projected to face the heaviest toll, with roughly 190 million children estimated to be at risk. Substantial populations are also critically vulnerable across East and Southern Africa, with 41 million children vulnerable to climate shocks, alongside another 41 million in Latin America and the Caribbean. Approximately 22 million children are similarly vulnerable in Europe and Central Asia, followed by 20 million in the Middle East and North Africa, and 20 million in West and Central Africa.

El Niño’s regional impacts are expected to vary significantly and could compound pre-existing humanitarian crises. Swaminathan underscored that climate shocks that are manageable in some areas can become pronounced humanitarian crises in others.

Tropical nations—such as Colombia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and the Philippines—are forecast to face unusually dry conditions, driving weaker agricultural outputs and severe water scarcity. This, in turn, could elevate rates of acute malnutrition and adverse health outcomes among children.

Conversely, communities in the Greater Horn of Africa could face alarmingly high levels of rainfall, particularly in Somalia, where there is a greater risk of riverine and flash flooding. Children in this region are especially vulnerable to outbreaks of water-borne diseases.

Between 2016 and 2023, weather-related disasters displaced more than 20,000 children daily. Swaminathan stressed to IPS that regions facing wetter climates could experience exacerbated displacement as floods push more communities far from their homes and into crowded, temporary shelters, which amplifies protection risks.

In protracted conflict or crisis zones such as Chad and Afghanistan, El Niño poses a direct threat to survival for children. Already bearing the burdens of extreme hunger, displacement, and an overwhelming lack of access to essential services such as protection, these children have no safety net when climate shocks ravage their communities, as they are already on the brink of collapse.

Beyond physical hazards, UNICEF’s findings highlight that disruptions to schooling are among the most alarming consequences of the impending cycle. Severe droughts and floods threaten widespread school closures, declining attendance, and rising dropout rates. In 2025 alone, extreme weather patterns interrupted education for an estimated 171 million students globally.

Swaminathan warned that climate-induced disruptions to schooling carry profound risks for children’s safety, exposing them to heightened risks of violence, exploitation, and child marriage. Girls bear the brunt of these impacts, often taking on family caregiving roles that can lead to compromised health and nutrition, as well as limited access to essential services. “When girls leave school, they are often less likely than boys to return,” she noted.

UNICEF estimates show that every US $1 invested in disaster risk reduction and prevention efforts can yield up to $15 in saved recovery costs. Yet less than 1 percent of humanitarian funding is allocated for anticipatory action, even with months of warning and massive projected losses.

The agency continues to call on governments, donors, and partners to invest in lifesaving anticipatory intervention before peak impacts hit vulnerable communities. UNICEF highlights building climate resilience, securing essential services, and guaranteeing humanitarian access as key priorities in its response.

Swaminathan underscored that children with disabilities, who already face persistent barriers in education, healthcare, and nutrition, must be considered in disaster preparedness. She emphasized that inclusive planning is essential in addressing structural inequalities and ensuring every region is adequately prepared.

“Despite efforts to plan for disasters, most resources are mobilized only after the damage occurs, and the focus is often on the immediate response phase of a crisis,” said Swaminathan. “With forecasts providing months of warning, UNICEF is urging governments, donors, and partners to act before needs escalate by investing early and before impacts peak. Building resilience is not only about infrastructure and early warning systems, but also about strengthening the services and institutions children rely on and addressing the inequalities that make some communities far more vulnerable to climate shocks than others.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Children in Gaza wait in the hope of receiving food. Credit: UN News

By UN Women
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 9 2026 (IPS)

Since October 2023, 50,000 women and girls in Gaza have been killed or seriously injured.

• UN Women estimates that nearly 50,000 women and girls in Gaza have been killed or severely injured since the onset of war in October 2023 [1], amounting to one in 21 Gazan women and girls losing their life or living with lifelong disabilities [2].


• More than 38,000 women and girls have been killed and 11,700 severely injured, the result of Israeli airstrikes and land military operations.

• While most of the casualties recorded took place during the first two years of the war, women and girls continue to be targeted despite a ceasefire agreement entering into effect in October 2025. Two hundred seventy-seven women and girls are among those who have been killed in Gaza over the past year.

Nearly every woman and girl in Gaza is displaced.

• More than 150 evacuation and movement orders have been issued across Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces since October 2023, forcing nearly one million women and girls from their homes – nearly every woman and girl in Gaza.

• The majority of women and girls in Gaza live in tents or in the ruins, with no privacy. In conditions that are incompatible with survival and dignity, women and girls are caring for children, the sick, the injured, and for the elderly, cooking and cleaning without the basic means to carry out these responsibilities.

• Women are being forced to deliver babies in unsafe and unsanitary conditions, putting their lives at risk. At the same time, the number of miscarriages reached almost 4,000 in the first six months of 2026, triple the number recorded during the last six months of 2025.

The number of widows and those assuming the role of head of household in Gaza has doubled since October 2023.

• Nearly one in four households in Gaza – an estimated 86,290 households – is now reportedly headed by a woman, compared to the pre-October 2023 rate of one in nine.

• For women-headed households, the impact extends beyond the grief of losing a husband, father or other loved one. Many are now carrying sole responsibility for providing for, protecting, and holding their families together in increasingly devastating conditions.

Despite the ceasefire, women and girls in Gaza continue to face severely limited access to food, shelter, safe water, and hygiene supplies, alongside ongoing hostilities and insecurity.

• Intense and widespread bombing has leveled homes, businesses, hospitals, schools, and shops, making it extremely hard for women and girls to access essential services and basic goods.

• Restrictions on humanitarian access and bombardment continue to cause immense suffering. Between July and December 2026, an estimated 702,000 women and girls are projected to face high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3+, crisis or worse), with devastating effects on their health, including the risk of malnutrition [3].

The steepest recorded decline in aid is threatening a lifeline to women and girls in Gaza: women’s organizations.

• UN Women surveyed women’s organizations working on the frontlines of the response in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Thirteen of the 14 organizations surveyed reported that the level of need among women and girls has increased since 2025. All organizations surveyed had seen an increase in gender-based violence, poverty, and mental health distress since 2025. Thirteen of the 14 organizations had seen an increase in child marriage.

• At the same time, 13 of the 14 organizations surveyed by UN Women reported that they do not have the capacity to meet the growing needs of women and girls. To cope with the lack of funding, nearly two thirds of the organizations told UN Women they had been forced to put women and girls on waiting lists or turn them away.

UN Women is on the ground in Gaza. We work with women-led and women’s rights organizations to provide lifesaving and critical support to women and girls, including protection services and gender-based violence case management, legal aid, mental health and psychosocial support, and emergency cash and livelihoods assistance.

From fitting women and girls with prosthetics and offering counselling to survivors, to ensuring that the humanitarian response is shaped by the experiences and perspectives of women and girls, our support is helping them to stay afloat. But women and girls in Gaza need peace.

UN Women calls for the ceasefire in Gaza to be fully implemented. We call for international law to be upheld, accountability for violations, and the protection of women and girls and all civilians. Humanitarian assistance must reach those in need – at scale and without obstruction. Women and girls must be placed at the centre of response and recovery efforts.

[1] The proportion was calculated by combining women and girls killed or injured (38,000 and 11,700, respectively).

[3] UN Women estimate based on the IPC Gaza Strip Special Brief, published 13 August 2026. The estimated 702,000 women and girls facing acute food insecurity at crisis-level or worse (IPC Phase 3+) during July–December 2026 is calculated by applying PCBS’s 2025 female population share (49.7 per cent) to the IPC projected caseload of 1,412,421 people. The calculation assumes proportional representation of women and girls across IPC phases and is rounded to the nearest thousand.

IPS UN Bureau

Ore containing copper, cobalt, and nickel, critical minerals that power the use of emerging technologies. Credit: Unsplash/Paul-Alain Hunt

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8 2026 (IPS)

The demand for critical minerals is accelerating as world powers scramble to stay on top of emerging technologies. Meanwhile, the environment and frontline communities are paying a steep price.

Such was the basis of the discussion held by the Oakland Institute on September 30, during their webinar: ‘How War and AI Fuel the Critical Minerals Race‘. The event convened experts and frontline activists to examine how artificial intelligence (AI) drives mineral extraction, transforms war technologies, and affects communities entrenched in protracted conflict.

Building on the Institute’s July report, RUSH: Global Scramble for Minerals Wages War on People and Planet, the event highlighted the correlation between rising military spending and the proliferation of AI systems. Panelists stressed that as the demand for critical minerals reaches new peaks, frontline communities bear the brunt of adverse environmental and social impacts.

Anuradha Mittal, founder and Executive Director of the Oakland Institute, noted that military operations account for less than 10 percent of total critical mineral use. Despite this, she warned that the global AI “boom” and increasing competition between world powers over strategic supply chains could trigger a sharp rise in extraction.

Expanding data centers will demand increasingly higher quantities of critical minerals, including copper, gallium, indium, palladium, magnesium, tungsten, germanium, and tantalum. Mittal projected that by 2030, data centers could require an additional 512,000 tons of copper, alongside a 37 percent increase in germanium and an 85 percent increase in gallium by 2033.

She highlighted the United States military-industrial complex as a specific area of concern, describing it as an “AI-first warfighting force.” Under the Trump administration’s proposed 2027 defense budget, military spending would reach a record high of 1.5 trillion USD, nearly twice that of 2023. As the U.S. races to counter China’s dominance across global supply chains, extraction, and processing, the Trump administration has enacted rapid measures to secure minerals internationally.

“Since 2025, the (Trump) administration claims to have signed 38 mineral agreements with countries ranging from Ukraine, India, the DRC, the Philippines, UAE, Australia, Argentina, and Saudi Arabia…Competition with China is bolstering this strategy,” said Mittal. “The Department of War has allocated 75 billion USD to AI-driven programs and another 9 billion to data centers, while the Pentagon requested 13.4 billion dollars in 2026 for autonomous systems. This has driven the U.S. to start stockpiling minerals as strategic assets.”

Other panelists detailed how the impacts of the critical minerals race extend far beyond the global scramble for resources. Frontline communities are not only subjected to environmental degradation, but those in conflict zones are routinely exploited by tech and defense corporations as testing sites for novel military technologies before they are introduced to global markets.

Leila, representing the U.S.-based and Palestinian-led advocacy group Adalah Justice Project (AJP), warned that Gaza has served as an “enormous blueprint for AI-powered war,” noting that Israeli companies have historically used the enclave to test emerging technologies relating to surveillance.

“We have facial recognition drones, different kinds of spyware companies that can hack into phones, and all kinds of AI-assisted targeting programs that, of course, we really learned about through the last couple of years in the genocide,” said Leila. “These tools were developed and tested by Israeli companies in real time, and then sold to the world as sort of ‘battle-proven.’”

Leila also stressed the urgency of the Deadly Merger, a legislative proposal in the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to expand the integration of the U.S. and Israel’s military technology, intelligence, and surveillance systems. AJP posits that the Merger could intensify violence against Palestinians, drive heightened surveillance in the U.S., and impose a “new techno-fascist world order.”

Katerina Canyon, Executive Director of Peace Economy Project—a non-profit organization that advocates for the redirection of military spending toward human needs—introduced the concept of a “peace economy”, where critical resources are used to strengthen healthcare and social infrastructure rather than fund military operations.

Canyon stated that rare earths, lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, and other critical minerals are not only necessities for the proliferation of AI but also are cornerstone resources for the green energy transition. She emphasized that a peace economy must prioritize an equitable environment for civilians over military defensives.

“For nearly fifty years, our organization has challenged militarism and asked what would happen if public resources were directed toward human needs rather than preparation for war,” said Canyon. “My core argument is simple: critical minerals are not politically neutral. The same mineral can become part of a wind turbine, an electric bus, a medical device, or a missile guidance system. Geology does not make that distinction; policy does, government budgets do, procurement decisions do, and industrial strategy does.”

“So the real question is not simply whether we need critical minerals; it is what kind of economy are we building around them,” she continued. “A peace economy starts with a different definition of security. One centered on whether people have safe communities, have healthcare, clean energy, transportation, housing, and a livable environment.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8 2026 (IPS)

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

But some of the more politically-sensitive and heavily-loaded questions, have been avoided — either intentionally or by accident– primarily because the answers could trigger a veto from the P-5.

Do you subscribe to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies at the UN? If so, will you help implement this policy, which excludes gender empowerment, and is strongly advocated by the Trump administration?

Is the Russian invasion of Ukraine a violation of the UN charter? And is Russia responsible for war crimes in Ukraine?

Thomas G. Weiss, Presidential Professor Emeritus, Political Science, Director Emeritus, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, the CUNY Graduate Center, told Inter Press Service (IPS) the absence of probing questions from governments is easier to understand than from journalists who should be shedding light on and exposing the relative degree of spinelessness in candidates.

“The last two SGs demonstrate that what passes for acceptable among the P5 is not what the UN requires. The planet requires boldness and a willingness to speak truth to power. Alas, what gets a candidate elected and what is required are two different things,’ he pointed out.

Mandeep S. Tiwana, Secretary-General CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organizations (CSOs) and activists, told IPS practically speaking, in order to successfully navigate the present political minefield, it could be considered wise for candidates to steer clear of questions they deem contentious.

But what does that say about the process for the appointment of the next Secretary General? he asked.

“The United Nations is supposed to be the conscience of the world. So, in principle answering a question on the value of diversity and equity or calling out the reality of complicity in genocide and war crimes by powerful states should not be so hard for someone who aspires to be the leader of the world body”.

Unfortunately, traditions have taken hold where senior UN officials see themselves more as bureaucrats beholden to the representatives of states – some of whom don’t even conduct free and fair elections – rather than as servants of the peoples of the world in whose name the UN was established, said Tiwana.

“The UN draws its legitimacy from its founding values. It is our hope that whoever is appointed will break the mold. Crucially, it is time for a woman to head the UN and govern it with feminist leadership values of consensus building, courage, power-sharing and radical inclusion. At the same time, they should be able to hear and feel deeply for victims of the very violations the UN was established to prevent,” declared Tiwana.

Richard Gowan, Director for Global Issues and Institutions, and a longtime UN watcher at the Brussels-based Crisis Group told IPS there is an old saying that “politicians campaign in poetry but govern in prose.”

But aspiring UN Secretaries-General don’t even get to campaign poetically. They have to tread extremely carefully to avoid offending the veto powers. This leads them to make lowest common denominator statements and avoid hard topics, he said.

“That means these races are disappointing for UN watchers and boring for journalists. However, at the end of the day the world’s top diplomat must be diplomatic, so the race is all about showing who can be most tactful not most brilliant”.

It is worth saying that even the best UN leaders did not say much that was exciting during the campaign phase. Dag Hammarskjold, U. Thant and Kofi Annan all took office without making waves.

Hammarskjold, he pointed out, was famously prone to periods of introspective silence even once he was in office. So, I don’t think that out-spokeness is necessarily a decisive criterion in this race, he declared.

Meanwhile, the seven official candidates running to succeed António Guterres as the next UN Secretary-General (starting January 1, 2027) are listed below, alongside former candidate Michelle Bachelet who withdrew from the race:

IPS UN Bureau Report

The effects of torture and ill-treatment seen on Oleksandr Savov, a Ukrainian marine who took part in the defence of Mariupol after his release from Russian captivity. Credit: Anastasiia Savova

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Oct 7 2026 (IPS)

More than 60 Ukrainian organisations have issued an appeal to the World Health Organisation (WHO) to help stop the torture of Ukrainians held in Russian captivity.

Ahead of International Doctors’ Day on October 5, the groups, including the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organisation the Centre for Civil Liberties (CCL), issued an appeal to the WHO, calling on it to draw international attention to systematic violations of the right to medical care for Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) and civilians illegally detained by Russian forces.

The appeal follows the release of a report, ‘Anatomy of Torture: Testimonies on Torture and Ill-Treatment by Medical Personnel in Russian Captivity’, by Ukrainian NGOs, including testimonies from released POWs and illegally detained civilians, which its authors say points to, among others, the systemic denial of medical care to detainees and the direct participation of medical staff in their torture and ill-treatment. In some cases this has resulted in the deaths of POWs and detained civilians.

The groups behind the appeal believe it will increase public awareness of the treatment of detained Ukrainians and put pressure on international organisations to take concrete action to stop it.

“It is important to draw attention to the fact that the denial of medical care and the involvement of medical personnel in cruel treatment are not isolated incidents but form a systemic problem. We expect international organisations not only to respond with statements but also to take concrete action,” Nataliia Yashchuk, Senior War Consequences Officer at CCL, which co-produced the Anatomy of Torture report, told IPS.

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than four and a half years ago, there have been repeated reports of ill-treatment of POWs and civilians held in Russian detention facilities, including some that allege war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against detainees.

But the Anatomy of Torture report documents specifically how Ukrainians held in Russian penal institutes have been, and continue to be, victims of torture by medical staff.

Yashchuk told IPS that the group’s systematic analysis of dozens of testimonies demonstrated that these were not isolated incidents but instead a recurring pattern of behaviour by medical personnel in different detention centres, suggesting it was a systematic practice.

This is backed up by the fact that some of those who provided testimonies for the report were doctors and medics themselves and therefore especially qualified to identify the deliberate and systematic nature of the ill-treatment they suffered, its authors say.

“Our objective [with the report] was…to demonstrate the systemic nature of the problem,” Yashchuk said.

The report includes testimony from former Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) who were subjected to torture by doctors and nurses at facilities – CCL estimates there are up to 300 locations where Ukrainians are being held – across Russian-occupied territories and Russia itself.

The abuse included not just denial of healthcare but also beatings, electric shocks, death threats from medical staff, and being forced to stand in one spot for 16 hours and being made to beg for help before being tortured again.

Sergii Doroshenko, a former paediatrician who was serving as head of an army medical unit when he was captured by Russian forces in Mariupol in spring 2022, spent 1030 days in captivity at various detention centres across Russia.

He told IPS he was held in inhumane conditions in detention centres where medical supplies or personnel were sometimes non-existent, and any request for medical help was met with refusal. At others he and any other medical personnel detained were allowed to help their own wounded, but only using whatever they could scavenge themselves, such as any bandages, tourniquets, or other materials they happened to have.

Doroshenko said that in one penal facility where only unpurified water was available to prisoners, 800 people had intestinal illnesses at the same time. He and others used stripped bark from prison grounds, which they then brewed into a drink to slow down or curb such outbreaks.

“There were episodes when people lost consciousness from dehydration and received no treatment, because there were no medicines at all,” he said.

He also describes how at another detention centre when he and others sought medical help, “instead of pills, we were treated with electric shocks …it was the treatment for everything — for toothache, for injuries from beatings, for joint pain, for fever, for coughing.”

Meanwhile, in some cases medical personnel actively participated in torture.

He said his worst experience was during his last year of captivity when he was sent to a correctional colony in the Republic of Mordovia in the Russian Federation.

“There, the doctor personally took part in the torture and was perhaps the cruellest of all the staff at that colony,” said Doroshenko. He was nicknamed “Doctor Death” because after his torture sessions, several people had to undergo surgical operations.

“There was also the deliberate withholding of medical care by medical staff. Even when they saw that we had temperatures of 39–40°C, when people had a fever and fell into a kind of intermediate state between consciousness and unconsciousness, even then, they did not permit any treatment, not even a rest from the torture.

“For example, from my own experience, I had a very high fever, and for about four or five days I sought help daily, and in response received beatings and electric shocks, but my condition was so bad that a rash covered my entire body, from my face to my heels, and afterward I had peeling, shedding skin… I never received a single pill, not a single antipyretic treatment — nothing but beatings,” said Doroshenko.

He added that Russian propaganda intentionally demonised medics, which made prisoners like him a special target for torture.

Meanwhile, his presence in captivity was officially confirmed only two and a half years after his capture. Groups like Amnesty International have pointed out that POWs have been deliberately cut off from the outside world, often for years, and a lack of transparency over their whereabouts has allowed for their torture and even unlawful killings to continue with total impunity.

“The Russian Federation only officially confirmed my presence in captivity after two and a half years. Before that, they did not officially acknowledge that I was their prisoner, meaning that if I had been killed or tortured to death somewhere, they would bear no responsibility for it,” said Doroshenko.

“Only about six months before my release did they confirm that they indeed held a certain Sergii Doroshenko in captivity, and thereafter, the frequency of torture decreased significantly, the beatings decreased significantly — they started, so to speak, to take a bit of care of us, fearing that we might die from the torture,” he added.

Other groups have also documented incidents of torture of Ukrainians by Russian medical staff.

A report released late last year by Human Rights Watch (HRW) suggested medical personnel enabled or were apparently complicit in torture, staff at the group told IPS.

Yulia Gorbunova, associate director for Ukraine at HRW, told IPS that the report’s findings and ongoing monitoring showed incidents of Ukrainian POWs being denied basic treatment and pain management at detention facilities in Russia and Russia-occupied areas of Ukraine despite suffering from severe combat wounds or after being injured during interrogations.

“From the moment of capture and throughout their detention, former POWs described medical care at every stage as inadequate, often abusive, and routinely withheld or delayed. Treatment for combat wounds, torture injuries, or contagious diseases like tuberculosis and scabies was typically restricted to basic antiseptics or mild painkillers.

“In addition, these facilities are operated under conditions that actively degrade physical health. Ukrainian detainees (POWs and civilians) endure severe overcrowding, chronic starvation, unsanitary conditions, and a lack of clean water, leading to rapid physical deterioration and untreated health issues,” she said.

Another recent report by Ukrainian NGOs included similar findings.

Russian authorities have repeatedly denied that any Ukrainian POWs or civilians it holds are subject to ill treatment or torture.

However, reporting from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, among others, has shown that Russia has consistently refused to grant independent monitors access to POW detention sites.

This means that there are no official records of injuries and illnesses resulting from the ill-treatment and torture of detainees.

The Anatomy of Torture report includes an analysis documenting how the reported treatment of detainees by Russian medical staff is a violation of not just international rights treaties such as the Geneva Conventions but also the World Medical Association’s International Code of Medical Ethics.

When IPS contacted them, WHO officials were not available to speak about the Ukrainian organisations’ appeal.

A spokesperson for the ICRC did not comment on the specific allegations in the Anatomy of Torture report but said the group was “concerned by any reports of ill-treatment of those in captivity or detention.”

“Under international humanitarian law, all people deprived of liberty, be they combatants or civilians, must be treated humanely. Care for their life, dignity and wellbeing is paramount. The 1949 Geneva Conventions contain specific rules governing conditions of detention, including access to proper hygiene standards and medical care and treatment. In all cases, the provision of medical care must comply with the applicable standards of medical ethics,” the spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, some victims of the torture and ill-treatment recorded in the report are speaking out to help bring those responsible to justice.

When Oleksandr Savov, a Ukrainian marine who took part in the defence of Mariupol, returned to his family after almost three years in various Russian detention centres, his daughter, Anastasiia, was glad to be reunited with her father but shocked at his physical state. She knew from his almost skeletal frame that he had suffered while in captivity.

She told IPS that when he had been captured, he had no injuries nor illnesses. But when he was released, he had tuberculosis, broken ribs, chronic ulcers, and lymphoedema. He was unable to straighten one leg and doctors told him he would need a knee replacement.

He also had mental health problems, including night terrors, panic attacks during air raids, and a paralyzing fear of silence or queues.

After seeing doctors and realising the full extent of his injuries he began to think about what had happened to him and fellow captives and the fact that it was medical staff who had inflicted such suffering.

“He couldn’t understand how doctors could be so cruel to other people,” Anastasiia said.

He told her what they had done to him, including not just refusing to provide medical care when he needed it, but torture with electric shocks.

Savov died of heart failure in November last year, eight months after he was released. He was 46. After his death, doctors in Ukraine found that his heart had been damaged following a heart attack he had suffered in captivity.

He spent his final months visiting hospitals and documenting his memories in a notebook for the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Anastasiia has since founded a community for the families of captive marines and continues to speak out in support of detained defenders and returning soldiers. She has also filed a complaint with the ICC over her father’s torture.

She says that, like her father, she believes that speaking out publicly forces Russia to ease conditions for those still detained.

She also says that she wants to see the people who tortured her father and others brought before a court and held accountable for their actions.

“These medical staff are part of a system of torture in these prisons because when people ask for medical help, for instance, like when my father did, they come, and they just laughed in their faces and recorded videos of them on their phones instead of helping them,” she said.

She added it is imperative investigations into these people take place, or “this torture and ill treatment won’t end.”

This was also her father’s wish before he died.

“After he was released from captivity, my father did a lot of interviews with journalists and human rights defenders, and once he was asked whether he felt anger towards the people who had tortured him. He said that at that moment, he felt nothing about them, but he wanted the torture to stop. The thought that those kinds of things were going on at the same time he was talking to those journalists really upset him. He couldn’t understand why there was no one in the whole world who could do anything about it,” she says.

Doroshenko said people involved in the torture of Ukrainian detainees should face “something like the Nuremberg trials”.

“The conduct of the doctors, the medical staff, and even ordinary guards at these penal facilities was a deliberate violation of the Geneva Convention and a deliberate use of torture, and therefore they should be subject, as war criminals, to judicial investigation and, following that, judicial punishment in accordance with the court’s decision. These are people who have lost their humanity, who have become beasts, and who have no right to be in society. A doctor has no right to torture others,” he said.

Some doctors allegedly involved in torture of Ukrainian captives have already been identified, and earlier this year the EU sanctioned Galina Mokshanova, the head of the medical unit of Penal Colony No. 10 in Udarny, Russia, for human rights violations.

Ensuring justice and accountability is vital not just for victims and their relatives, Yashchuk said.

“This research is about documenting crimes but also the urgent need for effective international mechanisms capable of saving the lives of those who remain in captivity,” she said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 
CIVICUS discusses life as a refugee with an exiled Sudanese civil society activist who has asked to remain anonymous for security reasons.

Over three years into Sudan’s war, millions of people have been displaced, both within the country and beyond its borders, and the numbers keep rising. Fighting continues to force civilians from their homes, while those who reach neighbouring countries struggle to find safety and stability. Civil society warns that, despite the scale of the suffering, Sudan’s crisis isn’t receiving the international attention it deserves. Exiles document violations and advocate for democracy and peace.

What drew you to human rights activism, and how has exile changed it?

The gender-based injustice women face in our societies drew me to human rights work. From childhood, I objected to the unequal treatment of girls and boys and the stereotypes that painted women as less capable. I rebelled against this system, seeking out books, stories and real-life experiences that showed women’s capabilities and potential.

Activism in exile, particularly during wartime, brings unending and unexpected risks and challenges. At times, it feels like you are fighting to survive. You carry the trauma of war and the guilt of being safe while your family and community remain in danger. Many human rights defenders lack the basic resources to survive.

In exile, I have moved from a radical stance to one focused on reform, having learned that dogmatism, hostility and refusal to listen can lead to violence and grave human rights violations. I have become more deliberate in my judgements, with a stronger desire to understand the other side.

How has Sudanese civil society adapted since the war began?

Sudanese civil society has shown remarkable resilience. People mobilised to confront the war and the collapse of state institutions. Within hours, young people and volunteers were helping the wounded, homes became field clinics and communities shared their resources.

As the war continued, many civil society organisations relocated abroad. One of the most remarkable aspects of the Sudanese experience has been the emergence of numerous additional human rights, humanitarian, women’s and youth organisations in host countries. They have maintained links with activists inside Sudan, monitored human rights and documented violations, provided humanitarian assistance, advocated for peace, promoted dialogue and countered hate speech.

Civil society’s work, inside Sudan and abroad, is one of the few sources of hope for peace in the country.

What barriers do Sudanese civil society activists and organisations face in exile?

Refugees face insecurity and a rising wave of xenophobia in host countries, and many feel unwelcome, or even blamed for seeking safety in a country where they are made to feel they don’t belong. Many also face movement restrictions, difficulties renewing residency documents and the constant risk of deportation.

On top of this, activists carry the added burden of propaganda that portrays them as fugitives or foreign agents. We must confront the abuses we document while also countering division, hatred, intolerance and racism.

Civil society organisations abroad also face economic, legal and security restrictions. Many struggle to register legally, open bank accounts, access funding or obtain permits.

Compounding all this are the limited international support and the sense that global decision-makers, and even international human rights organisations, don’t prioritise our concerns. This can leave you feeling that you simply don’t matter.

What needs to change to stop displacement silencing activists and refugees in general?

The global system often seems designed to protect the strong while weakening the vulnerable. In Africa and across the global south, we seek to change this, yet we remain constrained by the structures and assumptions of the system. We need to see difference as a source of diversity rather than division, share responsibility for resources and security, and protect everyone’s rights to life, development, dignity and freedom.

As a Sudanese refugee and human rights defender, I strongly support the Borderless Africa campaign, led by the pan-African civil society movement Africans Rising, which calls for visa-free travel and a single continental passport across Africa. It reflects the need to move beyond borders and put humanity and fundamental rights first.

It’s shocking to be forced into silence about crimes you have witnessed simply because you are a refugee. Governments, civil society and activists must dismantle the legal and logistical barriers that leave refugees unable to access basic rights.

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.

SEE ALSO
Sudan: ‘Crossing a border doesn’t automatically mean you’re safe’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Rawia Saad 09.Sep.2026
Sudan: blood on the hands of foreign powers CIVICUS Lens 04.Sep.2026
Sudan in crisis: mass killings continue while the world looks away CIVICUS Lens 23.Dec.2025

Mariam Daher preparing for her Tawjihi examinations in the temporary learning spaces in Gaza. Credit: Education Above All Foundation

By Hani Shehada
DOHA, Qatar, Oct 2 2026 (IPS)

In the 21st century, getting a pencil into Gaza became international news. In January, after more than two years of restrictions, UNICEF finally brought in learning kits with pencils and exercise books. Textbooks stayed out. By then, the UN had recorded damage to 97.5 per cent of Gaza’s schools.

If a pencil makes headlines, consider what a national examination demands: question papers printed for thousands of students, answer sheets scanned, halls furnished and staffed. In Gaza, education officials started by pulling damaged photocopiers from beneath the rubble, stripping their usable parts and rebuilding enough machines to keep the exam alive. It worked. More than 95,000 students have sat the Tawjihi, the national secondary school examination that decides who can compete for a university place.

This week, world leaders gathered at the UN General Assembly under the banner of “a United Nations that delivers for all“. The effort behind Gaza’s examination poses an uncomfortable question to that promise: when does celebrating a solution make it easier to tolerate the problem? Scholars writing from Gaza have warned that praising Palestinian resilience reassures outside observers and releases them from the duty to act.

At a school damaged by the war near Mashrou’ Amer in southwestern Gaza City, Education Above All Foundation and UNDP have established 10 temporary learning spaces. Credit: Education Above All Foundation

Israel classifies thousands of items as “dual-use“, spare parts among them, and bars or limits their entry. Technicians harvested parts from other machines. Repairing the printers and scanners took more than 90 days. The printers ran on old ink stocks, because new ink faced restrictions too. Until recently, paper itself could not enter Gaza.” and drop the fallback plan after it.

Exam halls also needed seats and desks. Little wood reaches Gaza. Carpenters build tables from scrap and shipping pallets, and families burn whatever they find to cook and keep warm. Staff repaired chairs and desks with timber from the pallets that carry aid. Every liter of fuel for an examination center required coordination. All of it happened under strikes that never fully stopped, which have killed more than 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect.

An examination also needs people. Every center needed invigilators while many education staff receive only a fraction of their salary. Before assigning anyone, the ministry first had to establish who was still alive. The war has killed more than 21,000 students and educational staff since October 2023.

A school teacher leads a lesson inside one of Gaza’s temporary learning spaces established by Education Above All Foundation and UNDP.
Credit: Education Above All Foundation

This year, Gaza’s candidates took the Tawjihi online, many on phones in tents and cafés, while the ministry worked to bring the exam back into halls. With support from the State of Qatar, Education Above All Foundation, UNDP and the ministry have set up 110 learning spaces, partly for that purpose. Planners intended these spaces, a mix of prefabricated units and tents, as a transition. Gaza’s students are using them for years, while sun, heat, humidity and cold wear them down.

Gaza’s people now crowd into less than 40 per cent of the Strip. Crews must clear rubble and check for unexploded ordnance before they can build. When they clear land for a learning space, displaced families can move onto it and stay. Others shelter in partly destroyed buildings. A school site now competes with the most basic need of all: somewhere to live.

Picture one of those 95,000 candidates. She has studied for this exam for years, first at a desk at home, then by phone light in a tent. The war has taken her father, perhaps her mother too, and most of the family who would have waited for her results. She may walk on crutches where a leg used to be. Strikes still fall at night, and she revises anyway. All she wants is the chance to sit the exam. Behind that chance stand a salvaged photocopier, a rebuilt desk and a negotiated liter of fuel, each one liable to fail. The UN reports that shortages once managed through reuse have become unmanageable, and critical systems are failing. Judged against a cancelled examination, against a school able to order a replacement part, it reveals an avoidable burden.

I am from Gaza, and I work for one of the foundations that funds this response. That makes the question personal: have we become so used to celebrating what Palestinians can salvage that we no longer ask why they must salvage it? An examination held amid continuing strikes is an achievement. It is also evidence of a world that has allowed the conditions for education to be dismantled.

As the speeches in New York wind down, leaders can measure their words against practical tests. Let paper, printer parts, school furniture and textbooks into Gaza without months of negotiation. Fund classrooms built to last years, not seasons. Pay the teachers who keep the system running. Gaza’s educators have shown what they will do to keep education alive. The question before the world is what it would take for Gaza’s schools to stop needing miracles.

Hani Shehada, Palestinian from the Gaza Strip, and is Regional Manager at Education Above All Foundation’s Al Fakhoora programme.

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

Nurunnahar, 45, is always afraid of the tide. Early warning of the tide helps her prepare. Photographed at Jhapali village in Shyamnagar upazila (sub-district) of Satkhira district, Bangladesh. Credit: Rafiqul Islam Montu/IPS

By Rafiqul Islam Montu
SHYAMNAGAR (Satkhira), Bangladesh, Oct 1 2026 (IPS)

Villagers rush to the vulnerable spot of the embankment—early warning of the rising tide has alerted them. Together, they save the village from tidal flooding by repairing the vulnerable embankment, which is at risk from the impact of low pressure in July this year. The message is clear: early warnings of the rising tide save lives and property.

This wasn’t always the case. Cyclone Amphan in 2020 and Cyclone Yaas in 2021 destroyed the embankment in question, which is located in Datinakhali village, Burigoalini Union, Shyamnagar sub-district, Satkhira district, southwestern Bangladesh. But there was no early warning of the rising tide at that time, and the cyclone caused extensive damage.

Every year during the monsoon, the pressure of tidal water in various parts of the Bangladeshi coast breaks or overflows the embankment. This causes extensive damage to homes, resources, and crops. Many displaced families have been forced to move elsewhere after facing severe losses.

“Real-time area-based tidal surge warnings are helping us in disaster preparedness, saving resources and lives. We can take necessary measures to protect ourselves before the tidal surge. But we have faced losses again and again because we did not have this opportunity before,” explained Meherun Nesa, 45, a resident of Kalbari village in the Shyamnagar sub-district of Satkhira district. Rokeya Begum, 40, Sakina Begum, 39, and many others shared the same opinion.

The United Nations has set the goal of Early Warning for All by 2027 to save people from disasters. On the other hand, a new UN report published on August 31, 2026, says that more than 14 million people in the South Asian delta region are at risk of losing their shelter due to rising sea levels.

Their homes will be permanently submerged. Bangladesh is one of the countries at risk. It is crucial that updated disaster warnings reach people like Meherun Nesha, who live in disaster-prone areas of the country.

This house in Anuliya village in Asashuni upazila (sub-district) of the Satkhira district, Bangladesh, was swept away by tidal water pressure in April 2025, before there was a cyclone warning system. Credit: Rafiqul Islam Montu/IPS

Early Warnings Protect Against Tides

Early warnings were given in 25 places during low sea levels in July, August, and September this year about the risk of breaking embankments or overflowing embankments. After receiving the warnings, villagers repaired the embankments in the two most vulnerable places.

In other places, villagers have also carried out additional preparatory work. Now, people living on the coast can know in advance whether the tide will rise or whether the embankments will collapse under the pressure of the tide. By getting warnings, they are able to prepare themselves and save resources.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based scientific early warnings are also protecting the coastal people of Bangladesh from major disasters like tidal waves and embankment collapses. This technology is capable of providing accurate forecasts three days in advance of the cyclone.

The technology provides advance information about the location of potential tidal waves, water height, flooded areas, and vulnerable embankments. Through these capabilities, meteorologists and disaster management professionals can make quick decisions. Disaster management professionals hope that the technology will further enhance Bangladesh’s capacity to deal with disasters and will play an effective role in reducing losses.

The country currently provides cyclone forecasts, but being port-based or large area-based, these forecasts do not cover specific areas. These forecasts can’t accurately identify the specific location of tidal waves, potential water height, or flooded areas. To overcome this limitation, a scientific model has been developed with international cooperation, which is known as ‘Surf IT.’

The international organization Action Against Hunger and North South University are working jointly under the leadership of Bangladeshi non-governmental organization Uttaran to combat the disaster. Technical assistance is provided by the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD), Flood Forecasting and Warning Center (FFWC), Water Development Board (BWDB), and Department of Disaster Management (DDM). The International Development Research Center (IDRC) provides financial support for the project.

How Does ‘Surf IT’ Work?

The model works by combining tides, temperature, and wind speed. It is combined with local knowledge. It involves marginalized communities in the project area. The model has been developed following the experience of weather forecasting systems in the European Union and the United States.

It not only measures the height of the tidal wave but also analyzes the condition of coastal embankments, their load-bearing capacity, and where the embankments are at risk of failure, and creates a map of flooded areas. Water sensors are constantly monitoring the river system and quickly detect any changes in water levels. Dams have been mapped to identify vulnerable areas and potential breach sites.

A digital dashboard has been created to convert complex data into simple and effective warnings. These help in providing forecasts. The information is sent to marginalized communities in local languages. It is sometimes sent via voice calls and sometimes via text messages. It is sent in such a simple language that anybody can access the message from any mobile phone.

According to the researchers, the latest test has shown that the model’s predictions are about 98 percent accurate. Work is underway to make it 100 percent accurate. Therefore, the model was tested at the field level in June, July, August, and September this year.

The project plans to transfer the technology to the government for use in the national disaster forecasting system. Currently, the project covers about 500,000 people in 20 unions across 3 sub-districts in 2 districts in southwest Bangladesh. The sub-districts are Shyamnagar, Asashuni in Satkhira district, and Koyra in Khulna district.

Will Reduce Loss and Damage

Md Jakariya, head of the ‘Surf IT’ technical team and professor in the Department of Environmental Science & Management at North South University, said, “One of the goals of the project is to reduce damage not only from major cyclones but also from regular very high tides and small tidal waves. Usually, even in the absence of major government assistance, people in coastal villages suffer a lot. The project has been initiated to reduce that damage.”

Discussions with the government are ongoing.

“This modern model is now final. Regular policy-making meetings are being held with high-level government officials to increase its effectiveness. The model is capable of predicting disasters three days in advance,” Zahid Amin Shaswat, Head of Program at the NGO Uttaran, which implements ‘Surf IT,’ said.

The advantage of this technology is that it goes beyond forecasting.

“Cyclone forecasting alone is not enough in coastal risk management; accurate information about the location, height, and potential flood areas is the most important thing in protecting human lives and property. Therefore, if such a technology based on scientific information can be effectively implemented, early evacuation of people to safe places, dam protection, and decision-making by local administration will be more realistic,” Environmentalist Sharif Jamil said.

Bangladesh in the Face of Disasters

Disasters like cyclones, floods, and heat waves are increasing in Bangladesh. Recently, coastal marginalized communities are facing loss and damage due to the impact of high tides.

In the latest long-term Global Climate Risk Index (CRI) published by Germanwatch, Bangladesh ranks 13th among the most vulnerable countries in the world. The World Bank has expressed concern that 216 million people will be internally displaced in six regions of the world by 2050 if necessary measures are not taken to prevent climate change. Of these, 40 million people will be displaced in South Asia. In South Asia alone, 19.9 million people are expected to be displaced in Bangladesh.

A recent joint study by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) says that more than 21 million people were displaced due to cyclones, floods, and tidal waves in Bangladesh between 2008 and 2025.

Meanwhile, in July this year, Disaster Management and Relief Minister Asadul Habib Dulu informed the National Parliament that floods and cyclones have caused Tk 41,200 crore (about US$ 3.3 million) in damage in the country over the five years from 2021 to 2025.

“In addition to major disasters, disasters like sudden high tides cause extensive damage to rural villages. Here, technology is being combined with the long-standing experience and folk knowledge of local people. Through this approach, it is possible to predict more accurately which dams are weak, where the risk of collapse is high, and where water can overflow,” added Md Jakariya.

Experts involved in the project hope that accurate early warning will ensure the safety of coastal people and reduce the risk of cyclones and tidal waves due to climate change. At the same time, the project will further strengthen Bangladesh’s capacity in disaster management.

On the ground people from marginalized communities, like Meherun Nesa, find hope in this message from experts.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Bretton Woods
At BW in July 1944, 44 allied nations met to design the post-war world monetary system. John Maynard Keynes represented the UK, no longer financially dominant due to its heavy public debt fighting two world wars.

Harry Dexter White represented the US, which then held two-thirds of the world’s monetary gold, while other countries needed dollar loans for trade and reconstruction. The US promised foreign governments and central banks to convert dollars to gold.

With the US BW promise to redeem an ounce of gold for $35, the dollar became the world’s reserve asset. Every other currency’s exchange rate was fixed against the dollar, in principle, adjustable with IMF approval.

Instead, Keynes proposed a reserve currency, Bancor, managed by an international clearing union to avoid any national currency becoming dominant; a payments system using a national currency could eventually force others to accept its national policies and priorities.

Unsustainable by design
The BW agreement also created the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Each member nation was assigned a quota, partly paid in gold and its own currency.

A member nation’s quota determined both its voting weight and how much it could borrow if it needed to borrow when its own currency came under pressure.

The dollar-gold peg was vulnerable by design. For the arrangement to function, the world needed a growing supply of dollars for reserves and international transactions.

In principle, the US had to have enough gold to honour all claims against it. This requirement was met in 1944, when its gold reserves were vast, while other economies were ruined. However, these conditions were not met for long.

As currency devaluations were stigmatised, currency pegs were rarely adjusted. Governments defended unrealistic exchange rates, unjustified by their reserves.

Instead of adjusting gradually, fixed exchange rates would adjust abruptly, typically after crises, as with sterling in 1967 and the dollar in 1971.

Keynes had insisted on allowing governments to manage cross-border capital movements, expecting free-flowing speculative capital to undermine fixed exchange rates.

For a decade and a half, most European governments used the IMF’s sixth Article of Agreement to restrict how freely money could leave their countries and thus defend their currency pegs.

As strong post-war recoveries turned Europe’s dollar shortages into surpluses, capital controls were gradually loosened from the 1960s.

London Gold Pool
The US Congress ignored Triffin’s warning. Instead, in late 1961, the US organised seven European central banks into the London Gold Pool, coordinated by the Bank of England rather than by treaty.

It worked for a while. Whenever private demand pushed the gold price over $35/ounce, participating banks sold their bullion to bring the price down, to buy gold!

From 1962, currency swap lines involving the same central banks withdrew dollars from circulation abroad to reduce demand for gold. Both efforts used a formula based on each country’s original contributions.

Rising US government spending made things worse. The Johnson administration financed both the Vietnam War and Great Society programmes without raising taxes. More dollars flowed out of the US, expanding the supply of Eurodollars.

In March 1967, without any parliamentary mandate or transparent treaty, West Germany’s Bundesbank President privately promised the Fed it would not convert its large dollar reserves from its fast-growing trade surplus into gold.

But France’s president had never accepted Washington’s abuse of the post-war arrangement. In February 1965, De Gaulle complained of the dollar’s exorbitant privilege.

This referred to the US ability to settle its liabilities abroad by issuing more dollars, instead of earning foreign exchange like others. In June 1967, France refused to continue subsidising the dollar peg by withdrawing from the Gold Pool.

Britain devalued the pound in November 1967. As speculative pressure on gold rose, other Pool central banks had to sell even more gold until they gave up on 17 March.

Two tiers
In the subsequent two-tier system, the $35 gold price was only used for transactions between central banks and governments. Another floating free-market price traded well above it.

US gold reserves, almost $20 billion shortly after WW2, were halved by 1971 as foreign governments’ and central banks’ dollar claims rose over $50 billion!

When member governments safely created official liquidity by introducing a new reserve asset, the Special Drawing Right (SDR), in 1969, the problem was highlighted again.

SDRs were allocated directly to member countries rather than tied to either gold or the US trade or current account deficit. The SDR was supposed to supplement, not replace, gold and the dollar as reserve assets.

By mid-1971, when President Nixon unilaterally ended the dollar’s gold convertibility obligation, the debate was no longer about whether the gold window could hold, but over how to close it without triggering a currency-market panic after years of speculation.

IPS UN Bureau

A street market in Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city. Residents are anxious about high inflation and also fear recent floods will drive food prices higher. Credit: Ant/IPS

By Guy Dinmore, and a reporter in Yangon
YANGON, Myanmar, Sep 23 2026 (IPS)

Isolated and at constant war with itself, Myanmar’s humanitarian crisis is deepening as global challenges far exceed the capacity to respond of a military regime increasingly focused on its own survival.

The climate crisis, soaring commodity prices triggered by wars in Europe and the Middle East, plus worldwide cuts in donor aid are all hitting Myanmar hard. The regime’s inability to govern a fragmented and restive country with nearly four million internally displaced people has been exposed to the full since it seized power over five years ago.

Widespread floods caused by heavy monsoon rains since July have affected over 470,000 people, according to an assessment by the World Health Organization. Cases of malaria and dengue have been increasing, as well as outbreaks of cholera.

“Everyone is starving and cut off. Yes, everyone is facing food shortages,” said an activist calling himself Bruce, describing the situation in Shwebo township in the north-central Sagaing region, one of the main conflict zones and rice transshipment centres hit by floods.

Local and international aid organisations struggle to get help through conflict zones where the military is fighting a shifting array of ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) and local resistance groups while syphoning off what it can.

“Armed hostilities, movement restrictions and administrative requirements continue to block access, underscoring the need for safe, sustained and unhindered humanitarian reach to vulnerable communities,” the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a July bulletin.

“Myanmar remains one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises, with more than 16 million people in need as conflict, displacement, protection risks and access constraints intensify urgent needs nationwide,” OCHA said, noting that by end-March “humanitarian partners” had managed to reach 1.6 million people.

Floods have driven up food prices, already exacerbated by rising costs of fuel and fertilisers caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine and Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz following attacks by the US and Israel.

All sides exact a price in Myanmar, Bruce said, with cargo trucks moving north from the regime-controlled city of Mandalay to Shwebo having to pay fees at multiple military checkpoints and those run by other armed groups. Farmers in neighbouring Shan state growing rice and tomatoes are also facing “devastating losses” and being driven into deep poverty, he said.

Shwebo has experienced power blackouts of up to 20 consecutive days. As darkness falls, residents do not dare venture outside for fear of forced conscription by the regime, especially in rural areas. Households pay levies to avoid conscription, even those with only single women.

Some people are being forced into a second round of conscription as the military struggles to replenish its ranks, stretched across the country. Over 100,000 people have been conscripted, according to some estimates.

At night authorities inspect mobile phones. If they find online games, evidence of Starlink use or unauthorised communication devices then the individuals are immediately taken for military service.

Inflation and extortion reach deep into prisons too, said Bruce, a former political prisoner. Skin diseases like scabies are common, and the cost of a particular drug bought by relatives has soared more than eight times, while even traditional medicines like neem leaves have gone up fivefold.

Prison staff and those manning checkpoints even take their cuts of peanut snacks, driving up prices paid by prisoners.

The numbers displaced by conflict continue to rise. Fighting in the central Magway region in recent months has added over 200,000 more since May, according to some UN estimates. People fleeing conflict are moving to safer areas, but host communities have limited capacity to accommodate them.

U Than is a farmer in the Ayeyarwady delta and was struggling to make ends meet even before recent floods hit the major rice-growing region, destroying crops and jeopardising the next planting season. Fortunately his land has been spared destruction, but everyone is keeping a close eye on nearby levees.

“Farming has become a cycle of borrowing just to survive,” he said, complaining that the cost of fertiliser has risen five-fold and that fuel is increasingly expensive and difficult to obtain.

“We are working harder, borrowing more, and spending more, but the income from our harvest is no longer enough to cover the cost of farming or even our basic living expenses.” Families are forced to cut back their spending on health and education.

Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, feels somewhat insulated from the recent natural disasters and ongoing civil war. But inflation is hitting the pockets of its six million people, including city officials and their families, who squeeze more money from residents on trumped-up charges or bribes to avoid conscription.

“The junta stooges are resorting to all sorts of methods, legal or illegal, to recruit people while at the same time making money in the process,” one long-time resident told IPS.

“Life in Yangon is morphing into a new normal, with people feeling less safe about their lives as crimes are widespread. So many cases of theft and robberies go unreported or under-reported.”

A cholera outbreak in central Yangon in August, the second in two years, was blamed on poor hygiene among street vendors whose cheap food is even more attractive as inflation bites. The regime responded by shutting down their businesses in six city townships. Outbreaks have also been reported in Sittwe, one of the last regime strongholds in Rakhine State, as well as flood-affected areas.

Reports that CCTV artificial intelligence and facial scanning technology were deployed at a checkpoint in Mandalay city have raised fears that the regime is adopting widespread surveillance controls pioneered by China, its closest ally.

Min Aung Hlaing, leader of the 2021 coup, has proved resilient and uncompromising in directing a brutal retaliation against the popular resistance and was confident enough to swap his general’s uniform for a civilian suit as president after tightly orchestrated elections this year.

The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, set up by the UN Human Rights Council, stated in its annual report that its findings “show a pattern of deliberate aerial attacks on civilians, arbitrary detentions, torture and sexual violence committed by the Myanmar military.”

The military escalated its aerial attacks and other crimes against civilians in the lead-up to the elections, and these have continued unabated, the IIMM said, listing the targeting of homes, schools, medical facilities, religious buildings and camps for internally displaced persons.

“This underscores the urgent need to hold those responsible to account,” it said. The IIMM is also investigating alleged atrocities involving armed groups opposed to the military.

For the moment, accountability seems a distant prospect, at best.

Since Min Aung Hlaing’s assumption of the presidency in April, the former general has been accepted on official visits to Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, India, China, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. The Trump administration has not rolled out the red carpet but has eased sanctions against some of the regime elite and is engaging on matters of particular concern to the US, such as scam centres.

The regime’s growing de facto recognition abroad poses a further threat to the struggling efforts to exert its authority in liberated areas by the parallel National Unity Government (NUG). Established by lawmakers ousted in 2021 when Aung San Suu Kyi and other prominent leaders were jailed, the NUG managed to conclude agreements in March with several major ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) in an attempt to forge a unified political and military resistance.

Calling themselves the Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union (SCEF), the alliance has stated its commitment to a negotiated political solution that would end military rule and exclude the generals from politics.

“To get there we’re pursuing all available avenues, including military means,” a senior resistance official told IPS.

However, there is scepticism that Min Aung Hlaing will deal with the new collective entity and will continue to insist on bilateral ceasefire talks with individual EAOs while refusing to recognise the NUG as an interlocutor. Several major armed groups dependant to varying degrees on neighbouring China have also kept the SCEF at arm’s length.

“Substantive negotiations between the Tatmadaw [the Myanmar military] and SCEF members are likely to prove challenging,” Morgan Michaels, a southeast Asia defence expert, wrote in a recent analysis for the International Institute of Strategic Studies.

“Meaningful progress in Myanmar – whether political, economic or humanitarian – would need to start with a broad conflict de-escalation, which at a minimum would require ceasefires between the Tatmadaw and the EAOs. Unfortunately, the path to de-escalation is likely to be long and fraught with dilemmas.”

IPS UN Bureau Report