Young Women in Afghanistan Driven to Suicide Amid Widespread Frustration

Azar Shaimaa sits in grief, her voice trembling with sorrow as she recounts the devastating loss of her daughter, Benazir. A bright ninth-grade student, Benazir took her own life. Just three years earlier, Shaimaa lost her husband in a car accident.

Civil Society: The Last Line of Defence in a World of Cascading Crises

In a world of overlapping crises, from brutal conflicts and democratic regression to climate breakdown and astronomic levels of economic inequality, one vital force stands as a shield and solution: civil society. This is the sobering but ultimately hopeful message of CIVICUS’s 14th annual State of Civil Society Report, which provides a wide-ranging civil society perspective on the state of the world as it stands in early 2025.

When Ethnic Violence Turns Women Against Women

For Kikim*, it was the ides of May, instead of March, that was, in one sense, her undoing. She was looking forward to welcoming her baby, her first. But life took an unexpected turn, and things changed within a split second.

Funding Disruptions Are a Systemic Failure – Philanthropy Must Do What’s Right and Support Local Leadership

The slashing of US aid funding by Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and cuts or planned cuts in international support by several European states, threaten to cut off the oxygen supply to a civil society already in a critical condition. At CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance, activists and grassroots groups have shared with us time and again that shifting and volatile donor priorities are one of the top funding challenges they face, alongside limited resources for strategy and restricted funding.

Women and Girls in Afghanistan Bear the Brunt of the Country’s Crisis

Since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan nearly four years ago, human rights have begun diminishing for over 14 million women. Heightened gender inequality has exacerbated the pre-existing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, which has been marked by conflict, displacement, climate change, food insecurity, and economic instability. In 2025, widespread cuts in humanitarian funding look to further strain the crisis.

Civil Society at the Finance in Common Summit Calls for Community-led, Equitable, and Human Rights-based Development

As public development banks gather for the Finance in Common Summit (FiCS) in Cape Town, South Africa, civil society and community activists from across the world are demanding a shift to a community-led, equitable, and human rights-based development approach, that prioritise people and planet over profit, and a reform of the global financial architecture.

Fatima’s Story: The Struggles of Afghan Women Under Taliban Rule

Fatima Mohammadi was a manager in a government office in Afghanistan’s Parwan province before the Taliban came to power. But having been forced out of her job she is back home unemployed.

Only Political Will Can End World Hunger: Food Isn’t Scarce, but Many People Can’t Access It

History has shown us again and again that, so long as inequality goes unchecked, no amount of technology can ensure people are well fed.

Gender Inequality in Science Limits Progress Towards Solving Complex Global Challenges

Today is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science and a time to take stock of progress, successes, and setbacks towards open and gender-inclusive science. Gender equality remains elusive in science, as only one in three scientists is a woman. Not only do these inequalities hold women back, but they also limit scientific progress.

Online Education: A Lifeline for Afghan Girls Amid Taliban Restrictions

Since the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan in 2021, girls and women have been systematically banned from education, making Afghanistan the only country in the world that denies schooling to girls over the age of 12. The situation continues to deteriorate, with even primary school enrollment for girls in decline, according to UNESCO.

The Challenge of the “Carbon Aristocracy”

For centuries, innumerable countries were ruled by an entrenched, typically inherited, political class: the “aristocracy.” The term comes from the Ancient Greek words “aristos”, meaning best, and “kratia,” meaning power. As a result of long and hard-fought democratic struggles, these aristocracies have largely dwindled worldwide (albeit, not everywhere).

Tax the Super-Rich. We have a World to Win

Why can’t there be education for every child? Why can’t there be healthcare for everyone who needs it? Why can’t everyone be freed from hunger and deprivation? Though these are promised to all as rights, people are repeatedly told that there is no money.

Malnutrition in Nigeria Rises Alarmingly, Urgent Action Needed

In June 2024, 26-year-old Zainab Abdul noticed her two-year-old daughter growing pale, losing weight, and battling diarrhea. She wasn’t surprised. Since jihadist-linked bandits had forced them out of their village in Kadadaba, Zamfara State, in northwestern Nigeria, her family had been living in a refugee camp with limited access to food.

A World Where Rich Get Richer, Poor Get Poorer — and Billionaires Rise

Perhaps one of the UN's most ambitious and longstanding projects – the launching of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)-- is aimed, among other things, at helping developing nations eradicate extreme poverty by 2030. But that elusive goal has made little or no significant progress.

Martin Luther King Jr’s Legacy on Health Equity Through the Eyes of a Black African Doctor

Every year, January 20 is celebrated as Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement who fought for equality and justice, especially for Black people, through peaceful protests and powerful speeches. The day is observed annually on the third Monday of January, close to his birthday on January 15. It is a time to remember his work, reflect on his message of fairness and nonviolence, and engage in acts of service to help others in our communities.

Trillions in Dirty Money: How Hidden Loopholes Fuel Corruption and Inequality

It is no longer a secret that at major global summits there are more lobbyists than official delegates. There, they participate as ‘guests,’ and most of them work for big business corporations. Their goal? To deter the adoption of policies that conflict with their employers’ interests.

These Billion Humans Simply Do Not Exist

Perhaps demographers would consider designing a new classification system to separate from their estimates of the world’s total population –eight billion plus– the billion humans who live without legal identity and, thus, are deprived from the most basic rights.

Power Arrives but the River Dries Up for Brazil’s Amazonian Dwellers

The flow of the igarapé always dropped for three months every year, but now it has been dry for two years in a row, complains Maria Aparecida dos Anjos, looking at the trickle of water that when flooded reaches the stilts of her wooden house, 50 metres away and on a slope of more than 10 metres high.

Bangladesh in Crisis: Which way out?

This piece is not about the crisis or the chaos that the country is now facing after successfully toppling the autocratic regime of Sheikh Hasina. Rather, it is about the crisis of confidence and social capital or trust — interlinked, nonetheless.

It’s the Greed, Stupid!

The available data is self-explanatory: business-prompted human activities have already altered over 70% of the Earth’s lands, with 24 billion tonnes of fertile soil lost due to industrial agriculture, the excessive use of chemicals, overgrazing, deforestation, pollution and other major threats.

FAO Renews Its Commitment to Right to Food Guidelines

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) launched its newest report on the Right to Food Guidelines on December 10, which focuses on that focused on the urgency of food security as well as the measures that will be taken by the organization to eradicate hunger and malnutrition in the coming decade.