LDC Future Forum Banner. Credit: OHRLLS

By Rabab Fatima
UNITED NATIONS, May 8 2026 (IPS)

The future of the world’s least developed countries (LDCs) will be shaped by a critical choice they make today- strategic investment in their youth. Rich in human potential, the young people in LDCs embody ingenuity, resilience and ambition. With the right opportunities, they can transform challenges into opportunities and put their countries strongly on track to sustainable development.

In the 44 LDCs, more than 60 per cent of the population is under 25. That is more than 315 million young people – innovators, entrepreneurs and problem-solvers – in a world being reshaped by technology, climate pressures and shifting economic realities. Their energy, creativity and ambition represent an extraordinary opportunity not only for national development, but for global prosperity and stability.

The question is simple: will we act with the urgency this moment demands? In May 2026, governments, development partners, private sector leaders, researchers and young changemakers will convene in Helsinki for the Fourth LDC Future Forum, under the theme “Transforming LDCs by Empowering the Youth Population through Education, Innovation, and Inclusive Growth.”

Rabab Fatima, USG and High Representative, OHRLLS. Credit: OHRLLS

Opportunity is expanding—but unevenly

The global economy is evolving at speed. Artificial intelligence, digital platforms, green technologies and geopolitical shifts are reshaping how we live and work. By 2030, an estimated 170 million new jobs will be created worldwide, even as 40 per cent of core workplace skills are transformed.

Youth in LDCs are ready to be part of this future. Already, they demonstrate remarkable entrepreneurial initiative: nearly 70 per cent are engaged in self employment, compared to about 50 per cent in other developing countries.

Yet opportunity remains deeply uneven. Tertiary enrolment in LDCs stands at just 11 per cent. Fewer than a quarter of graduates specialize in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Millions of young people—especially girls and rural youth—remain excluded from quality education, digital connectivity and formal employment. Without urgent and targeted investment, demographic strength risks becoming a demographic strain.

The DPOA: Investing in youth as a development imperative

The Doha Programme of Action (DPoA) is unequivocal: investing in people – especially youth – is central to sustainable development and smooth graduation from the LDC category.

It places strong emphasis on education, skills and science, technology and innovation (STI) as engines of structural transformation. Critically, it advances concrete deliverables, including the establishment of an Online University for LDCs, designed to expand access to quality, affordable higher education – particularly in STEM fields. It also promotes digital learning, innovation ecosystems, and stronger linkages between education systems and labour market needs.

The Fourth LDC Future Forum will focus squarely on these priorities. It will advance practical solutions to close skills gaps, expand digital learning, strengthen innovation hubs and promote inclusive growth models that leave no young person behind.

Inclusion must be intentional

True transformation cannot happen if opportunity is accessible only to a few.

Gender gaps in education, skills acquisition and labour force participation continue to hold back progress. The digital divide—between countries, communities and genders—threatens to widen existing inequalities unless deliberately addressed. Inclusive growth requires inclusive design: policies and investments that actively reach girls, marginalized youth and those in rural and underserved areas.

By placing equity at the centre of youth empowerment, LDCs can ensure that growth is not only faster, but fairer—and therefore more sustainable.

A shared responsibility

No country can undertake this transformation alone. Governments must lead by prioritizing youth in national development strategies and aligning education with future economic needs. Development partners must scale up predictable, high quality financing for education, skills and digital infrastructure. Academia must help generate evidence based solutions. And the private sector must play a central role—by investing, mentoring, innovating and creating decent jobs.

The LDC Future Forum exists to forge these partnerships. Through rigorous research, policy dialogue and multi stakeholder collaboration, it aims to deliver actionable recommendations that will inform both national action and the 2027 Midterm Review of the Doha Programme of Action.

The choice before us

History will judge this generation not by the challenges we faced, but by the choices we made. We can allow structural barriers and underinvestment to hold back millions of young people—or we can unlock the dynamism that resides within them.

Empowering youth is not a long term aspiration. It is the fastest, most reliable path to sustainable growth, resilience and global stability.

The message from Helsinki must be clear: invest in young people now – and they will transform their countries, and our shared future.

IPS UN Bureau

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Excerpt:

Malawian Farmers harvest sweet potatoes in fields where no chemicals have been used. Credit: Albert Khumalo

By Benson Kunchezera and Tanka Dhakal
LILONGWE & VIENTIANE, May 7 2026 (IPS)

For decades, pesticides have been a quiet pillar of Malawi’s agriculture, guarding crops against pests, improving yields, and sustaining millions of livelihoods. But beneath this success story lay a troubling reality: weak regulation, unsafe handling practices, and growing threats to human health and the environment.

Between 2015 and 2023, USD 2.55 million by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) set out to confront these challenges head-on. Today, it is leaving behind a legacy that is transforming how Malawi manages pesticides from importation to disposal and reshaping the way farmers think about crop protection.

At the centre of this shift is a stronger institutional framework. The project supported a comprehensive review of national pesticide regulations, bringing them closer to international standards. It also invested in training regulatory staff in pesticide registration, monitoring, enforcement, and lifecycle management, areas that had long remained underdeveloped.

“We invested heavily in strengthening systems, not just solving immediate problems,” said Precious Chizonda, Registrar of the Pesticides Control Board of Malawi and former National Coordinator for the GEF project. “This has positioned Malawi to better manage pesticides across their entire lifecycle, from importation to disposal.”

A major milestone was the development of a strategic plan for the Pesticides Control Board (PCB), aimed at improving efficiency and aligning operations with global best practices. Collaboration played a crucial role. The Malawi Bureau of Standards provided laboratory services for pesticide quality testing, while the Ministry of Agriculture ensured policy coordination. Together, these institutions helped elevate the PCB’s effectiveness and national visibility.

Some examples of pesticide-free farming include bananas grown using manure and tomatoes grown using neem water to deter pests and a woman farmer is shown mixing ash with her pigeon peas for storage to protect them from weevils. Credit: Albert Khumalo

Obsolete Pesticides

The project also delivered concrete environmental results. Approximately 208 tonnes of obsolete pesticides — including highly hazardous persistent organic pollutants — were safely destroyed through high-temperature incineration. Another 40 tonnes of contaminated waste were secured in an engineered landfill. These efforts eliminated long-standing sources of soil and water pollution, protecting ecosystems and communities.

Equally significant was the introduction of a pilot system for managing empty pesticide containers. Initially constrained by regulatory challenges, the initiative has since gained traction and continues beyond the project’s lifespan. Supported by industry stakeholders such as CropLife, it now collects used containers from farms across the country, demonstrating a viable model for environmentally sound waste management.

A field of irish potatoes grown without using chemicals. Credit: Albert Khumalo

Farm Level Changes

But perhaps the most profound change is happening at the farm level.

In Lichenza, under Chiladzulu’s Thumbwe Extension Planning Area, 39-year-old farmer Emily Zuwedi recalls how deeply rooted pesticide use once was. “We used to believe in pesticides when growing our crops, but that is now a thing of the past,” she said.

Zuwedi joined a farmer training group in 2017, where she learned about integrated pest management (IPM) and alternative methods that reduce reliance on chemicals. Today, she grows onions and beans using these techniques, cutting costs while protecting her health and the environment.

“I am spending less money now, and my crops are still doing well,” she said.

Her experience reflects a broader shift among smallholder farmers. Albert Khumalo, an Extension Development Officer in Chiladzulu, said the transition was not immediate. “At first it was difficult for farmers to accept, but after the trials they get along,” he explained.

Since 2024, Khumalo and his team have trained at least 100 farmers in pesticide-free farming methods. The results are encouraging – farmers are reducing production costs, improving soil health, and becoming more environmentally conscious.

“This program is helping farmers conserve the environment while also saving money,” Khumalo said. “And those who learn are now able to share knowledge with others.”

The project has also strengthened Malawi’s compliance with international chemical conventions by building expertise in risk assessment and regulatory procedures, an area where the country previously faced challenges.

While gaps remain, particularly in scaling up initiatives to reach more smallholder farmers, the progress is undeniable. Malawi is demonstrating that agricultural productivity and environmental protection do not have to be at odds.

Across the country’s fields, a quiet transformation is underway – one in which safer practices, stronger systems, and informed farmers are cultivating not just crops but also a more sustainable future.

In Lao PDR, the UNDP and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry lead a $4.2 million GEF-funded FARM project. Credit: Lao farmer network

Laos Sustainable Farming

However, GEF funding is being used in several parts of the world, including Asia.

In Lao PDR, GEF funding is helping farmers adopt and apply practices that promote sustainable agriculture.

Laos farmers are being trained and given extension support to “reduce dependence on hazardous pesticides while integrating environmentally friendly pest management approaches”, Saithong Phengboupha, project manager at the Department of Agriculture under the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, said.

“This aligns their practices with good agricultural standards, translating upstream policy gains into tangible on-farm change.”

According to the Ministry, GEF funding has been helpful to create the foundation by strengthening the legislative and regulatory environment governing pesticide and agricultural input management.

“Key milestones include the promulgation of the Law on Crop Production and the development of decrees on fertiliser regulation and good agricultural practices (GAP), currently in the final stages. The instruments establish the legal basis for sustained enforcement and compliance beyond the project lifecycle,” Phengboupha said, explaining how FARM funding is being used to improve the agricultural future of the country.

The $4.2 million initiative through the FARM project is led by the UNDP and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

The FARM project is establishing a pilot on agrochemical container and plastic waste management in Viengphoukha District, Luang Namtha Province.

Smallholder farmers have responded to the pesticide management training and promotion of alternatives to chemical pesticides. Credit: Marco J Haenssgen/Unsplash

Integrated Pest Management

According to the ministry, the pilot is designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of a structured approach for the collection, interim storage, and environmentally sound management of empty pesticide containers.

“It also aims to strengthen institutional coordination among relevant government agencies, local authorities, and private sector stakeholders, while enhancing farmer awareness and compliance with recommended practices, including triple rinsing, segregation, and safe return mechanisms,” he said.

The project has supported awareness-raising and capacity building among local authorities, extension workers, and farmers on the risks associated with obsolete and banned pesticides, as well as on safe handling, repackaging, and temporary storage practices. In selected locations, pilot measures have been introduced to improve containment, labelling, and secure storage to minimise environmental and health risks.

Phengboupha says smallholder farmers in Lao PDR have generally responded positively to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) training and the promotion of alternatives to chemical pesticides supported by the FARM project. He added “training interventions have contributed to improved understanding of pest ecology, safer pesticide use practices, and the benefits of adopting non-chemical and low-toxicity control methods, including biological control, cultural practices, and mechanical measures.”

However, adoption rates vary depending on access to extension services, market pressures, availability of alternative inputs, and perceived short-term effectiveness of chemical pesticides.

“Constraints remain, including limited access to certified biopesticides, weak input supply chains for IPM alternatives, and continued reliance on agrochemical vendors for technical advice in some areas,” he added.

Note: The Eighth Global Environment Facility Assembly will be held from May 30 to June 6, 2026, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

This feature is published with the support of the GEF. IPS is solely responsible for the editorial content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the GEF.

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In Guinea-Bissau, malaria continues to place a heavy burden on families and health systems, underscoring the need for prevention, early treatment and stronger development-led responses. Credit: UNDP Guinea-Bissau

By Michael Adekunle Charles and Aissata De
NEW YORK, May 7 2026 (IPS)

If you woke up with severe fever, would you stay home from work? What if the choice meant losing a week’s wages, or deciding if you could afford the trip to a doctor at all?

For families facing financial hardship, these are not theoretical choices. Malaria is not only a health crisis—it is a poverty trap. With 282 million cases in 2024 alone, the consequences are far-reaching, persistent and deeply unequal.

As Africans, we know this story well. Despite significant progress, Africa remains the epicentre of the malaria epidemic. Malaria causes up to half a billion lost workdays each year and slows GDP growth by up to 1.3 percent.

It accounts for half of preventable school absences, undermining learning and opportunity. Health systems already under strain are forced to divert scarce resources, weakening care for all.

We know malaria hinders development. But the reverse is also true: the lack of development fuels malaria.

Recent analysis in Uganda found that districts with low development indicators are five times more likely to experience a high number of malaria cases. Poverty, weak infrastructure, limited services, and environmental risk do not just coexist with malaria; they actively sustain it.

Understanding where and how this vicious cycle bites hardest can help us design smarter malaria responses and accelerate development at the same time.

In Kapelebyong district in Uganda, malaria treatment can cost households a significant 120,000 shillings a year, often requiring long journeys to clinics facing staff and medicine shortages. Even livelihoods are implicated: crops that feed families can also harbour malaria-transmitting mosquitoes, exposing farmers to infection.

“The little money gained from harvests mostly goes to managing disease,” said Paul Omaido Ojilong, a local official supporting environmental health.

Sick workers are less productive—or absent altogether—weakening the very economic activity that builds resilience and prosperity. Families and local leaders are forced into impossible trade-offs, prioritizing immediate survival over long-term prevention.

And so, the cycle continues.

For two decades, countries have delivered life-saving medical innovations that dramatically reduced malaria cases and deaths. Those gains matter—but rising cases in Africa show that health services are no longer enough.

At a time when global aid disruptions are renewing calls for stronger African health sovereignty, this is a moment to rethink how malaria is tackled.

First, integrate malaria action into broader development strategies by embedding it into key sectors such as livelihoods, education, environment, infrastructure and governance. Community leaders, health workers, farmers, educators, executives and policymakers must play a role—working together, not in silos.

Second, promote local leadership as a central pillar of malaria elimination, by empowering district councils and local stakeholders to jointly set health and development priorities, coordinate action, and hold one another accountable.

Through the Pathfinder Endeavour, this approach centres countries in malaria interventions and champions joint global and national efforts, in line with the RBM Partnership to End Malaria’s support for the Big Push.

It promises stronger coordination and national accountability, more efficient resource utilization based on reliable data, and the more effective introduction and acceptance of new malaria solutions.

In Uganda, estimates suggest that the Pathfinder Endeavour’s coordinated multisectoral action could deliver transformative results. With modest investment, about US $60,000 over three years per district, economic and social gains of 11-12 percent are possible.

Malaria incidence could fall by 14 percent, extracting far greater value from existing health spending. Accountability efforts alone account for nearly half the projected gains.

In short, local leadership and multisectoral action can rewrite the malaria story.

But the window is closing. Even with more financing, conflict, climate change and rising drug and insecticide resistance threaten hard-won progress. Promising tools like vaccines will fall short if they are not embedded in development systems that protect health over time.

The prize is enormous. Ending malaria by 2030 could add US $231 billion to African economies and boost global trade by US $80.7 billion, moving millions from vulnerability to opportunity and prosperity.

Achieving the Africa we want by 2063—inclusive, sustainable, peaceful and prosperous—means meeting this moment with new ambition and ways of working. Together, UNDP, the RBM Partnership to End Malaria, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and partners across sectors can support African leaders to write a new story—one where development and malaria elimination advance hand in hand.

Dr Michael Adekunle Charles is the CEO of the RBM Partnership to End Malaria, and
Aissata De is the Deputy Regional Director for Africa at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

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A conversation with Toril-Iren Pedersen, Director of the UNDP Global Policy Centre for Governance, and Michael Jarvis, Executive Director of the Trust, Accountability, and Inclusion (TAI) Collaborative

Q1: What is financial integrity and why is it important right now? Why is it relevant to TAI’s members?

Toril-Iren Pedersen

For us, the issue is not limited to one category of wrongdoing. It is about the connection between different parts of economic value, from public revenues to criminal flows, and the loopholes that exist within the regular financial system. Financial integrity cannot be considered in isolation. Weaknesses across tax, corruption, anti-money laundering and the broader global financial architecture all have to be understood together.

Michael Jarvis: At TAI, we see financial integrity as the need for systems to operate transparently, accountably and ethically. That is how people ideally manage their personal finances, and how we hope corporations run their businesses. But we are especially focused on governments and countries: how they strengthen the integrity of their financial systems, minimize corruption, encourage fairness and better steward public resources.

There is a clear development case for why this matters. TAI’s members are primarily U.S.-based philanthropies working internationally, and our work is organized around three priorities: strengthening healthy democracies, advancing climate accountability and improving fiscal accountability through fair and effective financial governance. Financial integrity underpins all three. Without it, progress in each area is weakened.

Michael Jarvis

When financial systems lack integrity, the damage is broad. It undermines trust in government, contributes to democratic disillusionment and weakens citizens’ confidence that public resources are being used fairly. It can also slow the energy transition, as we have seen with concerns around carbon markets. And it directly affects the ability of governments to raise and spend revenue effectively.

Toril-Iren Pedersen: I would add that declining trust in governments and in the multilateral system is higher than we have seen in a very long time. Lack of financial integrity contributes directly to that distrust.

Visible wealth inequality is one challenge, but so is the perception of invisible wealth being accumulated through the global financial architecture. When people sense that wealth is moving in the shadows, outside transparency and democratic control, it creates legitimate grounds for distrust. That is why lack of financial integrity must be understood as a systems failure that requires a systems approach.

Michael Jarvis: That is also the focus of the new paper from your team, the UNDP Global Policy Centre for Governance, which TAI supported. It emphasizes why progress requires action on multiple fronts and why no single actor or institution can solve this alone. Financial integrity is a collective action challenge.

Q2: How has UNDP’s Global Policy Centre for Governance worked on financial integrity over the past few years? What were your most important results and insights?

Toril-Iren Pedersen: The Centre’s work has taken place across several streams, but the most important contribution has been analyzing the system and the relationships among different actors. When we look at corruption and illicit financial flows, we have to ask who enables those flows within countries and across borders. Understanding those relationships is central to financial integrity.

The Centre has also convened actors within the UN and among practitioners, including country representatives involved in the Financing for Development negotiations in Sevilla last summer. That process helped produce stronger commitments to curb illicit financial flows and introduced more substantive language on financial integrity and corruption than we had seen in earlier iterations of the Financing for Development agenda.

The analytical work on the financial integrity ecosystem and the systems approach has also been developed in collaboration with several TAI members, including the MacArthur Foundation and Ford Foundation. Their support has been important both substantively and financially.

Q3: How will the Centre work on financial integrity going forward, under your leadership?

Toril-Iren Pedersen: The Centre has worked on a range of governance frontier issues. Going forward, we will focus on two areas: financial integrity, and data systems and data availability at the country level. The data agenda connects directly to financial integrity, but it also has broader relevance.

On financial integrity, we see a need to problem-solve the systemic challenges that are preventing progress at both the country and global levels. We will continue analyzing what is stopping countries from making substantive progress and what kinds of solutions and policy alternatives can be made available to them.

Some of these solutions already exist, but they are not always accessible. As a UNDP Policy Centre, our role is to make research, policy options and insights into systemic challenges available to UNDP country offices so they can be integrated into country-level programming. We also hope this work will help countries engage more effectively in global processes.

There is currently a disconnect. The Financial Action Task Force, the OECD tax framework and anti-corruption frameworks all rely on data from countries, but they do not always help solve what is fundamentally a systems challenge. We will continue engaging in those processes while breaking the work into more manageable areas where countries can take action nationally, regionally and globally.

Q4: What is the role of philanthropy in strengthening financial integrity against the backdrop of a fast-evolving global development landscape? What collaboration opportunities do you see between philanthropies, multilateral organizations and other stakeholders?

Michael Jarvis: Philanthropy’s role is a nimble one. The volume of finance philanthropy brings is not the same as government donors or what countries can mobilize themselves. The question is how philanthropy can prompt the right conversations and support work that moves the agenda more effectively.

Traditionally, philanthropy has supported civil society groups, independent media and think tanks at the global and national levels. Those actors investigate financial integrity issues, build evidence, raise public awareness and develop policy recommendations for governments and multilateral forums.

Philanthropy also has limits. Individual donors, including TAI members, often focus on a relatively small number of priority countries. They are not operating at a scale that covers all countries affected by these issues. That is where the UN system and international financial institutions can play a different role, because they work with nearly every country and have government relationships built into their mandates.

There are important complementarities. The MacArthur Foundation, for example, has made a major investment in Nigeria around financial integrity and anti-corruption, working with government agencies while also supporting civil society and media. More broadly, different actors bring different relationships, mandates and capacities.

The Financing for Development process in Sevilla is a good example. The outcome was stronger because many players were involved, from civil society groups working in-country to global and regional convenings that reinforced the message. Those efforts helped shape the negotiations and elevate financial integrity on the agenda.

An important opportunity is the Illicit Finance Summit, being hosted by the UK Government in June. It can bring together governments committed to addressing financial integrity challenges and create space for civil society, academia, philanthropy and others to develop practical solutions. Philanthropy should be part of that conversation and think about where its support can amplify or pilot ideas that emerge.

Visibility also matters because it helps attract resources. Funding for financial integrity work remains very limited. In a 2023 analysis, TAI estimated that about $150 million had been directed to illicit financial flows work since 2020, including efforts to address tax avoidance.

That averages roughly $30 million a year across different groups, countries and sectors. Compared with the scale of the problem, and compared with funding for fields such as climate or AI, that is extremely small.

The upcoming summit could serve as a call to action for philanthropy and other funders to invest more. The rise in fraud enabled by crypto and other technologies affects people directly and is creating grassroots demand for action. Partnership will be essential, including with UNDP, the World Bank, national governments, civil society and research networks.

Toril-Iren Pedersen: I agree. We need to mobilize more resources, but it is also important to recognize what has already been achieved with limited funding. Much of the momentum for change over the past 10 to 15 years has come from civil society organizations, journalist networks and collaborative investigations around leaks. Those efforts helped put issues such as tax fairness, transparency and beneficial ownership on national and global agendas.

This field has shown that limited resources can have an outsized effect when actors from different parts of the ecosystem work together. Anti-corruption, tax fairness and anti-money laundering were once treated as separate silos. Bringing those communities together around shared solutions is a cost-effective way of working.

Going forward, we also need to connect financial integrity to other development priorities, including climate finance and health financing. Each sector has its own financial integrity challenges. With the current development financing crunch, we cannot afford to leave money on the table, and we cannot afford to let resources disappear when policy action could prevent it.

Q5: Is there a case for involving the business community? What would the message be?

Toril-Iren Pedersen: Yes. Governance investments are one area we will be looking at closely. There is enormous pressure to mobilize funding from private actors and the private sector. Much of the focus has been on ensuring that specific investments comply with human rights and development standards. That remains important.

But financial integrity is also about longer-term systems de-risking. Investments in anti-corruption mechanisms, laws that reduce corruption risk and dispute-resolution frameworks can make markets more attractive for private investment. The goal is to build systems where private actors face lower real or perceived risk and can operate without relying as heavily on facilitated investment support.

In that sense, we need to distinguish between short-term and long-term de-risking, and between project-level and systems-level de-risking.

Michael Jarvis: There is a strong private sector incentive to support financial integrity, especially for companies operating across borders. But there is also a quid pro quo: corporate actors need to uphold their own standards of financial integrity. That includes thinking responsibly about the taxes they pay in different jurisdictions and avoiding excessive profit shifting.

The private sector benefits from stronger financial integrity systems, but it also has responsibilities within them. Beneficial ownership transparency is one example where progress has helped make it easier to identify who is behind corporate structures. These structures are still misused, but many legitimate private sector actors increasingly recognize that transparency can help distinguish them from bad actors and reduce reputational risk.

All of us have a role in the system. The challenge now is to make a clear case for why financial integrity deserves continued investment, government attention and policy bandwidth, especially at a time of aid cuts, foreign assistance pressures and tight country budgets. That is a collective challenge, and one we need to keep elevating.

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Irene Velez Torres, Director of the Colombian National Environmental Agency, during a panel discussion with policy experts at the Santa Marta Conference. Credit: Supplied

By Umar Manzoor Shah
SRINAGAR, India, May 6 2026 (IPS)

The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia, may eventually be remembered as a defining moment in global climate politics, not because it produced a treaty or a formal negotiation outcome, but because it changed the tone, structure, and ambition of the conversation itself.

For decades, international climate diplomacy has been about managing emissions, not addressing the source of those emissions: fossil fuels. Governments continued to discuss carbon markets, offsets and adaptation funds but so too did the growth in oil, gas and coal production. Within the UN climate process itself, producer nations and powerful economic interests often blocked direct discussion of phasing out fossil fuels. However, there was no such case as Santa Marta.

The conference, co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands and attended by delegates from almost 60 nations, was not intended to be another COP-style negotiation. It was explicitly designed as a political and practical platform for those countries willing to move faster on the fossil fuel phase-out. That makes a difference.

“This was not a negotiating conference. This is about dialogue and looking together at what we can do and how we can apply our creativity, our collaboration, and the science to find new opportunities,” said Stientje van Veldhoven-van der Meer, Dutch Climate and Green Growth Minister.

The conference’s most important accomplishment might be the single transition from negotiation to problem-solving.

Traditional COP summits often descend into exercises in diplomatic survival, with countries fighting over language late into the night and protecting narrow interests. In Santa Marta, ministers repeatedly stressed that participants were not there to defend positions but to create solutions.

“The contrast was stark,” said Minina Talia, Tuvalu’s Minister for Home Affairs, Climate Change and Environment.

“I’ve been to a lot of COPs over the years and I’ve never felt like this. More chilled, ready to go home. We are not here to bargain. We’re here to find solutions,” he told reporters on the concluding day of the conference.

For small island states like Tuvalu, where climate change is an existential threat now rather than a future risk, this difference is significant. It is the politics of survival.

Several Concrete Results

Ireland and Tuvalu will co-host a second conference, ensuring continuity and signalling a conscious North-South partnership. A dedicated science panel will support countries and regions in their transition away from fossil fuels. Three work streams were established: pathways to transition away from fossil fuels; decarbonisation of trade balances; and new financial mechanisms to finance the transition.

These are not symbols for deliverables. They went to the core of the politics of dependence on fossil fuels.

The biggest challenge in climate politics is no longer to prove that climate change is real. It’s trying to work out how countries that rely on fossil fuel revenues can survive the transition without economic collapse, social unrest or widening inequality.

That means dealing with debt, subsidies, tax systems, labour transitions, industrial planning and trade balances. The focus on financial architecture in Santa Marta is a sign of awareness on the part of the participants.

The debate over fossil fuel subsidies was particularly important. Ministers emphasised the need for transparency on the location of fossil fuel incentives, revenues and dependencies within national economies. This is important because fossil fuels are not just an energy issue. They’re so entrenched in national budgets, banking systems, foreign policy and power structures.

The war in the Middle East, the disruption of oil supplies and the general insecurity of world energy have hastened the need for change. But unlike previous oil crises, this time renewable energy is getting cheaper and cheaper compared to fossil fuels, and electric vehicles are scaling up very fast.

Participants argued that the war has revealed not the need for more oil drilling, but the danger of fossil fuel dependence itself.

“The war really opened up peoples’ eyes to how fragile the fossil fuel system is,” a speaker said. “And this war comes at a time when renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels.

This shifts the transition from a strictly environmental imperative to a strategic economic and security priority.

Action on climate is no longer simply about saving the planet. It’s about stabilising economies, reducing geopolitical vulnerability and avoiding the financial risks of stranded fossil assets.

The reason this is a powerful shift is that finance ministers tend to move faster than environment ministers.

Another remarkable strength of Santa Marta was its insistence on being inclusive. Indigenous Peoples, parliamentarians, peasants, women, NGOs and even children were brought into the heart of the conversation.

“This is a new climate democracy, where governments are no longer the only actors making climate decisions,” said Irene Velez Torres, Director of the Colombian National Environmental Agency.

One of the strongest interventions at the conference came from Indigenous representatives, who warned that a clean energy transition without land justice would simply mean another wave of colonial extraction. Their declaration rejects a future where extraction of fossil fuels is replaced by mining for transition minerals, mega dams or industrial projects imposed on Indigenous lands without consent.

“If we are not part of building the just transition and the phase-out of fossil fuels, it will not be just,” they said in a joint declaration at the end of the conference on April 29.

This revealed one of the deepest contradictions in global climate policy: many governments speak of a green transition but continue with extractive models under a new name.

Indigenous leaders demanded free, prior and informed consent, legal recognition of the rights to their territories, direct access to climate finance and protection for land defenders at risk of criminalisation and violence.

The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty initiative continues to be central. Tuvalu has been one of its earliest supporters, demanding a legally binding international framework to stop expansion and ensure a fair phase-out of fossil fuels.

Talia welcomed the treaty for raising the bar in terms of moral pressure and providing governments with clearer information but warned against limiting the whole transition conversation to one mechanism.

He said: “The treaty is an initiative. We want to look at all other initiatives so that we have a fair, balanced outcome.”

That’s a sign of strategic maturity. One treaty will not kill the most profitable industry in modern history.

These include UNFCCC processes, national policy, fossil fuel treaty mechanisms, regional declarations, central bank reforms and the involvement of financial institutions.

Participants highlighted China’s green lending strategies and said banking systems need to stop rewarding fossil fuel dependence and instead finance transition at scale.

Likewise, Pacific island nations are advocating for regional “fossil fuel-free zones”, supported by new declarations and intergovernmental task forces. These efforts matter because regional leadership often moves quicker than global consensus.

Hence, the choice of Tuvalu as the venue for the next conference is very significant. It’s shifting the discussion from the diplomatic capitals to one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries. It forces political leaders to confront the human reality of rising seas, disappearing land and threatened sovereignty.

History in the Making

Santa Marta won’t solve the fossil fuel crisis. It doesn’t stop new drilling. It does not yet impose binding obligations.But it may have done something more important, which is to make fossil fuel phase-out politically discussable at scale. For years, people saw talking straight about ending oil, gas, and coal as too radical, too unrealistic, or too politically dangerous. In Santa Marta it became the focus of the room.

If this coalition grows from 60 to 100 countries, if its outcomes feed into COP31 and national climate plans, if the finance systems start to shift, and if the Pacific conference deepens the legal momentum, then Santa Marta could be remembered not as a one-off summit but as the moment when climate diplomacy finally stopped treating the symptoms and started tackling the disease. That would be history.

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Hadi Ali Chatha (left) and Imaan Hazir Mazari (right) in the front seat, taking Asad Toor (at the back on the left) home after his release from Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail, on March 17, 2024. Credit: Asad Toor

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan, May 5 2026 (IPS)

“We’ve abandoned this couple completely; we have not done even 1% of what they did for us all these years!” said journalist Asad Ali Toor.

Arrested on January 23, 2026, two lawyers, also husband and wife – Imaan Mazari and Hadi Ali Chatha – were sentenced the next day to 17 years under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), 2016 (amended in 2025) – a law Mazari had described as even more ‘draconian’ than its original version. Fines of Rs36 million (USD129,261) each were also imposed on the two under Sections 9 (glorification of an offence), 10 (cyber terrorism), and 26-A (false and fake information) under the same law.

“They have not violated PECA, and in my opinion the prosecution failed to prove any of the ingredients of any offence under the law,” said human rights activist and lawyer Jibran Nasir. He added that “the military elite and the new chief justice in the Islamabad High Court have taken a personal dislike to Imaan and Hadi.  He noted that “The laws may be inherently flawed, even draconian, but more dangerous is their malicious application by the state.”

The amendments on PECA were pushed through parliament within a week, without debate, and signed into law by President Asif Ali Zardari. The move triggered nationwide protests by journalists and rights groups, who warned that the law lacked safeguards. The government, however, defended it as necessary to regulate social media, arguing that similar frameworks exist globally.

Charges, Judgment and Allegations

The judgment stated that Mazari was accused of “disseminating and propagating narratives that align with hostile terrorist groups and proscribed organisations”, while Chatha was charged with reposting her content. The police report also alleged her social media content portrayed the armed forces as ineffective against groups such as the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan.

Protestors gather outside the Islamabad Press Club to mark 100 days of the two lawyers’ continued detention. Credit: Rana Shahbaz

For Toor, who runs the YouTube channel Asad Toor Uncensored, the case is deeply personal. In 2024, he spent 20 days in Federal Investigation Agency custody and 12 in solitary confinement at Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail, the same prison where the couple is now held.

Arrested on February 26, 2024, on “digital terrorism” charges linked to his coverage, among other things, of a Supreme Court ruling stripping the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf of its election symbol, he was granted bail on March 17, 2024.

He credits Mazari and Chatha with securing his release. “They argued that journalists should not face criminal charges for “honest criticism” of court judgments, citing then Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa and Attor­ney General for Pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan.”

But journalists like Toor are not alone in feeling what he describes as “a certain vacuum.”

Rana Shahbaz’s milk stall was demolished by the city administration. Credit: Rana Shahbaz

‘It Feels Like I’ve Lost My Right Arm’

The two lawyers had built a reputation for taking on cases few lawyers would touch.

“Imaan and Hadi have always taken up cases most lawyers shy away from due to their controversial or dangerous nature — including blasphemy accusations, enforced disappearances, and press freedom cases — often representing the most marginalised people, without charging anything,” said rights activist Usama Khilji, director of Bolo Bhi, an advocacy forum for digital rights.

“It feels like I’ve lost my right arm,” said a woman, who requested anonymity, as she struggles to secure the release of her brother and more than 400 others accused of blasphemy, languishing in jail across Pakistan.

“In the past three years, I have met countless lawyers and even judges, but no one fought like Imaan. She missed nothing – every detail mattered; she was relentless,” said the woman, talking to IPS.

Leading the campaign, she said most of the accused came from poor backgrounds. “She didn’t even charge for the photocopying of documents submitted to the court – she paid out of her own pocket.”

An Amnesty International poster protesting the 100 days since Hadi Ali Chatha and Imaan Hazir Mazari were jailed. Credit: Amnesty International

The sense of loss extends well beyond individual cases.

Rahat Mehmood, mother of missing poet and writer Mudassir Naru, who disappeared in 2018 described the couple’s arrest as devastating.

“It’s like my support system has collapsed,” she said over the phone from Faisalabad. “Not just for me—these two were a ray of hope, an anchor for hundreds of mothers, especially Baloch mothers.”

Mazari’s work, she said, was not limited to legal representation.

Her grandson, Sachal, was just six months old when his father was taken and later lost his mother in 2021. Court hearings, Mehmood recalled, became rare moments of relief. “They played hide-and-seek, raced around, and she would bring him toys and candy. Tell me—who does that?”

Although her son’s case has not been heard in over a year, Mehmood said that, with Mazari by their side, they had always had hope. “But now,” she added, “it’s all darkness.”

At the wedding of Imaan Mazari and Hadi Ali Chatha, Sachal (son of Mudassir Naru) sits between the two, on the far right; in black, Rahat Mehmood, Naru’s mother, sits. Credit: Rahat Mehmood

Mazari’s advocacy extended beyond the courtroom. She appeared in two of the three press conferences held by families of the blasphemy accused, which drew “huge crowds and media attention”. Today, more than 120 people are out on bail. “It’s because of the efforts of these two,” said the sister of the accused.

Their absence is being felt acutely among many others with the least protection.

A week after the lawyers’ arrest, Rana Shahbaz, a street vendor, went to visit Mazari in jail but was turned away. “I was told by jail authorities no one was allowed to meet her.” He had brought dry fruits, juices and clothes, which authorities refused to accept.

Shahbaz, president of the Anjuman Rehri Baan, Islamabad (association of street vendors), which represents over 20,000 street vendors, said Mazari had been instrumental in securing relief for them. Despite holding licences from the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad, they routinely face raids and eviction by city administrations.

“Last year because of Madam Imaan, the Islamabad High Court stopped authorities from removing our stalls. She presented video evidence showing stalls being dismantled despite having permits,” Shahbaz said.

Since their arrest, he added, the pressure has returned.

“The day they were arrested, an official told us, ‘Call your lawyers now — I’ll see who stops me.’ She was right — only Madam Imaan had the courage to stand up for us,” said Shahbaz, whose stall has been destroyed thrice in the past two years.

“It costs Rs150,000 (USD 538) to set up these makeshift stalls – financed through a bank loan with a monthly instalment of Rs7,000 ($25). Each time authorities dismantle them, repairs cost up to Rs40,000 (US$144), making it impossible to keep up with repayments and pushing me toward default,” he said. Last week, despite having a valid licence, his lassi (yoghurt drink) and fresh milk stall were demolished.

The pretext for crackdowns can be anything—from late-night vending to fines for not displaying price lists or even refusing to offer “freebies” to the police. “Madam Imaan knew well that vendors are exempt from the curfew time for regular shops or that we can only display the price list once it comes from the city authorities and it doesn’t until midday,” he pointed out.

Like many others, Shahbaz said, the two lawyers worked for vendors for free. “We didn’t even know what the basic legal processes cost,” he said.

Muted Response

Despite the breadth of their work, support beyond affected communities has been limited.

“I hold both the journalist and legal fraternities responsible for doing virtually nothing,” said Toor. “Individual voices may struggle, but unions and bar councils have the power to pressure the government.”

Toor’s assessment is shared by lawyer Nasir. He acknowledged that the legal fraternity, with “many lawyers, like judges, appear to be motivated by self-preservation as opposed to the preservation of the constitutional and fundamental freedoms” and which has “blunted its effectiveness” and left it “equally vulnerable” in the long run.

Yet, even as this institutional weakness is laid bare, others frame the duo’s actions less as miscalculation and more as conscious defiance. Media development expert Adnan Rehmat argued that while some may see them as having paid a heavy price for their stance, the two have a long history of public-interest resistance. “They consciously chose to risk themselves to highlight state abuses, and their courage should be lauded—and we must continue raising our voices in their favour.”

As a result, sporadic protests have failed to shift the situation. With public pressure waning, the battle has moved to the courts.

An Uncertain Path

But even there, justice has remained elusive.

The Islamabad High Court refused interim relief. “Everyone knows the 17-year sentence is the product of a sham trial. No superior court in any modern judicial system would uphold it,” said senior advocate Faisal Siddiqi, the lawyer representing them.

Undeterred, the defence has moved the Supreme Court of Pakistan after the IHC failed to fix an early hearing for nearly two months – a delay which Siddiqui called “unheard of” and a ploy to “deny Imaan and Hadi their deserved liberty”.

The bail petition has since been accepted by the Supreme Court, offering a glimmer of hope. “It is our only and last hope,” said Siddiqi.

One hundred days on, that hope remains uncertain.

What is clearer, however, is the void left behind – felt in courtrooms, in protest spaces, and in the lives of those who had come to rely on the two lawyers willing to take risks few others would.

For many, it is not just their absence that is being measured in days but also the growing silence it has left behind.

“I cannot fathom why people like Imaan and Hadi are being punished—and for what,” said Mehmood. “They deserve to be saluted, not jailed!”

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On the sidelines of the UN Youth Forum, four climate leaders from across the continent and diaspora unite to call for stronger protection of Africa’s environment and vital resources.
 
Sibusiso Mazomba (far left), member of the UN Secretary-General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change; Eugenia Boateng (second from left), Founder and Executive Director of the African Diaspora Youth Hub, FABA Institute; Jabri Ibrahim, also of the UN Secretary-General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change; and Damon Hamman, Graduate Student, New York University, Centre for Global Affairs. Credit: UN Photo

By Alexandra del Castello
UNITED NATIONS, May 5 2026 (IPS)

Africa is on the frontlines of the climate crisis, warming faster than the global average and facing disproportionate climate impacts, despite contributing the least to global greenhouse gas emissions.

This is particularly evident in the growing pressures that climate change is placing on water resources and systems across the continent. As water underpins agriculture, livelihoods, ecosystems, and energy production, water-related climate impacts are deepening inequalities and threatening sustainable development across Africa.

At the forefront of this year’s ECOSOC Youth Forum – the largest annual UN gathering of young people – four African climate youth leaders led a dynamic discussion spotlighting the key role that African youth play in driving climate solutions across the continent, building community resilience, strengthening water security, and advancing locally led adaptation efforts.

Their insights highlighted how young people are not only responding to the climate crisis but reshaping the development agenda through innovation, advocacy, and community rooted action.

African youth are charting bold new pathways for climate leadership and proving that the future of climate action is being shaped by their vision and determination.

Learn more about the speakers:

Eugenia Boateng is an African diaspora strategist and founder of the African Diaspora Youth Hub (ADYH) and FABA, a production strategy lab building systems to make African economies more visible, structured, and investable.

Her work focuses on translating informal economies into institutional intelligence, connecting diaspora resources to African production, and designing systems that enable value retention on the continent.

Jabri Ibrahim is a climate and energy policy expert with an extensive network across Africa, connecting youth movements, policymakers, and private sector leaders. Jabri has played a central role in mobilizing African youth for climate action, particularly through the African Youth Initiative on Climate Change (AYICC).

Sibusiso Mazomba is a climate justice activist, advocate, and researcher. He leads youth advocacy at the African Climate Alliance, driving initiatives to ensure meaningful youth participation in decision-making.

A junior negotiator for South Africa’s UNFCCC delegation since COP26, he has contributed to negotiations on adaptation, oceans, and loss and damage, representing youth and national interests on the global stage.

Damon Hamman is a Master of Science candidate in Global Affairs at New York University, concentrating in transnational security, intelligence, and conflict analysis. His work centers on the intersection of human security, diplomacy, and data-driven policy research.

He has served with the United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa, where he built an AI-assisted thematic analysis pipeline for Voluntary National Reviews, contributed to policy briefs aligned with Agenda 2030 and AU Agenda 2063, and supported diplomatic engagement with African missions.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

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In the low tide, an i-Taukei fisherwoman gathers cockles along the Nasese sea wall in Fiji, a tradition weathered by time and tide. The assessment Climate Change Implications for Fisheries and Aquaculture in the Pacific Island Region looks at women’s contributions across fisheries and aquaculture systems, from harvesting to trade. Credit: Josh Kuilamu/SPC

By Sera Sefeti
SUVA, Fiji, May 4 2026 (IPS)

For generations, Pacific people have understood the ocean not as a resource but as identity, sustenance, and survival. Today, that relationship is being tested in ways science is only just beginning to fully capture.

For the first time in the region’s history, every Pacific Island country now has a clear, data-driven picture of what climate change will mean for its waters and its own Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

This shift marks more than just a scientific milestone. It is a turning point in how the Pacific can understand, manage, and defend its ocean in a rapidly changing climate.

From Regional Averages to National realities

The updated assessment, “Climate Change Implications for Fisheries and Aquaculture in the Pacific Island Region”, builds on a 14-year-old vulnerability study. But unlike its predecessor, this version moves beyond broad regional trends.

It goes deeper into country-specific realities.

In a region where ocean territories dwarf landmass, this matters. The Pacific controls around 27 million square kilometres of ocean, yet only about 2 percent of that is land. Fisheries are not just an industry – they are the backbone of economies, cultures, and food systems.

“This is quite amazing,” says SPC Climate Change Project Development Specialist Marie Lecomte, referring to the ability to assess climate impacts at the EEZ level. “The ocean is so big, and land masses are so tiny… it has always been very difficult to downscale ocean models to something meaningful for countries.”

Now, that gap is beginning to close.

Rising ocean temperatures and changing chemistry are reshaping marine ecosystems, impacting people’s livelihoods and national economies. Credit: Douglas Picacha/IPS

Why This Science Matters Now

For Pacific leaders, the climate crisis is not abstract. It is negotiated in global forums, defended in policy rooms, and lived daily in coastal communities.

Yet one persistent challenge has been the lack of evidence.

This report begins to change that.

It provides:

• Updated scientific data on ocean conditions
• Country-level projections of fisheries decline
• A clearer understanding of how climate change cascades from ocean systems into economies and livelihoods

In doing so, it transforms science into something actionable:

• A diagnostic tool showing what lies ahead
• A planning guide for adaptation
• A negotiation tool for global advocacy

For a region often described as the moral voice of climate negotiations, this evidence adds weight to that voice.

The Pacific controls around 27 million square kilometres of ocean, yet only about 2 percent of that is land. Now each country in the region will have a data-driven picture of the effects of climate change in its waters. Credit: Francisco Blaha/SPC

What the Science Reveals

The findings are sobering.

Rising ocean temperatures and changing chemistry are already reshaping marine ecosystems. The report maps, with unprecedented clarity, a chain reaction: warming waters alter fish biology, leading to fish stocks’ decline, which will ultimately result in the impact on people’s livelihoods and national economies.

At the centre of this crisis are coastal ecosystems, i.e. coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass beds, the ecological foundations of Pacific fisheries.

These systems are under intense pressure from both climate change and human activity.

“For mangroves, they are also constrained by infrastructure development,” Lecomte explains. “If you build a new hotel, then you get rid of the mangrove.”

For scientists, the assessment Climate Change Implications for Fisheries and Aquaculture in the Pacific Island Region offers the most comprehensive dataset for policymakers and communities. Credit: John Nihahuasi/SPC

Across the Pacific, the risks are not evenly distributed.

Low-lying island nations, already facing sea-level rise and extreme weather, are doubly exposed. Their dependence on fisheries for food and income leaves little buffer against decline.

The consequences are stark:

• Reduced food security
• Declining incomes
• Increased vulnerability of coastal communities

Yet even in this “doom and gloom” narrative, the report resists fatalism. Instead, it offers a framework for adaptation and resilience.

However, in the Pacific, the situation is not starting from zero.

For centuries, communities have managed fisheries through customary practices like tabu areas, seasonal closures, and community governance.

The report reinforces these approaches while introducing new strategies:

• Climate-smart aquaculture
• Diversifying target species
• Improving value chains (earning more from less catch)
• Protecting and restoring coastal/blue ecosystems

It also highlights a critical but often overlooked dimension, which is women’s contributions across fisheries and aquaculture systems, from harvesting to trade work that remain under-recognised despite their central role.

Science, Power, and the Politics of Survival

Perhaps the most powerful implication of the report lies beyond science — in politics.

Despite being one of the most climate-impacted sectors, fisheries are largely absent from global climate negotiations.

This is where the findings become more than a report. It becomes leverage.

With pre-COP discussions and COP31 on the horizon, Pacific countries now have something they have long needed.

“If Pacific delegations can come to pre-COP saying we have the latest science… and we all agree on how we want to act with the regional climate change strategy for coastal fisheries being pre-endorsed,” Lecomte says, “it’s a unique chance to showcase fisheries as part of the ocean–climate nexus.”

Beyond the Data: A Call to Act

This report does not just document change but also demands a response.

It bridges worlds:

• Between science and storytelling
• Between policy and lived experience
• Between global negotiations and village shorelines

For scientists, it offers the most comprehensive dataset yet when it comes to the Pacific and its EEZ; for policymakers, it is a roadmap; for communities, it is a validation of what they already know.

That the ocean is changing and so must we.

But in that change lies something powerful. For the first time, the Pacific is not just speaking from experience. It is speaking with scientific evidence.

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The UN report has highlighted water as the most immediate and severe casualty of this global transition. Mining operations require vast quantities of water and often contaminate local sources. Credit: UNU-INWEH

By Umar Manzoor Shah
SRINAGAR, India, Apr 30 2026 (IPS)

A newly released United Nations report has raised urgent concerns that the world’s push toward clean energy and digital technologies is driving a hidden crisis in some of the planet’s most vulnerable regions, where mining for critical minerals is depleting water supplies, damaging health, and deepening inequality.

The report, Critical Minerals, Water Insecurity and Injustice, released by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), warns that the race for minerals essential to electric vehicles, renewable energy, and artificial intelligence could replicate the injustices of the fossil fuel era.

Demand for these minerals is expected to surge dramatically in the coming decades. According to the report, global demand could quadruple by 2050, with lithium, cobalt, and graphite seeing increases of up to 500 percent. These materials are indispensable for batteries, solar panels, and digital infrastructure.

Prof. Kaveh Madani, UNU-INWEH Director who led the investigation team, says the world lacks an enforceable governance model for critical minerals. Credit: UNU-INWEH

Prof. Kaveh Madani, UNU-INWEH Director who led the investigation team, told IPS News in an exclusive interview that the world is lacking an enforceable governance model for critical minerals.

He said that without binding international agreements, laws, and policies, environmental and health costs—especially water depletion and pollution—are pushed onto mining regions, leaving affected communities without effective accountability or recourse.

“The climate, energy, sustainability, and the so-called “green” policies are narrowly carbon-centric. Demand projections are driven by decarbonisation targets, but water security, health and WASH impacts are not hard constraints in transition planning. As a result, mineral extraction expands even in highly water-stressed regions,” Madani said.

He added that the trade and industrial policies reinforce structural asymmetries and that high-income economies retain control over refining, manufacturing, finance, and intellectual property, while mineral-rich countries are locked into raw extraction with weak benefit-sharing. “Together, these failures reproduce inequality rather than delivering a just transition,” Madani told IPS.

Communities in mining zones are increasingly described as “sacrifice zones”, areas where environmental degradation and human suffering are accepted as the cost of global progress. Credit: UNU-INWEH

The report has further highlighted water as the most immediate and severe casualty of this global transition. Mining operations require vast quantities of water and often contaminate local sources.

Producing just one tonne of lithium requires nearly 1.9 million litres of water. In 2024 alone, global lithium production consumed an estimated 456 billion litres, an amount equivalent to the annual domestic water needs of about 62 million people in sub-Saharan Africa.

In Chile’s Salar de Atacama, one of the world’s richest lithium reserves, mining accounts for up to 65 percent of regional water use, intensifying shortages for local communities and farmers.

Across the so-called Lithium Triangle, spanning Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, groundwater levels are falling. The report cites evidence of declining water tables and disrupted ecosystems as brine extraction alters underground water systems.

“Everyone needs money. But everyone also needs the basics, like water,” a resident in Bolivia’s Uyuni region is quoted as saying in the report.

Cases of Birth Defects, Miscarriages, and Chronic Illnesses

Toxic chemicals and heavy metals released during extraction often seep into rivers, soil, and groundwater.

The report documents widespread pollution in mining regions such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where cobalt extraction is concentrated. In some areas, rivers have turned highly acidic, with pH levels below 4.5, rendering water unsafe for drinking and agriculture.

Health impacts are severe. In communities near mining sites, 72 percent of respondents reported skin diseases, while more than half of women reported gynaecological problems. Prolonged exposure to contaminated water has also been linked to cases of birth defects, miscarriages, and chronic illnesses.

Children are particularly vulnerable. Studies cited in the report show higher rates of congenital abnormalities in areas close to mining activity, along with increased risks of developmental disorders.

“These are not isolated cases. They reflect systemic health disparities driven by environmental exposure,” reads the report.

Who Benefits and Who Pays?

Beyond health, water scarcity and pollution are undermining traditional livelihoods. Farming, fishing, and livestock rearing are becoming increasingly difficult in mining regions.

In Bolivia, lithium extraction has reduced water availability for quinoa farming, a staple crop. In parts of Africa, declining fish populations have resulted from river contamination, which has cut off a key source of food and income.

In some cases, mining operations displace entire communities. Indigenous populations, whose lands often contain mineral reserves, are among the hardest hit.

The report estimates that more than half of critical mineral projects are located on or near Indigenous territories .

A main finding of the report is the imbalance between who benefits and who pays the price.

While extraction largely occurs in the Global South, the economic and technological gains are concentrated in wealthier nations. Countries rich in minerals often lack the infrastructure and capacity to process them, limiting their role to low-value extraction.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which produces over 60 percent of the world’s cobalt, more than 70 percent of the population lives on less than $2.15 a day.

Meanwhile, the profits flow to multinational corporations and industrial economies that dominate refining and manufacturing.

The report describes this dynamic as a “structural sustainability paradox,” where the environmental benefits enjoyed in developed countries are effectively subsidised by ecological and social harm in poorer regions.

Experts warn that the current trajectory could repeat patterns seen in the fossil fuel industry.

“The clean energy transition is not automatic. Without deliberate policy intervention, it can reproduce extractive colonialism under a new label,” the report states.

Communities in mining zones are increasingly being described as “sacrifice zones”, areas where environmental degradation and human suffering are accepted as the cost of global progress.

The report has recommended stronger international regulations, mandatory environmental standards, and greater transparency in supply chains. It also urges investment in recycling and circular economy models to reduce reliance on new mining, as well as the adoption of technologies that use less water.

Crucially, it emphasises the need to include local communities in decision-making and ensure they benefit from resource extraction. “Achieving climate goals must not come at the expense of those least equipped to bear the costs,” the report reads.

Dr Abraham Nunbogu, UNU-INWEH scientist and the report’s lead author, says legally allocating a share of mineral revenues to water infrastructure, health systems, skills training, and downstream industrial capacity is crucial. Credit: UNU-INWEH

Strategic Policy Needed

Dr Abraham Nunbogu, a UNU-INWEH scientist and the report’s lead author, told Inter Press Service that a practical step to move up the value chain and keep more economic benefits is a strategic industrial policy: using export conditions, licensing, or joint-venture requirements to promote local refining, processing, and manufacturing.

“Second, benefit-sharing and reinvestment mandates: legally allocating a share of mineral revenues to water infrastructure, health systems, skills training, and downstream industrial capacity. Third, regional value-chain cooperation: pooling resources across neighbouring countries to achieve economies of scale in processing and manufacturing that individual countries cannot reach alone,” Nunbogu said.

He added that the final step would be to address power imbalances by linking mineral access to ethical sourcing standards and technology transfer obligations in trade agreements.

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Coming from an island in southern Chile, where the sea is not an industry—but it is daily life, work, food and memory. Growing up in a family that is part of an artisanal fishers’ cooperative. Learning from a young age how to cultivate oysters, work with mussels, and understand the rhythms of the sea.

Yohana Coñuecar Llancapani

It is this same knowledge that we brought from Chile to Barcelona, to the Global Seafood Marketplace. As a Chilean delegation made up of Indigenous leaders and small-scale fishers, we were not just attending a trade fair—we were opening a conversation that has too often been left out of these spaces.

The Seafood Expo Global has established itself as one of the main platforms where the future of the global fishing industry is shaped. It is a space where standards, innovation, efficiency and markets are discussed. Yet one dimension continues to remain secondary: the role of Indigenous peoples who sustain marine ecosystems and inhabit the very spaces where the industry operates.

From Chile, our participation seeks to contribute to this debate from a strategic perspective. It is not about confronting the industry, but about demonstrating that its long-term sustainability depends on integrating other forms of knowledge and governance.

The industry has made progress in sustainability criteria, but often from a technical standpoint. What is still missing is the recognition that the spaces where it operates are not merely production zones, but inhabited territories. The knowledge developed by coastal communities is not just tradition—it is a living system of management.

In Chile, the Indigenous Coastal Marine Spaces (ECMPOs) have shown that it is possible to articulate conservation, productive use and territorial governance. However, the amendments currently under discussion to the Lafkenche Law send a worrying signal: instead of strengthening an instrument that has contributed to sustainability and territorial governance, there is a risk of weakening it in response to short-term production pressures.

This is not just a regulatory debate. It has direct implications for the stability of the industry. That is why we seek to bring this conversation to a global stage. And the space we are bringing to the Global Seafood Marketplace in Barcelona is not a traditional stand—it is an invitation to pause, to sit down and to engage in dialogue.

We want decision-makers in the industry to listen to these experiences. To understand that behind every product there are territories, people and ways of life. That their decisions have real impacts.

But we also want to show that there is an opportunity here.

Integrating Indigenous traditional knowledge is not only a matter of justice—it is a strategy for the sector’s real sustainability. It helps ensure continuity, traceability and quality over time. It is also a smart economic decision.

The ocean is not infinite. And we need new ways of relating to it.

From our territories, this is already happening. The question is: is the global industry willing to listen?

Yohana Coñuecar Llancapani is Mapuche Williche leader from Llanchid Island, Hualaihué, Chile

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Coastal villages throughout the Solomon Islands rely on selling fish for household incomes. Selling fish in Auki, Malaita Province, Solomon Islands. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Australia, Apr 29 2026 (IPS)

It is an invisible contaminant that has been found in fisheries, an essential part of the food chain for many Pacific Islanders. Mercury, emitted from fossil fuel power generation and other industrial processes around the world, has now penetrated marine ecosystems in the Pacific Islands with detrimental consequences for people’s health and wellbeing.

But island states, supported by scientific expertise at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and funding by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the world’s largest multilateral fund  for the environment, are implementing the action needed. The Mercury Free Pacific campaign is forging progress to protect islanders and their natural habitats from poisoning.

“Our communities face mercury risks from two main sources: what we eat, fish, and what we use in our homes and workplaces,” Emelipelesa Sam Panapa, Chemical Management Officer at the Department of Environment in the Polynesian atoll island nation of Tuvalu, told IPS. “Fish is the most widespread and challenging risk. It is not just food; it is central to our culture, livelihood and food security.”

The Mercury Free Pacific Campaign has brought together Pacific Island nations and the expertise of the SPREP and UNEP and been made possible with funding by the GEF. Credit: GEF

Mercury is a natural element in the Earth that has been released into the atmosphere for millennia through volcanic events and rock erosion. But human-generated, mostly industrial, processes have accelerated the build-up of mercury emissions. Metal processing facilities, cement works, the production of vinyl monomer and coal-fired power stations are the biggest contributors to the high levels of mercury in the atmosphere today.

From 2010 to 2015 alone, global anthropogenic mercury emissions rose by 20 percent, reports the UNEP. Coal-burning processes account for about 21 percent of all emissions. And this is projected to increase if a further 1,600 planned coal-driven power stations, on top of the existing 3,700 worldwide, are built. Already mercury in the atmosphere is about 450 percent above natural levels, reports UNEP.

After travelling long distances, mercury emissions then deposit in oceans. And toxicity begins when natural bacteria in aquatic environments mix with mercury, transforming it into Methylmercury, which is a neurotoxin. In the Pacific region, Methylmercury has contaminated beaches, coral reefs and fisheries, including swordfish, shark, tuna and mackerel, that are commonly consumed daily. Seafood is an important source of protein for up to 90 percent of Pacific Islanders and contributes to cash-based livelihoods for about 50 percent, reports the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Today mercury is named one of the top ten chemicals of concern to public health by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the danger is especially acute in women and children. It can, in higher doses, inflict damage on cardiovascular organs, kidneys and the nervous systems of pregnant women and subsequently affect organ development of the foetus.

A fisherman on the coast of Funafuti, Tuvalu, throwing a weighted net out into the seawater, a traditional form of fishing. Credit: Rodney Dekker / Climate Visuals

The results of a medical study conducted by the Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) confirmed health concerns.  Testing for traces of mercury in 757 women, aged 18-44 years, in the developing island states of the Caribbean, Indian and Pacific Oceans, including the Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Tonga and Marshall Islands, revealed that 58 percent possessed a level in their bodies that exceeded the safe threshold of 1ppm Hg. Researchers concluded the most likely cause was the high consumption of contaminated fish. In comparison, women who consumed lower amounts of fish and seafood recorded the lowest levels of mercury.

However, islanders also encounter toxicity in their households. Mercury is used in the production of common imported consumer products, such as fluorescent light tubes, electrical switches, dental amalgam fillings and skin lightening cosmetics. But it is when these products reach the end of their lives and are discarded that mercury is at risk of lingering indefinitely in the environment.

“The core of the problem is that mercury-added products are not being separated from municipal solid waste, and there are no local facilities for the environmentally sound disposal of mercury waste,” Soseala Tinilau, SPREP’s Hazardous Waste Management Advisor, told IPS. Also, “medical waste incineration sites are identified as potential sources of mercury emissions to the air.” And in some locations, raw sewerage flows have contributed mercury waste due to affected products being washed down drains into waterways and the sea.

A challenge is that waste management systems in many Pacific Island countries are constrained by lack of capacity, technology, resources and infrastructure. “There are no local facilities for the environmentally sound disposal of mercury waste. Therefore, a system for packing, exporting and disposing of this waste in an approved facility abroad is a critical need,” Tinilau specified.

Fisheries, susceptible to mercury contamination, are a major source of food and protein for Pacific Islanders. Fish market, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

Several years ago, numerous Pacific Island states, including Kiribati, Palau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, joined the Minamata Convention. The first global agreement to reform the ways in which mercury is used, phase it out in industries and develop better waste management practices, among other measures, came into effect in 2017.

Now governments in the region are drawing further on the power of multilateral collaboration in the Mercury Free Pacific initiative. The expansive mandate of the GEF-funded project includes conducting national surveys of mercury contamination, educating local communities about the risks, reviewing exposure to mercury-added consumer products, reforming waste management practices and assisting governments to develop relevant legislation.

The GEF is funding US$12.6 billion in environmental projects currently underway globally, which are expected to generate a further US$80.5 billion in co-financing. And it has a long view of its commitment to the Mercury Free Pacific project through its GEF Islands program, with goals outlined until at least 2030.

Anil Bruce Sookdeo, the GEF’s coordinator for Chemicals and Waste, elaborated that in the Pacific the GEF has provided US$1.5 million for gathering mapping data, its analysis and developing action and remedial plans in eleven Pacific Island nations, including the Federated States of Micronesia, Samoa, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

A further US$2 million is allocated to supporting national responses, such as devising effective legislation, community awareness programs and improving waste management processes. The campaign “represents a long-term regional objective, rather than a time-based project and requires sustained commitment and coordinated action by Pacific countries, regional institutions and partners,” he emphasised.

GEF funding has empowered Tuvalu, a country comprising nine coral islands and 11,800 people in the South Pacific, to make strides in its whole-of-society response to the issue.  The government has been able to strengthen its capacity and expertise, organise media awareness campaigns and oversee consultation with industries, communities and civil society organisations.

“For the first time, we have a national estimate of where mercury is coming from…we are beginning to understand the risks to our people and we have a roadmap for future action,” Panapa said in outlining the benefits of the Mercury Free Pacific initiative. At the same time, “these efforts represent the beginning of a longer journey to build community understanding and change behaviours related to mercury-added products, waste disposal and dietary choices.”

But a mitigation goal at the top of the list is to prevent mercury from reaching the islands. “Making marine life safe from mercury contamination is not about eliminating mercury already present in the ocean, but about preventing further contamination and managing the risk of exposure,” Tinilau said.

This means, among other measures, restricting the importation of mercury-added consumer products and galvanising global action to halt mercury emissions. Global consensus on phasing out coal-fired power stations and reforming industrial processes would be a start.

Pacific Island countries are demonstrating the political will and action with “regional coherence, national ownership and sustained momentum toward reducing mercury risks to human health, the environment and food systems in the Pacific,” emphasised Sookdeo from the GEF. Now, big emitters need to heed the urgency of reducing emissions at their source.

Notes: The Eighth Global Environment Facility Assembly will be held from May 30 to June 6, 2026, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
This feature is published with the support of the GEF. IPS is solely responsible for the editorial content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the GEF.

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Children involved in the UActive visit a school in the Mykolaiv region that Russian forces destroyed. It cannot be rebuilt. Credit: UActive

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Apr 28 2026 (IPS)

“What’s important is to make sure that you can immerse yourself in an environment that is positive for your mental health and wellbeing,” says Olena*.

Olena, from Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, was just 12 when Russia’s full-scale invasion of her country began on February 24, 2022. Over the last four years she has seen all her close friends leave the small town she lives in, most to move abroad, and experienced deadly bombings by Russian forces on her home town.

Meanwhile, much of her schooling in that time has been online because the permanent threat of shelling makes it unsafe for authorities to keep her school open.

She admits all this has taken a toll on her mental health.

“I had the most devastating experience when my town was bombed and some people were killed. The sound of explosions and drones causes constant tension still,” she tells IPS.

“I miss having all my friends here. Before the war, we used to spend so much time together – walking around the city, celebrating each other’s birthdays, and simply sitting somewhere and talking for hours. Now many of them are abroad, building new lives. I’m happy they are safe, but I deeply miss the feeling of unity,” she says.

“And for almost four years we [kids in the town] have been studying online. We see our classmates much less, and simple things like chatting during breaks or working on group projects feel like something from another life. We grew up faster than we expected.”

Olena is just one of millions of children in the country whose lives have been upended by the conflict.

As the full-scale invasion goes into its fifth year, research shows the devastating effect it has had on Ukrainian children, displacing millions, plunging many into poverty, and exposing them to the loss of loved ones and other trauma. Meanwhile, 1.6 million have had their education disrupted due to displacement, facility damage, and insecurity. According to UNICEF, one in three children are unable to attend in-person school full-time and more than 1,700 schools have been damaged or destroyed. The Save the Children group has said that Ukrainian children missed 20 percent of lessons during the last academic year alone because of frequent air raid warnings.

Meanwhile, Save the Children has estimated that over a million children have spent hundreds of days with either no or limited face-to-face teaching as schools have moved to online learning for security reasons since the start of the war. This came not long after schools had finished lengthy periods of online learning implemented during the Covid pandemic, meaning some children have had little in-class learning since 2020.

All this has taken a huge toll on the mental health of children and adolescents, local and international groups working with kids in the country have said.

According to UNICEF, a third of households have reported children displaying signs of psychosocial distress.

“Children’s mental health is increasingly under strain. The constant fear of attacks, displacement, endless sheltering in basements, and isolation at home with limited social connections have left children and adolescents struggling,” Toby Fricker, UNICEF Ukraine Chief of Advocacy and Communication, told IPS.

This has been expressed in a variety of emotional and physical expressions of symptoms, mental health experts have said.

These include irritability and emotional instability, particularly among adolescents, and social withdrawal.

“It can be said with sad certainty that since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which is now in its fifth year, the most common issues observed among adolescents are increased anxiety, fear, and chronic stress related to a constant sense of danger and uncertainty. Many teenagers experience emotional exhaustion, sleep problems, difficulties with concentration and learning, as well as decreased motivation,” Daria Lavrenko, a psychologist in the Kyiv region who works with children aged 12 to 18 who have been displaced from regions near the frontlines, told IPS.

Children participate in UActive programmes which include rebuilding infrastructure damaged in the war. Credit: UActive

“Manifestations of social isolation and difficulties communicating with peers have also become quite common, largely due to prolonged distance learning, frequent air raid sirens, and the loss of a familiar school environment. In addition, adolescents often show deep grief reactions due to the loss of relatives on the frontline or as a result of Russian attacks on civilians. Increased irritability, emotional instability, and difficulties with emotional regulation are also frequently observed, which are natural psychological responses to the prolonged traumatic experience of war,” she said.

But severe somatisation of symptoms, including facial tics, involuntary head movements, and speech disorders, have also been frequently reported. Sleeping disorders are common, especially among young children.

“These are common reactions when the body is suffering the consequences of mental health strain,” Viktoria Kondratyuk, a psychologist who works with the humanitarian group War Child on projects in Ukraine, told IPS. “It affects the immune system, weakens it, and that’s why you see so many [children] getting sick, especially in the winter],” she added.

Since the full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian government has moved to increase provision of mental health support through the approval of key legislation and the implementation of a nationwide mental healthcare programme.

At the same time, NGOs are working with regional administrations and local communities to improve public access to mental health services and psychosocial support, including providing informational and educational activities and integrating psychosocial support into existing social and educational services. It is hoped this will expand access to assistance for vulnerable groups and greater support for children and adolescents.

However, problems with access to such services, and recognition of mental health problems by those affected, mean many children are not getting the help they need, experts say.

“Many teenagers who experience psychological difficulties as a result of the war do not receive the help they need in time. This is partly due to limited access to specialists in certain regions where infrastructure has been damaged or where there is a shortage of mental health professionals. At the same time, attitudes toward mental wellbeing remain an important barrier,” said Lavrenko.

“Some teenagers avoid seeking help because they fear judgement, do not want to appear ‘weak’, or believe that their experiences are not serious enough. In addition, prolonged life under the conditions of war changes how young people perceive their own emotions. Many painful feelings—such as fear, anxiety, and helplessness—may be minimised or suppressed as the psyche attempts to adapt to constant danger and maintain the ability to function. This is a natural psychological defence mechanism; however, it can also lead to children and adolescents remaining without the support they need for long periods of time.

“Furthermore, adults do not always immediately notice or correctly interpret children’s emotional difficulties, as they themselves are often exhausted by the ongoing traumatic reality of war,” she said.

Lavrenko added that a different approach needed to be taken to mental health care given that Ukraine has been at war for so long.

“Under current conditions, improving adolescents’ mental health cannot be limited only to traditional approaches to psychological care. Ukraine is living through a full-scale war for a fifth year, and in this context, support for mental health often comes from things that are considered a normal part of life for teenagers in other countries: the ability to study consistently, communicate with peers, participate in extracurricular activities, think about the future, and make plans for their careers. This is why it is extremely important to create and expand programmes aimed at addressing educational losses and restoring opportunities for adolescents to socialise,” she said.

IPS spoke to a number of teenagers in different parts of Ukraine about mental health and access to services for them and their peers.

While not all have accessed specific mental health services, some said they had and that it had helped them. Some said they felt there was adequate access for them to psychosocial services, but others said it was woefully lacking, especially in schools where they felt it should be either discussed in classes more frequently or even taught formally as a subject.

“Teachers rarely discuss this in schools – it needs to be made part of the curriculum,” Andrej*, 16, from the Kyiv region, told IPS.

However, all of them pointed to the benefits of the kind of programmes referred to by Lavrenko.

The teenagers who spoke to IPS were involved in one such programme, UActive, in which children participate in initiatives helping rebuild towns and cities damaged by fighting.

They all said the project had given them a sense of purpose and hope for the future.

“Being part of UActive became a source of hope. It reminded me that even in dark times we can build something meaningful. Through our meetings and projects, I felt unity, support, and real motivation to act instead of just worrying,” said Olena.

“Some special sessions organised by UActive orientate toward working with different aspects of mental health… encouraged me to seriously analyse my mental health and seek support when I need to,” Nadezhda*, a teenager from Kyiv, told IPS.

Organisations involved in projects for children in the country told IPS that programmes focused on child mental health could have a profound effect on improving child wellbeing.

“For adolescents, civic engagement helps them connect with their peers and find a sense of purpose amid the uncertainty of war. UNICEF’s UPSHIFT programme is one example of this, where we train youth teams and equip them with the skills they need to lead and implement projects that support the needs of their communities. Such activities also provide a sense of purpose at a time when they feel like they have little control over their lives and the situation unfolding around them,” said Fricker.

However, while both the children and organisations which spoke to IPS said access to such programmes and other forms of psychosocial care are key to helping children at the moment, they also believed that ultimately the best way of improving child mental health would be for the war to end.

Even then, though, experts believe that even after an end to the fighting, people will be struggling with mental health problems related to the conflict for many years to come.

“When a child lives for years in an atmosphere of danger, loss, instability, and constant stress, it inevitably affects the development of their psyche, their sense of safety in the world, and their ability to trust in the future. In terms of long-term consequences, some teenagers may continue to experience heightened anxiety, difficulties with emotional regulation, challenges in relationships, or uncertainty about their future for many years even after the war ends,” said Lavrenko.

She added though that there was hope that with proper action now, some of the worst long-term effects among children might be mitigated.

“It is important to remember that the human psyche has significant potential for recovery, especially when adolescents receive support, a stable environment, access to education, and opportunities for socialisation. This is why it is extremely important to invest in programs that support children and adolescents now, helping them gradually regain a sense of safety and build a healthy future,” she said.

*Names of all children have been changed for security reasons.

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A worker operates a geothermal pipeline at the Laudat plant in Dominica, part of a clean energy project supported by the Global Environment Facility. The project illustrates the kind of system-wide transition GEF-9 aims to scale across small island developing states. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
SAINT LUCIA, Apr 27 2026 (IPS)

The gap between global environmental ambition and real-world progress is widening, with less than five years left to meet key climate and biodiversity targets.

Against that backdrop, attention is increasingly turning to how international environmental finance can deliver faster, deeper change on the ground.

Earlier this month, nations pledged $3.9 billion to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) for its latest funding cycle, known as GEF-9, running from July 2026 to June 2030.

The new cycle is being positioned as part of the response to lagging global environmental action. The GEF will aim for an important upscaling of conservation efforts across terrestrial and marine environments and, importantly, will also aim to influence and transform how economies produce, consume and develop.

What GEF-9 Is Trying to Change

The Global Environment Facility is the world’s largest multilateral environmental fund, supporting developing countries to meet commitments under multilateral environmental agreements on climate change, biodiversity, land degradation, chemicals and ocean governance.

That comprises six global environmental agreements, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

But officials say GEF-9 reflects a shift in thinking, adding that incremental environmental action is no longer enough to keep pace with accelerating ecological decline.

“The global community has set very ambitious goals for 2030 and, regrettably, we are nowhere close to achieving them,” said Fred Boltz, Head of Programming at the GEF. “As a consequence, the shared environmental challenge we now face is to manage a changing Earth system to sustain a healthy planet for healthy people.”

In this context of change and uncertainty, existing approaches have reached their limits.

“Upscaling conventional solutions is not sufficient to address our planetary-scale, existential challenge,” Boltz said.

From Projects to Systems Transformation

At the core of GEF-9 is a deliberate shift toward what the organisation describes as “systems transformation”, consistent with the GEF Integrated Programs (IPs) which are an important complement to funding traditional environmental projects that are necessary but not sufficient to address planetary challenges.  Systems transformation through the GEF IPs aims to change underlying incentives, institutions and pathways that currently drive climate change, ecosystem and biodiversity loss, land degradation, and pollution.

Rather than treating environmental damage as a series of isolated problems, the GEF IPs are built around the idea that economies themselves must be reshaped to operate within ecological limits. That includes the major systems that determine environmental outcomes at scale: food systems and agriculture, urban development, production supply chains, and land, water and ocean use.

The approach reflects what GEF describes in its strategic framework as a response to “accelerating global environmental crises” and the need for a more integrated response that aligns multilateral environmental agreements and development efforts.

“In addition to conserving the most important areas, restoring degraded ecosystems and preserving the adaptive capacity of our Earth, we must urgently focus on transforming human production and consumption practices,” said Boltz, pointing to the scale of change required to meet global environmental targets.

Under GEF-9, this shift is being operationalised through four linked pathways.

The first is expanding and diversifying environmental finance, including through blended finance models that combine public funding with private investment to close persistent financing gaps.

The second is embedding nature more directly into national development planning, ensuring environmental priorities are not treated as stand-alone goals but integrated into economic decision-making, fiscal policy and sector planning.

The third focuses on what the GEF calls “valuing nature in the economy”, including internalising the value of nature in economic designs and decisions, mobilising private capital, and aligning investment flows with environmental agreements through tools such as natural capital accounting and nature-positive value chains.

The fourth is broader “whole-of-society” engagement, which places Indigenous peoples, local communities, civil society, youth and women more centrally in the design and implementation of environmental programmes. The GEF considers that, as stewards of the Earth, all of them must take part in its conservation while also benefiting from the wealth of nature.

Taken together, these approaches reflect what the GEF describes as a shift toward nature-positive development. This is where economic growth and environmental protection are no longer treated as competing priorities but as interdependent goals.

Rather than funding isolated conservation projects, GEF-9 is therefore designed to operate across entire landscapes and seascapes, recognising that ecosystems, economies and communities are deeply interconnected and must be managed as such.

A Shift in How Environmental Finance Works

A key change under GEF-9 is how environmental action will be financed.

The fund is expanding its use of blended finance by combining public funding with private investment to unlock significantly larger flows of capital.

While earlier cycles used this approach in limited ways, GEF-9 is expected to scale it up as part of a broader strategy to close persistent environmental financing gaps.

Boltz said the focus is now on upscaling and transformative change rather than incremental gains.

“We are really focusing on transforming human production and consumption practices and operating at a scale in the conservation of ecosystems that enables planetary adaptation to a changing climate and to unrelenting human demand for ecosystem goods and services,” he said.

New financial instruments, including outcome-based bonds and nature-linked investment mechanisms, are also expected to play a greater role in attracting long-term private capital.

What It Looks Like on the Ground

In practice, the shift is already visible in energy transitions in small island states.

In Dominica, geothermal energy development supported through GEF-linked financing is expected to replace around 65% of fossil fuel-based electricity generation.

The impact goes beyond emissions reductions.

For island economies dependent on imported fuel, such transitions can reduce energy costs, ease fiscal pressure and improve resilience to global price shocks.

“This systems transformation benefits the environment in Dominica and benefits the global community by reducing greenhouse gas emissions while also ensuring lasting human benefits for the people of this island nation, in turn increasing the likelihood of success and sustainability for those investments,” Boltz said.

GEF-9 approach. Graphic: IPS

Integration Replaces Silos

Another defining feature of GEF-9 is integration across sectors and across the GEF “family of funds” – a shift away from treating the conservation of biodiversity, land and ecosystems, marine and freshwater systems, chemicals and waste management, and climate change mitigation and adaptation as separate sectors with distinct investments and isolated efforts.

Instead, projects are increasingly being designed to address these challenges together, reflecting the reality that environmental systems do not operate in isolation.

The approach is driven by both efficiency and impact. Combining interventions is expected to deliver multiple benefits at once, while avoiding fragmented efforts that can undermine long-term results.

Under this model, a single intervention can generate overlapping gains across different environmental priorities. Mangrove restoration, for example, can strengthen coastal protection against storms, support biodiversity habitats and store carbon. Sustainable agriculture initiatives can improve food security while also reducing pressure on soils, forests and freshwater systems.

The approach is also linked to broader GEF-9 priorities around scaling impact across landscapes and seascapes, rather than limiting action to protected areas or project boundaries. That includes managing ecosystems as connected systems, where upstream land use, coastal resilience and marine health are interdependent.

Boltz said this shift reflects how environmental pressures are actually experienced by countries on the ground.

“Countries face a spectrum of environmental challenges that do not neatly fall into different categories and the GEF must operate and support the achievement of lasting environmental outcomes in this reality,” he said.

Focus On Vulnerable Countries and Communities

The new cycle also places stronger emphasis on countries and communities most exposed to environmental risks, reflecting greater equity in how global environmental finance is distributed.

Small island developing states and least developed countries are expected to receive a larger share of resources under GEF-9, alongside increased support for Indigenous peoples and local communities who are often on the frontlines of conservation but historically underfunded.

Boltz said this shift is now embedded in the fund’s programming priorities, including a formal commitment to expand Indigenous-led environmental action.

“We have committed to an aspirational target of 20% of GEF financing to support Indigenous peoples’ efforts in environmental stewardship across the GEF family of funds. We have also significantly expanded a dedicated financing instrument to support Indigenous peoples’ stewardship. That has increased fourfold. It was 25 million in GEF-8. It’ll be 100 million in GEF-9.”

He added that the increase reflects growing recognition that environmental outcomes are stronger when local and Indigenous communities are directly resourced and involved in decision-making, particularly in areas such as forest management, land, water and ocean stewardship and biodiversity protection.

What Success Will Look Like

By 2030, success under GEF-9 will not be measured only by financial commitments or project delivery.

Instead, it will be judged by whether structural changes begin to take hold, whether energy systems become cleaner, ecosystems more resilient and economies less damaging to nature.

Boltz said the benchmark is long-term transformation.

“Success looks like maintaining the core elements of what is necessary for a vibrant and resilient planet,” he said, pointing to shifts in the conservation of large marine, terrestrial and freshwater systems and transformations in food systems, supply chains, and urban development.

Why It Matters Now

With global environmental targets under increasing pressure, GEF-9 represents a test of whether international finance can move at the speed and scale required to influence real-world systems.

The initial $3.9 billion commitment pledged by GEF donors in April secures the financial foundation for the next cycle, but it also raises expectations about delivery.

For countries already experiencing the impacts of climate change, particularly small island states, the question is no longer about ambition.

It is about whether systems can be reshaped quickly enough before environmental thresholds are crossed.

Note: The Eighth Global Environment Facility Assembly will be held from May 30 to June 6, 2026, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
This feature is published with the support of the GEF. IPS is solely responsible for the editorial content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the GEF.

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Izumi Nakamitsu, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, at a press conference on the 11th Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Credit: Eskinder Debebe/UN Photo

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 27 2026 (IPS)

The Eleventh Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will meet at the United Nations in New York from 27 April to 22 May 2026. State parties to the treaty will meet with the urgent aim of finding common ground on the issue of nonproliferation.

“The NPT is very often referred to as a cornerstone of the international disarmament and nonproliferation regime and also a very important pillar of international peace and security,” said Izumi Nakamitsu, Under-Secretary-General of the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (ODA).

The NPT came into effect in 1970 and was extended indefinitely in 1995. This landmark international treaty calls for all signatories to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and promote nuclear disarmament above all and encourages pursuing more peaceful uses of nuclear energy. It remains the only legally binding agreement that nuclear powers adhere to, with 191 states, both nuclear and non-nuclear, as signatories to the treaty. Review conferences are typically held at five-year intervals beginning in 1970 (the conference originally scheduled for 2020 was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was later held in 2022).

The president of the conference is Do Hung Viet, the Permanent Representative of Vietnam to the UN. The conference is expected to begin with a general debate during the first week, which will be followed by thematic discussions under each of the three pillars of the Treaty.

It will be attended by high‑level representatives, including Ministers of Foreign Affairs, as well as senior representatives of key international organizations. Side events will be held in parallel to the thematic discussions by attending members of civil society. This year’s conference will assess the implementation of the NPT since the last review conference, which ended without countries reaching a consensus on the final outcome document.

Ahead of the conference, Nakamitsu spoke to reporters at UN headquarters on 24 April. She remarked that state parties should take this meeting as an opportunity to converge on common ground when it came to nonproliferation. Ultimately, country representatives would want to avoid both an increase in proliferation and the intentional use of nuclear weapons. It will be a collective responsibility, said Nakamitsu, for the state parties to reach a consensus on the outcome document.

The NPT Review Conference will convene during a period of deepening geopolitical tensions, where major nuclear powers are embroiled in regional conflicts. The current military conflict in Iran and, in particular, the war in Ukraine from 2022, have caused shifts in countries’ attitudes about nuclear proliferation.

Some experts have claimed that the situation has led to a start of a new arms race as more countries hold discussions around “improving” nuclear weapons and even outright expanding into procuring nuclear arms themselves, as some see weapons as the “ultimate guarantor of national security”. Nakamitsu acknowledged this as a “proliferation driver”, or growing public sentiment for nuclear proliferation, irrespective of the formal governments’ position on the NPT. She also expressed concern over the increased rhetoric that threatened the use of nuclear weapons, warning that the more nuclear weapon states there were, the greater the risks of nuclear weapons being used by mistake or by miscalculation.

“[The] prevention of nuclear weapons’ use will have to become also one of the key focuses of the conference because when it comes to nuclear weapons, again, it’s not just one or two countries’ security; it goes beyond the borders. It is the security of all of us,” said Nakamitsu. “We need to put to rest the wrong narrative that more nuclear weapon states would guarantee our security.”

A “shared sentiment in crisis” within all state parties may in fact encourage them to “protect and maintain” the NPT. Despite this, Nakamitsu warned that with a growing leniency around nuclear weapons, this poses a risk to the gains made right after the end of World War II and throughout the Cold War.

In the current strategic security environment, the rapid rise of certain technologies will also be a factor in discussions. The advent of artificial intelligence has sparked great debate within the international community for its application in certain sectors and the risk of misuse without the proper guardrails.

It was only in December 2024 that the UN General Assembly passed a resolution that detailed the use of AI in the military domain and ‘its implications for international peace and security’, though it should be noted that there is no reference to the use of AI in the context of nuclear weapons.

When asked whether the issue of AI in the military-nuclear nexus would be discussed during the NPT conference, Nakamitsu noted that the integration of AI in the nuclear command and communications channel is “beginning to be discussed on different platforms”, and further consultations would also be held in Geneva this year. The NPT conference may not be the forum for further discussions around this issue or regarding AI governance in the military context. However, this is something that state parties recognise will require investigation, including when it comes to placing guardrails on the use of AI in the military domain.

“There is an increasing awareness that when it comes to nuclear weapons’ command and control, obviously humans have to retain oversight,” Nakamitsu told Inter Press Service.

The challenges facing the international world, particularly in the context of the conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, are placing “significant stress on the treaty,” according to Nakamitsu.

But it is also what makes the NPT review conference and its outcomes all the more relevant. A shared understanding that nuclear proliferation will only lead to further instability and insecurity is what will push member states to engage in critical dialogue over the next four weeks. This must also yield a shared commitment to uphold the principles of the NPT by the end.

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Credit: Nikada/iStock by Getty Images. Source: International Monetary Fund (IMF)

By Abebe Aemro Selassie
WASHINGTON DC, Apr 27 2026 (IPS)

Sub-Saharan Africa’s economies entered 2026 with significant momentum. The region had notched its fastest growth rate in 10 years—4.5 percent in 2025—buoyed by reduced macroeconomic imbalances, rising investment levels, and a generally supportive external environment.

Countries such as Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, and Rwanda led the charge, with growth exceeding 6 percent. The median inflation rate fell to about 3.5 percent and public debt levels had started to decline. These gains were hard-won, the fruit of politically difficult but meaningful reforms such as exchange-rate realignments, better spending allocation, and tighter monetary policies.

Progress on the fiscal front has been particularly impressive. The region’s general government primary balance has been steadily improving and is now near balance. By contrast, primary deficits in both advanced economies and other emerging markets remained noticeably wider in 2025 than before the pandemic.

Sub-Saharan Africa achieved this consolidation while simultaneously sustaining reasonably decent growth and bringing down inflation, thanks to bold reforms and notwithstanding headwinds from elevated global uncertainty and much reduced concessional financing.

And just as the region has begun to secure these gains, the war in the Middle East has brought a significant new shock that threatens to stall, or even unwind, that progress. It has pushed up global prices for oil, gas, and fertilizer, disrupted trade routes, and tightened financial conditions. These developments are weighing on the region’s outlook.

We expect growth to slow to 4.3 percent this year, some 0.3 percentage points below pre-war forecasts, while inflation is projected to rise. That may sound benign by global standards, but for a region where rapid growth is imperative to create millions of new jobs for the rapidly expanding population, any hit to growth is problematic.

Oil importers, many of them low-income or fragile states, face worsening trade balances and rising living costs. Oil exporters may benefit from higher oil prices, but remain exposed to volatility and the temptation of procyclical spending.

And the risks are mounting.

A prolonged conflict could further inflate commodity prices, trigger a risk-off episode in global markets, and force abrupt fiscal adjustments in countries with large refinancing needs.

In a severe downside scenario, as detailed in the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook, regional output this year could fall 0.6 percent below pre-war forecasts, with oil importers suffering the most, and inflation could surge by an additional 2.4 percentage points.

The human costs are equally stark. Food insecurity looms large: the region remains acutely vulnerable to food-price shocks, and the war has already driven up fertilizer and shipping costs. A 20 percent rise in international food prices could push more than 20 million people into food insecurity and leave 2 million children under age 5 acutely malnourished.

Climate shocks intensify the strain—the recent floods in Mozambique and Madagascar serve as a reminder of the region’s deep vulnerability to weather disruptions.

The unprecedented decline in foreign aid strips away a critical buffer. Unlike past contractions, 2025 marked a sharp structural break in aid flows, with cuts falling hardest on the most fragile states and threatening to unravel essential services—healthcare above all—in countries with no alternative source of finance.

Debt vulnerabilities are also rising. More than one-third of countries are at high risk of, or already in, debt distress. In 21 countries, fiscal deficits exceed the levels that are needed to stabilize debt. Rising interest bills and dwindling concessional finance are inflating debt-service burdens and crowding out essential development spending.

In some cases, growing reliance on domestic borrowing has deepened ties between government debt and bank balance sheets, raising the specter of financial instability.

In this fraught environment, policymakers must navigate competing pressures. In the short term, they should anchor inflation expectations, shield the most vulnerable from rising prices, and avoid procyclical fiscal policies.

Oil exporters should treat windfalls as fleeting, using them to rebuild buffers and strengthen social safety nets. Oil importers with fiscal space can offer targeted, time-bound support; those without must focus on increasing the efficiency of spending and boosting domestic revenues.

Even as policymakers grapple with the immediate shock, the medium-term reform agenda cannot wait. The premium on accelerating structural reforms—to boost growth and resilience—is now even higher. Improving the business climate, strengthening governance, and reforming state-owned enterprises, especially in energy, transport, and telecommunications, can help attract investment and lift productivity. Deepening regional integration through the African Continental Free Trade Area could bolster supply-chain resilience and expand markets for local producers.

Digital transformation offers promise, but also highlights the region’s infrastructure gaps. Artificial intelligence is already helping farmers boost yields, doctors improve diagnoses, and students master difficult concepts faster.

But scaling such innovations will require investing in electricity, internet access, digital skills, and data governance. Today, just 53 percent of the region’s population has access to electricity, and only 38 percent to the internet.

International role

The international community has a role to play, especially when the economic troubles facing many countries stem largely from shocks beyond their control. Predictable financing, technical assistance, and capacity-building support can help countries weather current storms and sustain reform momentum.

Aid should be prioritized for low-income and fragile states, where alternative sources of finance are scarce. The IMF is already deeply engaged, with programs in 22 of the region’s 45 countries, and stands ready to scale up support for members facing acute balance-of-payments pressures linked to the war.

The optimism that greeted 2026 was not misplaced: it was earned, through years of difficult but necessary reform. The fallout from the war in the Middle East is now testing that progress, but it does not need to erase it. African policymakers have demonstrated they can deliver under pressure. The choices they make now—whether to hold the line on inflation, protect the vulnerable from the worst of the shock, and resist the temptation to unwind the reforms that got them here—will determine whether these hard-won gains endure.

The job of the international community is to support that effort. But the boldness and resolve that the moment demands must come from within the region itself.

This IMF blog is based on the April 2026 Regional Economic Outlook for sub-Saharan Africa, “Hard-Won Gains Under Pressure,” prepared by Cleary Haines, Michele Fornino, Saad Quayyum, Can Sever, Nikola Spatafora, and Felix Vardy.

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Protests ahead of the 1st Conference Transitioning away from Fossil Fuels. Credit: Kefas Matos

By Umar Manzoor Shah
SRINAGAR, Apr 24 2026 (IPS)

A high-stakes international summit in Colombia starting today (April 24) is expected to sharpen global efforts to phase out fossil fuels, as governments, scientists and Indigenous leaders warn that the world is running out of time to avert irreversible climate damage.

During a virtual press briefing on April 16, Colombia’s Environment Ministry and a diverse panel of experts outlined expectations from the upcoming Fossil Fuel Phase-Out Summit in Santa Marta. The event is being positioned as a critical platform to accelerate energy transition and address mounting pressure from Indigenous communities living on the frontlines of extraction.

It was at the Belém Climate Conference in 2025, wherein a coalition of over 80 countries unanimously decided to act decisively to phase out fossil fuels that have been driving three quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions.

On the sidelines, 24 countries went further: they issued the Belém Declaration, pledging to work collectively toward a just, orderly, and equitable transition aligned with 1.5°C pathways. To this end, Colombia and the Netherlands volunteered to co-host the First International Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels.

The Conference is taking place from 24 to 29 April 2026 in Santa Marta, Colombia. The organisers invited 97 national governments and 30 subnational governments. The high-level segment convenes on April 28–29, 2026.

“We are in a moment of no return. It is clear that there is climate change and that there is no denialism. This is the moment… to accelerate the transition and the progressive elimination of fossil fuels,” said Luz Dary Carmona Moreno, Colombia’s Vice Minister for Environmental Land Use Planning.

The summit comes at a time of growing geopolitical tension and continued global dependence on fossil fuels. Carmona noted that conflicts and economic instability continue to be shaped by oil, gas, and coal and stressed that there is an urgent need for structural change.

“The economy continues depending on fossil fuels,” she said, pointing to global crises that reflect the entrenched role of hydrocarbons.

Colombia has framed the Santa Marta conference around three strategic pillars. The first focuses on overcoming global dependence on fossil fuels. The second addresses transformation of supply and demand systems. The third seeks to rethink multilateral cooperation frameworks.

Carmona emphasised that the conference aims to produce a concrete roadmap, backed by science, public participation, and political will.

“This conference seeks common points to accelerate the transition, concrete actions and enablers that allow that acceleration,” she said.

The event has already drawn strong international participation. According to Colombian officials, 45 countries have confirmed attendance, along with 13 ministers and a broad coalition of civil society groups, indigenous organisations, academics, and private sector actors.

More than 2,800 participants, including grassroots organisations, Indigenous communities, youth groups, and labour unions, have registered to take part.

Indigenous Leaders Warn of “Unjust Transition”

For Indigenous leaders, however, the urgency of the climate crisis is matched by frustration over what they describe as a gap between rhetoric and reality.

Oswaldo Muca, General Coordinator of the Organisation of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC), said communities continue to bear the brunt of extraction despite promises of a “just transition”.

“We are very concerned. We talk about a just transition, but in practice it is not true,” Muca said.

He described ongoing environmental degradation in Indigenous territories, including illegal mining, deforestation and mercury contamination.

“Mining continues. Extraction continues. Deforestation continues. The territories and Indigenous peoples continue suffering this problem, and it is becoming more serious every day,” he said.

Muca also criticised the lack of direct benefits for local communities, noting that profits from extraction often leave the country while environmental damage remains.

“The resources do not reach Indigenous territories but they destroy the territory and leave the damage,” he said.

He called for Indigenous participation at every stage of policymaking, from design to implementation, across technical, political, legal and financial dimensions.

Science Points to Sharp Cuts

Scientific findings presented during the briefing reinforced the scale of transformation required.

Dr Marcel Llavero Pasquina, a researcher at the University of Barcelona, said limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius would require drastic reductions in fossil fuel production.

“Eighty-six percent of oil and gas reserves currently under production should be prematurely decommissioned,” he said.

Even under a less ambitious 2-degree scenario, at least 12% of producing reserves would need to be phased out.

Pasquina also warned that no new fossil fuel exploration is compatible with global climate targets. “At least 10,000 of the existing oil and gas extraction contracts should be cancelled,” he said.

He highlighted the economic tensions shaping climate negotiations, noting that fossil fuel companies stand to lose trillions of dollars under transition scenarios.

“Fossil fuel companies… have a material and quantifiable conflict of interest,” he said, arguing they should be excluded from climate policymaking.

At the same time, governments face significant fiscal challenges, with potential revenue losses estimated at US$117 trillion globally under a 1.5-degree pathway. Still, Pasquina stressed that these costs are outweighed by the human and environmental toll of inaction.

“These transition costs are dwarfed by the climate costs communities would otherwise suffer,” he said.

Policy Momentum Builds

Despite the scale of the challenge, policy experts pointed to growing momentum worldwide.

Paola Yanguas Parra, a policy advisor at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, said governments have already begun implementing measures to restrict fossil fuel expansion.

“We found… 58 active restrictions, which go from bans and moratoria to exploration and licensing,” she said.

These measures include protections for ecologically and culturally significant areas such as the Amazon, as well as restrictions on extraction methods like fracking.

Yanguas Parra noted that such policies often make economic sense in addition to environmental benefits.

“You would take a huge environmental, social and climate cost… for something that would not even make you enough profit,” she said, referring to unviable extraction projects in remote regions.

She added that the summit offers an opportunity to shift global discussions from whether to transition away from fossil fuels to how to implement that transition effectively.

“This coalition will focus on implementation, on learning from each other,” she said.

Amazon at a Crossroads

Speakers from across the Amazon basin warned that the region is increasingly being treated as a new frontier for fossil fuel expansion.

Alana Manchineri, an Indigenous leader from Brazil, described the climate crisis as an immediate reality rather than a distant threat.

“There is no more space for delays,” she said.

She warned that oil and gas projects are already causing widespread damage, including water contamination, biodiversity loss and rising conflict.

“It is not just environmental damage but violations of rights and ways of life,” she said.

According to Indigenous organisations, more than 320,000 square kilometres of Indigenous land in the Amazon basin are already affected by oil and gas blocks.

Manchineri stressed that any transition must fully incorporate Indigenous knowledge and leadership.

“This path will only be legitimate and effective with the full participation of Indigenous peoples,” she said.

Beyond COP: Complement, Not Replacement

Panellists repeatedly emphasised that the Santa Marta summit is not intended to replace existing UN climate processes but to complement them.

“There are groups of countries… that have gathered to discuss more focused issues,” Yanguas Parra said, describing the summit as part of a broader ecosystem of climate cooperation.

Pasquina offered a more critical view, arguing that while UN climate negotiations have produced frameworks like the Paris Agreement, they have failed to curb rising emissions.

“The COP  has been a great success on paper. In reality, emissions have only been increasing,” he said.

He suggested that initiatives like Santa Marta could increase pressure on countries that have resisted stronger action.

A Test of Political Will

As preparations intensify, expectations for the summit remain high. Colombian officials say the final outcome will be a report outlining actionable steps and mechanisms to accelerate transition.

“We want the report not to remain just another document. We expect people to turn it into action,” Carmona said.

For many participants, the success of the summit will depend on whether it delivers concrete commitments rather than broad declarations.

Indigenous leaders, in particular, say the credibility of the process hinges on real inclusion and tangible change on the ground.

“If we do not take real and effective actions. We can talk about a just transition, but in reality, other mechanisms will continue destroying the territory,” Muca warned.

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Beekeepers harvest honey from an ABL hive in the Tana Delta, Kenya. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS

By Chemtai Kirui
GOLBANTI, Kenya, Apr 23 2026 (IPS)

Lydia Hagodana stands next to a bee yard (apiary) in Golbanti, Tana Delta, where she lives. The air carries a low, steady hum as bees move in and out in a constant stream. She lifts the back of one hive slightly, gauging its weight.

“This hive is mine,” she says. “I have two.”

Hagodana is one of 25 members of the Golbanti women’s group, which manages about 50 hives shared between them. Each member keeps a pair, harvesting honey a few times a year. Some of the income is kept individually, while a portion is pooled into group savings to support a small communal vegetable farm.

The apiaries sit along the southern banks of the Tana River, where it begins to split into the channels that form the lower delta. In the rainy season, the land opens into floodplains, drawing migratory birds and supporting wildlife, including hippos, crocodiles and the rare Tana River topi.

Lydia Hagodana in the area where she keeps one of her beehives in the Tana Delta, Kenya. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS

Patches of gallery forest along the riverbanks are home to two critically endangered primates – the Tana River red colobus and the crested mangabey.

In recent years, beekeeping has offered an alternative source of income in a place where livelihoods have long depended on farming, fishing and livestock. For women in particular, managing hives marks a shift from more physically demanding work and from roles traditionally dominated by men.

Before the bees, these same floodplains were at the centre of proposals for large-scale biofuel plantations – plans that raised concerns about converting wetlands into industrial agriculture.

“This was linked to the European Union policy to blend biofuels with fossil fuels,” said Dr Paul Matiku, executive director of Nature Kenya. “Africa was seen as a place with ‘idle’ land that could be converted to these crops, including jatropha and sugarcane.”

At the time, the Kenyan government framed the projects as part of vision 2030 – a way to bring development and jobs to what officials described as an “empty” region.

Land clearing had begun. In some places, fields were ploughed before indigenous families had gathered their belongings. A wildlife corridor used by elephants and other species was carved into plantation blocks.

Tensions Rose

By 2012, violent clashes had erupted, turning the delta into what investors began calling a “red zone”.

“We woke up to a challenge about where the Tana Delta was going,” said Matiku, who helped lead the legal fight to stop the expansion. “You cannot convert wildlife land and food-producing land into fuel for cars. We had to unleash every bit of machinery we had to stop it.”

A coalition of conservation groups and local communities took the government to court.

In February 2013, Lady Justice Mumbi Ngugi halted the proposed large-scale developments in the delta, ruling that the state had failed to account for the rights of local people.

“The court said no one could move forward without a land-use plan developed with the people,” Matiku said.

Over the next two years, communities, county officials and conservation groups worked together to map the delta – dividing the landscape into zones for grazing, farming and conservation under what became the Tana Delta Land Use Plan (LUP).

For the first time, the delta had a formal set of rules.

But another question followed: could conservation pay?

A group of community members gather outside an African Beekeepers Limited facility in Kenya’s Tana Delta to discuss the business of beekeeping. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS

From Idle Land to Natural Economy

With support from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), researchers began calculating the economic value of the delta’s ecosystems – reframing them from “idle land” into a functioning natural economy.

The partners approached the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the world’s largest multilateral fund for the environment. In 2018, after a technical review process, the fund approved a USD 3.3m grant for restoration in the Tana Delta under the Restoration Initiative.

The funding aimed to stabilise a landscape long marked by land disputes and failed biofuel schemes. Working with UNEP and Nature Kenya, the program supported consultations, legal drafting, and the work needed to turn the land-use plan into law.

Between 2019 and 2024, the county enacted 29 policies and legislative instruments aimed at regulating land use, conservation and climate action.

“We have moved from loosely coordinated conservation projects to a law-driven governance framework that integrates land use, climate change and community engagement,” said Mathew Babwoya Buya, Tana River county’s environment executive.

Tana River county has set aside at least 2% of its development budget for climate resilience and ecosystem restoration.

For the 2024/25 fiscal year, the county’s total budget is about KSh 8.87 billion (USD 68.76 million). Of that, roughly KSh 3 billion (USD 23 million) is development spending, implying annual allocations of about KSh 60 million (USD 460,000) for restoration programmes.

The commitment helped secure new funding from the GEF, which approved a grant of about USD 3.35 million for the Tana Delta under its Restoration Initiative.

Project documents show the program mobilised roughly USD 36.8 million in co-financing, about eleven dollars for every dollar of GEF funding, a commonly cited measure of leverage in conservation finance.

“The Tana Delta project shows what is possible when country ownership is strong and priorities are clearly aligned. This level of leverage reflects deep national commitment, strong engagement from a wide range of stakeholders, and clear links to value chains and local business opportunities. The project’s integrated, landscape-based approach allows it to address multiple challenges at once, making it an attractive platform for partners to invest alongside GEF,” said Ulrich Apel, a senior environmental specialist at the GEF.

The composition of that financing shows that the bulk originates from public agencies and development partners, including multilateral programmes and philanthropic funding. Only about USD 341,000 – less than 1 per cent of the total – is attributable to direct private-sector investment.

Apel explained the figures do not necessarily capture the full extent of commercial activity.

“It is important to understand how co-finance is defined and recorded,” Apel said. “Only capital explicitly committed to a project through formal letters is captured. There can be private sector flows into these value chains that do not show up in the co-financing numbers.”

UNEP officials say the structure is intended to use public funding to reduce land-use risk and attract investment over time.

“The GEF grant was designed to play a catalytic role,” said Nancy Soi, a UNEP official involved in the project.

By funding land-use planning, cooperative structures, and governance systems, she said, the program has helped “derisk” the delta for commercial activity in sectors such as honey, chilli, and aquaculture.

In parallel, other partners are beginning to test that approach in specific value chains.

In aquaculture, the Mastercard Foundation, working with TechnoServe, is supporting a program aimed at about 650 young entrepreneurs in Tana River County.

How that model translates into sustained commercial investment is still being tested on the ground.

In Golbanti, where Hagodana’s hives sit along the riverbanks, one of the emerging value chains is honey production. The work is being developed through a partnership with African Beekeepers Limited (ABL).

Under the model, the company supplies modern hives and technical expertise, manages production, and buys the honey at a fixed price – removing one of the biggest risks in rural markets: price volatility.

Nature Kenya says it has deliberately avoided locking farmers into long-term contracts at this stage, allowing time to assess whether production volumes and pricing can prove viable.

“We managed to pay 76 farmers about KSh700,000 (USD 5,400) from honey harvested in the delta,” said Ernest Simeoni, director of ABL, referring to the project’s first production cycle.

Numbered beehives in a conservation area of Kenya’s Tana Delta. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS

Not Just Beekeeping, It’s the Business of Beekeeping

Simeoni said the approach differs from many donor-led initiatives, which typically focus on training farmers to manage hives independently.

“There are hundreds of modern hives across Kenya, but they don’t produce honey,” he said. “The missing link is expertise.”

Instead, ABL keeps production under the company’s control, deploying its teams to monitor colonies, harvest honey, and oversee processing.

“We’re not training farmers how to do beekeeping,” he said. “What we’re doing is business – showing how to make money from honey.”

Community groups provide land and security for the hives, while the company manages harvesting and processing. Simeoni said that structure helps maintain consistent production volumes.

Even so, he cautioned that the model remains fragile. Access to affordable finance is limited, and much of the sector still depends on donor-backed projects to absorb early risk.

“If donor funding disappears tomorrow, most of these projects stop,” he said.

Looking beyond small-scale value chains, the county is also trying to attract larger investments through a proposed development plan known as the “Green Heart”.

A 60-hectare site in Minjila has been earmarked for an industrial hub intended to support agroprocessing, logistics and green manufacturing, according to Mwanajuma Hiribae, the Tana River county secretary.

“We are working to establish an investment unit to coordinate engagement with private firms,” she said. Funds have also been allocated to develop a masterplan for the site.

But the project remains at an early stage. The land has yet to be formally transferred to the county’s investment authority, and proposals from potential investors are still under review.

Officials say any future development will need to align with the delta’s land-use plan and environmental safeguards.

For now, however, the flow of private capital to the delta remains limited.

Experiences elsewhere in Kenya suggest the model, while technically replicable, depends heavily on political will, security conditions and sustained public financing – factors that vary widely between regions.

In western Kenya, a similar land-use planning approach has been introduced in Yala Swamp, with mixed results. While Busia county has formally adopted the framework, neighbouring Siaya has yet to approve it, with local officials citing competing political and commercial interests around large-scale agriculture.

“The science is replicable,” said Matiku. “But political interests can slow or block implementation.”

In Golbanti, the idea of a restoration economy is beginning to take shape in small ways.

Beekeepers at the African Beekeepers Limited facility in Kenya’s Tana Delta. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS

Welcome Income

Income from honey, though modest and still irregular, is starting to filter into daily life.

For Hagodana, it helps pay school fees for her six children, supports a small farm, and contributes to a shared fund used to grow vegetables. Some of the money is spent, some saved, and some reinvested.

She has been keeping bees for two years. Before that, she says, life was harder. Now there is at least something to rely on.

She does not plan to stop. Whether or not outside support continues, she says she will keep the hives and hopes eventually to learn how to process honey into other products.

Back in the apiary, the bees move in and out of the hives in a steady rhythm.

Note: The Eighth Global Environment Facility Assembly will be held from May 30 to June 6, 2026 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

This feature is published with the support of the GEF. IPS is solely responsible for the editorial content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the GEF.

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Clean drinking water runs from a tap in Senegal. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider
 
The African Union has pronounced their theme for 2026 to be: ‘Assuring Sustainable Water Availability and Safe Sanitation Systems to Achieve the Goals of Agenda 2063’. In an opinion piece, AUC Chairperson, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf explores the continent's renewed commitment to protecting and managing its vital water resources.

By Mahmoud Ali Youssouf
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Apr 22 2026 (IPS)

When Africa’s Heads of State and Government gathered in Addis Ababa on 14 February 2026 for the African Union’s 39th Ordinary Session, they did more than adopt another resolution. They made a choice: to place at the centre of the agenda the most fundamental, life-sustaining and strategic resource our continent possesses: water.

The theme adopted by our leaders, “Assuring Sustainable Water Availability and Safe Sanitation Systems to Achieve the Goals of Agenda 2063,” is not a bureaucratic formality. It is a declaration of intent. It reflects a simple but profound truth: without water security, there can be no food security, no industrialization, no public health, and no lasting peace or prosperity.

The scale of the challenge we face remains stark. Across Africa, water scarcity and inadequate sanitation continue to undermine economic growth and human dignity. Waterborne diseases remain among the leading causes of death in many parts of the continent. Millions of Africans, disproportionately women and girls in rural communities, still walk long distances each day to collect water instead of attending school, pursuing livelihoods, or participating fully in the life of their communities.

This is not merely an inconvenience. It is an injustice. It is also a brake on the ambitions we have set for ourselves in Agenda 2063, Africa’s collective blueprint for inclusive growth, sustainable development and shared prosperity.

The year 2026 must therefore mark a turning point: the moment we move decisively from diagnosis to delivery.

The African Union Commission’s Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment has been entrusted with advancing this agenda. Yet responsibility cannot rest with one department or with the Commission alone.

Achieving water security will require sustained collaboration among member states, regional organizations, civil society, the private sector and, critically, African communities themselves.

The urgency of this task is heightened by the accelerating climate crisis. Africa is already experiencing more frequent droughts and devastating floods. Changing rainfall patterns are shrinking rivers, lakes and reservoirs in some regions while unleashing destructive flooding in others.

These disruptions threaten the livelihoods of millions of Africans who depend on agriculture and pastoralism. Sustainable water management is therefore not only a development priority; it is a resilience imperative.

Water also reminds us that cooperation is not optional. Nearly 60 percent of Africa’s freshwater resources are shared across national borders. Rivers such as the Nile, the Niger, Congo, the Zambezi and the Volta link countries and communities in complex hydrological systems that transcend political boundaries.

These shared waters can become either sources of cooperation or sources of tension. The choice is ours. Strengthening collaborative frameworks for the equitable and sustainable management of transboundary water resources must be a priority for our continent. Water, after all, recognizes no borders.

Sanitation demands equal urgency. Safe sanitation is not a luxury; it is fundamental to human dignity, public health and economic productivity. Yet millions of Africans, particularly in rural communities and rapidly expanding urban settlements still lack access to even basic sanitation facilities. In the twenty-first century, this reality is unacceptable.

Addressing these challenges will require investment, innovation and political will. It will also require a shift in how we design and implement solutions. Sustainable progress cannot be imposed from above. Communities must be involved in planning, building and maintaining water and sanitation systems. Local ownership is essential if infrastructure is to endure and deliver real benefits.

The African Union is therefore developing a comprehensive implementation strategy to support the theme of the year. This strategy will promote innovative technologies for water purification and efficient resource management.

It will encourage stronger water governance and expand access to sanitation infrastructure. It will also prioritize the participation of youth, women and marginalized communities while facilitating the sharing of best practices across our continent.

Innovation, inclusion and cooperation must guide our collective efforts.

As I travel across Africa in my capacity as Chairperson of the African Union Commission, I am reminded repeatedly that water is not merely a matter of infrastructure or policy. It is about people.

It is about a mother who no longer fears losing her child to a preventable disease caused by contaminated water. It is about a girl who can remain in school because clean water flows in her village. It is about a farmer who can irrigate crops through dry seasons. It is about an entrepreneur whose business can grow because reliable water supply supports production.

These everyday transformations form the true foundation of Africa’s development.

The African Union’s theme for 2026 is therefore a clarion call for governments to prioritize water and sanitation in national development agendas. Because water touches every sector; agriculture, health, energy, industry and education — our response must be equally integrated.

African countries must strengthen cooperation, share expertise and mobilize resources to address common challenges. Regional economic communities and river basin organizations have a crucial role to play in supporting collaborative water governance. The African Union will continue to facilitate dialogue and partnerships that promote sustainable and equitable management of shared water resources.

But governments cannot act alone. Civil society organisations, the private sector, research institutions and development partners must also contribute their expertise and resources. Investments in water infrastructure, sanitation systems and climate-resilient water management are investments in Africa’s stability, prosperity and future.

The stakes could not be higher. By 2050, Africa’s population is projected to double, placing increasing pressure on water resources and infrastructure. Ensuring sustainable water access today will determine whether our growing cities thrive, whether our agriculture can feed our people, and whether our economies can realize their full potential.

This is why the African Union’s theme of the year is not simply a slogan. It is a continental commitment.

Together, we can ensure that every African has access to safe water and dignified sanitation. In doing so, we will not only protect lives and livelihoods; we will unlock the immense potential of sustainable development across our continent.

Ultimately, our success will not be measured by the eloquence of our declarations. It will be measured by the taps that flow, the sanitation systems that function and the millions of lives transformed.

Mahmoud Ali Youssouf is Chairperson of the African Union Commission.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

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A sea turtle is released from the hatchery in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh to begin its hazardous journey to the sea. Credit: UNDP Bangladesh

By Rafiqul Islam
COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh, Apr 20 2026 (IPS)

Every winter thousands of sea turtles come ashore at Cox’s Bazar, in the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh, to lay eggs.

Their path to their breeding grounds is hazardous – fishing nets, propellers, light pollution, coastal developments, stray dogs and other dangers conspire against their success.

The area is rich in biodiversity, with five out of seven ancient reptiles present in Bangladesh’s waters, with three – the Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea), the Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas), and the Hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) – coming ashore for nesting.

Stefan Liller, UNDP Bangladesh representative, gently releases the young turtles from the hatchery. Credit: UNDP Bangladesh

Amid such unfavourable odds for the aquatic creatures, a group of young people volunteer to protect the turtles on the beach at Cox’s Bazar during the breeding season from November to March, contributing to their successful conservation.

“In the past, we did not know how sea turtles help conserve marine ecosystems. Now we know sea turtles play an important role in conserving biodiversity,” Rezaul Karim, a resident of Shafir Beel village in Cox’s Bazar, told Inter Press Service (IPS).

Karim is one of the youths trained for sea turtle conservation under a project run by the Arannayk Foundation, a non-profit conservation organisation in Bangladesh. The foundation established a sea turtle conservation group involving 25 local youths (11 women, 14 men) under its Ecosystem Awareness and Restoration Through Harmony (EARTH) project. EARTH is supported by the Forest Department, the Department of Environment (DoE), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

A youth group performs a play designed to sensitise the community to conservation issues. Credit: Arannayk Foundation

The group is working to raise awareness about sea turtle conservation among fishermen, youth, and the local community. They are also aiming to encourage a shift in local attitudes by engaging community members.

Group leader Delwar Hossain, a resident of Sonarpara village under Ukhyia upazila, said sea turtles play a crucial role in maintaining marine ecosystems, as different species of sea turtles help sweep or clean the ocean by managing various food sources and habitats.

He said there is a superstition among the marine fishermen that if turtles are caught in their fishing gear, it will bring bad luck and that is why they kill turtles caught in their nets.

“We held meetings with the fishermen several times and made them aware of sea turtle conservation,” Delwar said.

Turtle conservation group leader Delwar Hossain with others on Cox’s Bazar Beach, Bangladesh. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS

Gabriella Richardson Temm, Lead of the Small Grants Program at the GEF, says civil society, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and youth and women groups around the world “play critical roles in shaping global development agendas. They deliver transformational solutions to global environmental problems, bring rights holders and marginalised voices into national policy dialogues, and elevate local priorities in international environmental negotiations and financing.”

The small grants program has served as a cornerstone of civil society engagement within the GEF partnership since its inception in 1992.

“Over three decades, the program has demonstrated remarkable reach and impact, administering over US$1.5 billion through nearly 30,000 grants to Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women, and youth across 136 countries. This extensive network has successfully secured US$990 million in co-financing, demonstrating the program’s effectiveness in mobilising additional resources for environmental action at the grassroots level,” says Temm.

Grassroots community protection has been acknowledged as contributing to the success of moving one of the sea turtles – the green turtle – to the International Union for Cons

ervation of Nature’s (IUCN) ‘Least Concern’ list. Other factors include international trade bans, reduced poaching, and improved fishing gear.

However, the species predominantly nesting in the Cox’s Bazar beaches, the Olive Ridley is classified as ‘Vulnerable’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, while the Hawksbill Turtle remains ‘Critically Endangered’ due to population declines.

Many sea turtles don’t survive the hazardous journey to the nesting grounds at Cox’s Bazar Beach, Bangladesh. Credit: Bangladesh Forest Department

Establishment of Turtle Hatchery

In Cox’s Bazar, with the help of the foundation, the youth group surveyed a 10 km stretch from Reju Khal to Balia Khali beach to identify sea turtle nesting sites. It also gathered insights from local communities on sea turtle breeding seasons, nesting frequency, preferred locations, and community perceptions regarding conservation.

Following the assessment, a sea turtle hatchery was established in Boro Inani, Cox’s Bazar. The hatchery is now playing a crucial conservation role, as these statistics show.

Between January and April 2024, 5,878 Olive Ridley eggs were collected from various nests at Swankhali, Ruppati, Imamer Deil, and Madarbunia sea beaches, resulting in 3,586 hatchlings hatching, with an average hatching success of 61 percent.

Also, from February to April 2025, a total of 3,199 eggs were collected, and by May 2025, 716 hatchlings had been released.

Stefan Liller, UNDP Bangladesh representative in the turtle hatchery. Credit: UNDP Bangladesh

Delwar said that stray dogs often eat the turtle eggs so the hatchery makes a significant contribution.

“We collect eggs that turtles release on the shore and bring those to the hatchery for hatching. Besides, we ask the community people to give turtle eggs to the hatchery. We, the group members, collect the turtle eggs from them too.”

Nurul Afsar, another TCG member, said many ethnic communities living in Cox’s Bazar consume turtles and their eggs – so the group plays a role in encouraging them not to consume but instead protect them.

ABM Sarowar Alam, program manager (species and habitats) at the IUCN in Bangladesh, said Cox’s Bazar Beach was once the ideal breeding ground for sea turtles, but it has dwindled due to habitat loss, poaching, and human disturbance.

He believes that several areas of the beach should be declared as “protected areas for sea turtles” to ensure safe breeding and that fishing should be restricted in the canals connecting to the sea so that turtles can move freely for nesting.

The group also addresses other hazards, such as the issue of stray dogs that kill the turtles and consume the eggs.

Firoz Al Amin, range officer of Inani Forest Range in Ukhiya, said the Forest Department has been working to control the stray dogs on the beach, aiming to protect the turtles.

A sea turtle moves toward the sea. Local conservationists are making a difference to the future of these ancient aquatic animals. Credit: UNDP Bangladesh

EARTH Project, More Than Turtle Conservation

Dr Mohammed Muzammel Hoque, national coordinator of the GEF Small Grants Program at UNDP Bangladesh, said the EARTH project’s role went beyond turtle conservation in the region.

It has elephant-response teams to mitigate conflicts between elephants and humans. The Five Crab Conservation Groups (CCG), comprising 25 youth members, and five sea Turtle Conservation Groups (TCG), also consisting of 25 youth members, remain active. The project was also working towards restoring habitats, with over 7,780 seedlings planted with support from the EARTH Project, with around 80% surviving.

However, Hoque said that the success is dependent on funding – and it’s hoped that once a Forest Trail becomes operational, it can generate revenue from tourists.

Abu Hena Mostafa Kamal, program coordinator of the Arannayk Foundation, said the project, by integrating livelihoods with conservation, “helped grow a sense of ownership among community members and youth, ensuring that environmental protection is not just a project outcome but a sustained, collective commitment.”

Note: The Eighth Global Environment Facility Assembly will be held from May 30 to June 6, 2026 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

This feature is published with the support of the GEF. IPS is solely responsible for the editorial content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the GEF.

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UNDP collaborations have shown what is possible when satellite data and recovery planning work together. Credit: UNDP

By Mukul Bhola and Devanand Ramiah
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 20 2026 (IPS)

We are stuck in response mode. But what good is an ambulance without a hospital?

Climate shocks are intensifying. Conflict is at record levels. Economies are fragile. Humanitarian appeals grow larger each year, while donor countries prioritise domestic and security concerns. One emergency follows another. Recovery slips further out of reach.

For years, the logic was straightforward: first save lives, then rebuild them. But in an era of overlapping shocks, that division is costly. By the time recovery begins, families have sold livestock, businesses have closed, children have left school, and local institutions are weaker than before. Crisis becomes the default condition.

If we want fewer protracted emergencies, recovery must start on day one.

The first 48 hours after a crisis are decisive. When authorities know which roads are blocked, which clinics are damaged, which markets are underwater, they can act immediately. Debris can be cleared before trade stalls. Water systems can be repaired before disease spreads. Small enterprises can reopen before savings disappear.

Until recently, a major obstacle was the speed and reliability of information. Governments were often forced to plan with fragmented or delayed data. Damage figures arrived weeks late. Assessments overlapped. Resources were deployed based on rough estimates rather than solid evidence.

That constraint is rapidly diminishing.

In Burundi after storms damaged thousands of homes, a rapid assessment measured losses to farms, houses, public infrastructure and businesses. Credit: UNDP Burundi

In recent years, collaboration between UNDP and the United Nations Satellite Centre, hosted at United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), has shown what is possible when satellite data and recovery planning work together.

High-resolution imagery can now identify damaged buildings within days. Follow-up checks on the ground turn those findings into clear estimates of debris, lost livelihoods, disrupted services and the cost of rebuilding.

This is not simply faster mapping. It is a coordinated process: rapid satellite images, quick damage analysis, ground checks and immediate use of the results to guide recovery priorities and investment decisions.

In Colombia after widespread flooding, ground teams confirmed crop losses and blocked river transport, allowing recovery efforts to begin. Credit: UNDP Colombia

In Jamaica, when Hurricane Melissa struck in 2025, satellite images quickly showed the extent of the damage. Recovery teams used that information to estimate debris and plan its removal, reopening transport routes and clearing the way for reconstruction.

In Colombia’s 2024 rainy season, intensified by Tropical Storm Rafael, radar images revealed widespread flooding in Chocó and La Guajira. Ground teams confirmed crop losses and blocked river transport, allowing recovery efforts to begin before more families were forced to move.

Credit: UNDP Jamaica

After El Niño-driven storms, floods and landslides displaced hundreds of thousands in Burundi and damaged thousands of homes, a rapid assessment measured losses to farms, houses, public infrastructure and businesses. Those estimates helped set national recovery priorities and supported early talks with funders.

The pattern is consistent: when impact data arrives early, recovery decisions improve, creating the conditions for crises to shorten. Technology alone does not achieve this. Institutions that can operationalize evidence do.

The technology continues to improve. With stronger collaboration, credible estimates of physical damage and economic impact can now often be produced within 48 hours. Obstacles remain, including imagery access, weather and capacity constraints, but progress is unmistakable.

The financing architecture, however, still reflects the older reality. Emergency funding is designed to move quickly. Recovery financing often requires additional assessments, new appeals or prolonged negotiations. The result is a predictable lag between knowing the damage and investing in repair.

That lag is no longer defensible. When development actors and satellite analysts produce validated impact estimates within days, financing decisions should align with that speed.

Breaking the cycle of repeated emergency appeals will require more than improved analysis. It will require donors and institutions to treat early recovery as integral to response and to align financing with the pace of evidence.

In an age of permanent crisis, responding sequentially is a luxury the system can no longer afford. The first 48 hours should not only save lives. They should set recovery in motion.

Mukul Bhola is Director, United Nations Satellite Centre, UNITAR; Devanand Ramiah is Director of Crisis Readiness, Response and Recovery, UNDP

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Rescue workers survey the damage in the town of Toul in Lebanon’s Nabatieh governorate in the south, following bombing by Israel in response to rocket attacks by militant group Hezbollah. Credit: Action Against Hunger

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Apr 20 2026 (IPS)

Aid groups have welcomed a ten-day ceasefire agreed between Israel and Lebanon but warn only a permanent halt to fighting can allow for the kind of response needed to address the dire humanitarian situation in the country.

A ten-day truce ​to enable peace negotiations between the two countries came into effect on April 16. It can be extended by mutual agreement by both sides after that period.

The ceasefire comes after more than a month of conflict following Israel’s response to rocket attacks by the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

Since March 2, more than 2,000 people have been killed and 7,000 wounded in Israeli attacks, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Meanwhile, more than 1.2 million – one fifth of the estimated total population – are internally displaced, including over 400,000 children, according to humanitarian organisations, and Israeli strikes have destroyed essential civilian infrastructure and heavily affected healthcare services.

This has deepened what was already a fragile humanitarian situation following years of economic problems, a Syrian refugee crisis, and previous conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

And while the attacks may have stopped, many people continue to face displacement, massive destruction and a lack of access to basic services and real relief will only come with a long-term end to fighting.

“We welcome the truce as a critical pause in violence, but it is not enough. Only a permanent ceasefire will allow for a response at the scale required—one that reaches families across all of Lebanon, including those in border areas who remain among the most vulnerable,” Suzanne Takkenberg, Lebanon Country Director of humanitarian group Action Against Hunger (ACF), told IPS.

Following the announcement of the truce, there have been reports of huge numbers of displaced people returning to their home towns. Aid groups have warned, though, that many are likely to return to find they have no homes left, or even if they do, conditions are so bad it will be impossible to remain there.

“Families are beginning to return to their homes, but the scale of destruction is staggering. Many are finding their houses damaged or completely destroyed, with no access to water, electricity, or basic services. People who fled with almost nothing are now returning to even less—facing conditions that make dignified living impossible,” said Takkenberg.

The destruction has been worst in the south of the country. Israel has been looking to create what it has called a “security zone”, keeping troops in an area around 10 kilometres deep inside southern Lebanon. Reports suggest many villages in that area have been utterly destroyed.

Recent, intense Israeli airstrikes targeted Tyre, Lebanon, causing significant casualties and damage to residential areas and infrastructure. The strikes were part of an ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Credit: Action Against

“This new buffer zone that Israel is talking about – from videos I’ve seen, it’s completely demolished. We don’t expect them to allow [people] to return there, and I don’t think people will be trying to move back to that buffer zone,” Elizabeth Cossor, Head of Country Office Lebanon at Terre des hommes, which is providing humanitarian aid to children and their families in the country, told IPS.

“Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to remain displaced. They’re not going to be able to return. That’s really devastating [for them],” she added.

The impacts of the attacks on civilians have alarmed rights groups and humanitarian organisations.

A coalition of NGOs last week released a report documenting the effects of Israeli attacks on the civilian population.

It highlighted how the continued displacement in the country is driving significant health and protection risks, with women, children, the elderly and persons with disabilities disproportionately affected.

Reports indicate high instances of respiratory infections due to cold temperatures in collective shelters, gastroenteritis cases linked to insufficient food and cooking facilities, and disruption to treatment for patients with chronic diseases. Shelters are invariably overcrowded and lack adequate water and sanitation infrastructure, severely limiting privacy, dignity and psychological safety for residents, the group said. Moreover, roughly 88% of those displaced are living outside collective shelters, many in cars, public spaces or other insecure settings, the groups said.

Children have been impacted especially hard by the fighting.

Aid groups working with children have highlighted serious problems with child nutrition. According to Action Against Hunger, while 24 percent of the population faces acute food insecurity, around 15 percent of children aged 6 to 23 months in displacement zones are being fed only milk.

Meanwhile, one in five children in Lebanon has been forced from their homes by the conflict, with many suffering acute psychological distress and anxiety, according to UNICEF.

“The humanitarian situation for children in Lebanon is severe and deeply alarming. Over the past 46 days, children have paid a devastating price, with reports of at least 172 children killed and 661 injured. More than 415,000 children have been displaced, some for the third or fourth time. Their most urgent needs are safety, healthcare, safe water, nutrition, psychosocial support, child protection and access to learning,” Ricardo Pires, Communication Manager at UNICEF, told IPS.

“Children have been uprooted repeatedly, many are under acute stress, and essential services have been badly disrupted. The health system is still operating, but under severe strain. Hospitals and health workers have come under repeated impact, facilities have been damaged or forced to close, and access to care is increasingly difficult in high-risk and isolated areas. The destruction already caused to homes, schools, hospitals, water systems and roads means many children and families are likely to face serious hardship for some time, even if the fighting stops. It continues to have serious humanitarian consequences for children and families,” he added.

Cossor said the conflict could have a long-term impact on a generation of Lebanese kids.

“We still don’t have a sense of just how many children have lost their parents, their caregivers. We’re visiting hospitals where children are waking up and discovering that they’ve lost their parents and, you know, it’s just devastating. For those who also cannot return to their childhood home, you know, they’re not in school, missing family, they’ve lost their homes…. They’re losing part of their childhood, their connection to the place of their family, the place of their community. This has very long-term impacts for children,” she said.

As well as highlighting the harm caused to the civilian population, the NGOs’ report pointed to serious concerns regarding compliance with International Humanitarian Law (IHL), particularly the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attacks. Likewise, IHL affords special protection to medical and humanitarian personnel and infrastructure, yet the conflict has been marked by a concerning number of attacks affecting healthcare and growing restrictions on humanitarian access, the groups said.

They also called for adherence to the IHL by all parties to the conflict, as well as urgent, sustained, and flexible funding from the international community to support the growing needs of displaced persons and those remaining in vulnerable areas.

International help will be vital given the damage that has been done, no matter what efforts the Lebanese government makes to help the population.

“The government will repair things as best they can in the cities that are north – again, north of that buffer zone area. They will do their best to restore, rehabilitate, but services will be heavily impacted. Eight bridges [in southern Lebanon] have now been destroyed, and Lebanese forces have managed to sort of put rubble together so that the last destroyed bridge is passable one car at a time. But that’s not enough to start bringing big trucks of humanitarian assistance or to start bringing in food and vegetables and other medical supplies and other things that they need in the south,” said Cossor.

“Infrastructure is destroyed, including in heavily populated areas. The Lebanese government will need enormous assistance to restore this infrastructure,” she added.

Beyond these problems, another major concern is the fragility of the current ceasefire – within hours of it coming into force, there were reports of violations.

UNICEF’S Pires said the ceasefire offered a critical opportunity to improve humanitarian access and begin restoring basic services in all areas impacted by the recent attacks. He warned, though, that if it collapsed, there would be “a grave risk of further killing, injury, displacement and trauma”.

“The weapons must remain silent and humanitarian access and workers must be protected at all times,” he said.

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A group of young people. Photo by Iwaria Inc. on Unsplash. Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations.
 
The choice is clear; the window is narrow; and the time to prepare Africa’s workforce for the frontier economy is now. Africa’s growth story over the past two decades is real, but it is not yet transformative.

By Claver Gatete
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Apr 17 2026 (IPS)

Across the continent, GDP has risen on the back of more workers, more capital and a commodity super-cycle, rather than through genuine gains in productivity and innovation. Too little labour has moved out of subsistence agriculture into higher-productivity manufacturing and modern services.

As the recent Africa Business Forum in Addis Ababa drew to a close, a clear message emerged: if Africa is to create the tens of millions of quality jobs its young people need in the coming decade, it must shift decisively from input driven growth and embrace an innovation-led growth powered by data and frontier technologies.

Our 2026 Economic Report on Africa comes at a time when governments are realising that this pivot is no longer optional. It is the only credible route to resilient, inclusive and sustainable development amidst climate shocks, tightening financing conditions, geopolitical challenges and rapid technological change.

Frontier technologies, from artificial intelligence and advanced data analytics to the Internet-of-Things, robotics and clean energy solutions, are already reshaping value chains in agriculture, manufacturing, services and public administration.

Claver Gatete

Jobs of the future

Preparing for the jobs of the future starts with an honest diagnosis of the skills challenge. Today, only a small share of African children achieve minimum reading proficiency by age 10; enrolment in technical and vocational education remains low; and tertiary enrolment lags far behind global averages. This is a recipe for exclusion from a technology intensive global economy.

Countries need comprehensive national skills compacts that place foundational learning, STEM education and digital literacy at the centre of economic strategy, not as an add on.

That means curriculum reforms that prioritize problem solving, coding, data literacy and creativity; large scale teacher upgrading; and robust partnerships between universities, TVET colleges and industry to ensure training aligns with real labour market demand.

Encouragingly, some countries are already moving in this direction.

For example, Kenya’s digital innovation ecosystem – from mobile money to platform-based logistics and e commerce – is creating new occupations in fintech, digital marketing, data services and platform management that barely existed a decade ago.

Rwanda has positioned itself as an African testbed for emerging technologies, investing heavily in broadband, digital public services and coding academies to build a workforce ready for data driven and AI enabled jobs.

In Egypt, Morocco, and South Africa, automotive and renewable energy value chains are spawning new roles in advanced manufacturing, battery technology and solar and wind engineering.

Tangier, the city that hosted the ECA Conference of Ministers of Finance and Economic Development last month, has a world-class frontier technologies port that rivals many in developed countries.

These examples show that when countries align education, industrial policy, and digital strategy, they can start to bend their labour markets towards the industries of the future.

More is required

But skills alone will not deliver the jobs dividend. Workers need productive firms to hire them, and firms need an enabling ecosystem to innovate.

That is why the report stresses the importance of industrial and innovation policy that deliberately integrates frontier technologies in Africa’s productive sectors.

In agriculture, for instance, the jobs of the future will be in climate smart farming, Agri data services, precision input distribution and digital extension.

Realizing that potential requires investment in irrigation, rural broadband, data platforms, and support for agritech start ups that can tailor frontier tools, from sensors to satellite imagery and AI based advisory services, to local realities.

In manufacturing, governments can use industrial parks and special economic zones to attract firms deploying automation, smart logistics and advanced materials, while negotiating technology transfer and local supplier development that expand skilled employment.

At the same time, Africa must treat data as a strategic economic asset, not an afterthought. Data underpins frontier technologies across all sectors – yet much of the continent’s data is stored and processed offshore, with limited value captured locally.

Building a data economy that creates jobs means investing in data centres, cloud infrastructure, high performance computing and secure connectivity, while developing clear rules on data governance, privacy, cross border flows and competition.

It also means supporting local firms that work along the data value chain – from collection and labelling to analytics and AI services – and equipping young people with the skills to work as data engineers, analysts, ethicists and product managers.

If Africa continues to export raw data while importing high value digital services, it will simply reproduce its traditional commodity trap in digital form.

The financing model for innovation and jobs must also change. Traditional banking systems, focused on collateralized lending, are poorly suited to high risk, intangible asset driven technology ventures. African countries can begin to close this gap by creating blended finance facilities, innovation bonds, public venture funds, and regional credit lines that crowd in private capital for high productivity sectors.

Public procurement can be a powerful lever here: by designing innovation friendly tenders and reserving space for local digital and tech providers, governments can create predictable demand that helps start ups and SMEs grow and hire.

Some countries are already experimenting with sandboxes and innovation challenges in fintech, e health and govtech, signalling how policy can catalyse new job creating ecosystems.

None of this is without risk.

The risks

Frontier technologies are already automating routine tasks and reshaping value chains in ways that can displace workers, widen social and gender inequalities and deepen digital divides. Jobs will not disappear overall, but they will change – and some will vanish.

Preparing for that disruption demands robust social protection systems, active labour market policies and targeted support for women and youth to access training, finance and technology.

It also requires serious attention to cybersecurity, data protection and platform regulation to prevent predatory practices, safeguard rights and maintain trust in digital systems.

If governance lags too far behind innovation, the labour market will absorb the adjustment costs through informality, underemployment, and social tension.

Africa starts this journey with significant advantages.

It is home to the world’s youngest population, vast critical mineral reserves essential for clean energy and technology manufacturing, and some of the best solar resources on the planet.

These assets can underpin new waves of green industrialization – in batteries, electric mobility, green hydrogen, clean power, and digital infrastructure – creating diverse, future oriented jobs in engineering, construction, maintenance, data and services.

But to convert potential into reality, countries must abandon the comfort of input driven growth and embrace a more demanding agenda: one that puts skills, innovation ecosystems, data, and frontier technologies at the heart of economic strategy.

With the AfCFTA as our Marshall Plan, we have the rules and platform for continental scaling, leading to shared prosperity in jobs, created from harnessing data and frontier technologies.

The jobs of the future are being designed today, in how Africa educates its children, regulates its data, finances its innovators and plans its infrastructure.

If African countries act with urgency and purpose, they can shape a labour market that is more productive, more inclusive, and more resilient than the one they inherited.

If they hesitate, the continent risks remaining a consumer of other people’s technologies and a supplier of low value labour and raw materials.

In the end, the real question is simple: will Africa harness frontier technologies to accelerate economic growth and structural transformation, or remain on the margins of the industries shaping the 21st century?

The choice is clear; the window is narrow; and the time to prepare Africa’s workforce for the frontier economy is now. This is how we can ensure sustainable economic growth on the continent.

Claver Gatete is Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

Source: Africa Renewal

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Mangroves, reefs and coastal ecosystems are more than natural assets — they are frontline climate solutions. Across Pacific villages, including Naidiri on Fiji’s Coral Coast, these systems are helping reduce erosion, protect livelihoods and support long-term resilience. Credit: Ludovic Branlant/SPC

By Sera Sefeti
NAIDIRI, FIJI, Apr 17 2026 (IPS)

Climate change is no longer a distant threat. Across the Pacific, it is a daily reality reshaping coastlines, livelihoods, and the delicate balance between people and the environment. But in a region long defined by resilience, solutions are not being invented from scratch. They are being remembered, strengthened, and scaled. Nature-based solutions (NbS) approaches that use ecosystems to address climate, disaster, and development challenges have always existed in Pacific communities. For generations, villages have relied on mangroves, agroforestry, and customary practices to protect their land and sustain their people. But as climate impacts intensify, the scale and speed of change demand more.

Now, a new regional effort is working to bridge the gap between tradition and modern policy.

The Pacific Community’s Promoting Pacific Islands Nature-based Solutions (PPIN) project is designed to do exactly that: connect what communities already know with the systems that govern development and investment.

Dr Rakeshi Lata, Training and Capacity Building Officer for Nature-based Solutions at SPC, explains that the project is not about replacing traditional knowledge but elevating it.

“It functions as a bridge connecting community practices with national policies to secure resources and scale up proven local methods,” said Lata.

Naidiri village on Fiji’s Coral Coast shows how nature-based Solutions are put into practice, with communities restoring mangroves and reefs to protect their coastline and sustain livelihoods. Credit: Ludovic Branlant/SPC

At its core, PPIN challenges a long-standing imbalance in development thinking where engineered, “grey” infrastructure is prioritised, and nature is treated as secondary.

“More specifically, PPIN addresses the fact that Pacific countries are highly vulnerable to climate change, disasters, and ecosystem degradation, yet development decisions still prioritise grey, engineered solutions while nature is treated as secondary or only an environmental issue,” Lata said.

This disconnect is especially stark in the Pacific, where people’s lives, cultures, and economies are deeply intertwined with the natural environment. When ecosystems fail, communities feel it immediately through food insecurity, coastal erosion, and increased disaster risks.

Yet despite the proven value of nature-based solutions, their adoption has remained limited—often fragmented, underfunded, and confined to small pilot projects.

“There is limited policy integration, technical capacity, economic evidence, and financing to make NbS ‘business as usual’ across sectors such as infrastructure, finance, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and tourism,” Lata said.

That gap between what works locally and what is scaled nationally is where PPIN steps in.

Importantly, the project rejects the idea that traditional knowledge and modern science are in competition.

“The core philosophy of PPIN is that traditional knowledge and modern policy are not opposing forces but complementary strengths, this project aims to formalise what communities have already been practising successfully for centuries,” she said.

“PPIN actively incorporates modern science to strengthen traditional approaches.”

Across Fiji, Vanuatu, and Tonga, this integration is already visible not in theory but in practice.

Mangrove restoration, for example, is being used to reduce coastal erosion and storm surges, offering a natural alternative to costly seawalls. During Cyclone Vaiana in Fiji, boats sought shelter within mangrove systems, shielded from powerful winds and waves,  an example of ecosystem protection delivering real-time resilience.

These same mangroves also trap sediment, protecting downstream communities and coral reefs without the need for concrete infrastructure.

In rural areas, traditional agroforestry systems are being strengthened, combining trees and crops to improve soil stability, enhance food security, and build drought resilience. These systems reduce the need for engineered irrigation and land stabilisation while maintaining ecological balance.

Despite these successes, scaling such solutions has historically been difficult. Fragmented governance, siloed implementation across ministries and NGOs, and limited technical capacity have slowed progress.

Coral restoration helps rebuild reef ecosystems that protect Pacific coastlines, support fisheries and sustain community livelihoods. Credit: Ludovic Branlant/SPC

PPIN is designed to dismantle these barriers.

“A central pillar of PPIN is targeted capacity-building, which includes training programmes and communities of practice by establishing peer-to-peer learning networks focusing on specific sectors to foster continued knowledge exchange and collaboration,” she said.

Beyond policy integration, the project is investing in people, particularly those closest to the land.

Training programmes, including Farmers’ Field Schools and coastal resilience initiatives, focus on practical, livelihood-based applications of NbS. Participants gain hands-on skills in climate-smart and organic farming, linking ecosystem health directly to food production and household wellbeing.

The response has been strong. Women make up more than half of participants over 80 out of 146 with youth and community practitioners also actively engaged.

As the project moves toward closure, its legacy is already taking shape not just in outcomes but also in systems that will endure.

“To ensure sustainability and long-term accessibility, materials from trainings, technical guidance, needs assessment findings and more are being consolidated and hosted within a regional NbS knowledge hub led by SPREP,” Lata said.

“This hub provides a single, trusted platform where governments, practitioners, communities, women and youth can access the PPIN resources.”

But perhaps its most lasting impact will be less tangible and more powerful.

“Beyond materials, PPIN leaves behind strengthened regional networks and communities of practice, which will continue to connect practitioners across countries and sectors.”

In a region on the frontline of climate change, the future may not lie in choosing between tradition and science but in weaving them together.

Because in the Pacific, resilience has never been built on one system alone. It is carried across generations, across knowledge systems, and now, increasingly, across policy and practice.

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The GEF actively supports climate resilience and sustainable livelihoods in Zanzibar, with a specific focus on the seaweed farming sector, which is crucial for over 20,000 farmers—mostly women—in the region. Here a woman identified as Jazaa is pictured working as a seaweed farmer. She carefully attaches little seaweed seedlings to the rope that she will harvest after two months. Credit: Natalija Gormalova/Climate Visuals Countdown

By Umar Manzoor Shah
SRINAGAR, India, Apr 16 2026 (IPS)

The Global Environment Facility, widely known as the GEF, plays a central role in financing environmental protection across the world. It supports developing countries in tackling climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, pollution, and threats to ecosystems.

Since its establishment in the early 1990s, the GEF has grown as a multilateral environmental fund, supporting projects in more than 170 countries.

Over time, the GEF has evolved into what it calls a “family of funds”, each targeting a specific global environmental challenge while operating under a shared strategic framework.

This explainer looks at how the GEF funding works, the origins of its financing model, and the role of six major funds that channel resources toward global environmental goals.

While the GEF predates the 1992 Rio ‘Earth’ Summit, its importance as a financial mechanism grew after the summit. Here UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali opens the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, which aimed to develop a global blueprint for balancing economic development with environmental protection. Credit: Michos Tzavaras/UN Photo

Origins of the GEF Funding Model

The GEF was created in 1991, before the Rio ‘Earth’ Summit in 1992, which aimed to develop a global blueprint for balancing economic development with environmental protection; however, its importance grew after the summit.

The Rio Summit produced three major environmental conventions. These were the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity, and, later in 1994, the Convention to Combat Desertification. The GEF became the financial mechanism for these agreements, meaning it mobilises and distributes funds to help countries implement them.

Over the past 35 years, the GEF has expanded its mandate. Today it supports multiple conventions and environmental initiatives through a structured set of trust funds. This architecture allows the facility to coordinate funding across different environmental priorities while maintaining specialised programs for each global commitment.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is now focusing on solving environmental problems together instead of separately. It looks at climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution as connected issues and works with governments, international groups, civil society, and businesses to address them.

The GEF Trust Fund was initially created to support multiple environmental agreements simultaneously. Over time, countries preferred more specific funding for their particular needs.

Because of these changes, the GEF now has different funds, each designed for different purposes and methods of giving money.

Some funds – like the Trust Fund, the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), and part of the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF) – use a system that helps countries know in advance how much funding they can expect.

The GEF Trust Fund

The Global Environment Facility Trust Fund is the main source of funds for the GEF. It provides grants to support environmental projects in developing countries.

The Trust Fund finances activities across several environmental areas.

These include

• Biodiversity conservation,
• Climate change mitigation,
• Land degradation control,
• International waters management, and
• Chemicals and waste reduction.

Countries receive funding through a system known as the System for Transparent Allocation of Resources, or STAR, which distributes funds based on their environmental needs and eligibility.

Projects funded by the Trust Fund often focus on creating global environmental benefits. These may include:

• Protecting endangered species,
• Restoring ecosystems,
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and
• Improving pollution management systems.

The Trust Fund operates through periodic “replenishment” cycles. Donor countries pledge new contributions every four years, which allows the GEF to finance programs during the next funding period. For example, the GEF-9 cycle will cover the period from July 2026 to June 2030 and focus on scaling up environmental investments while mobilising private capital and strengthening country ownership of environmental policies.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has created Integrated Programs. These are special programs designed to address multiple environmental goals at the same time in a more coordinated and efficient way.

For example, the Food Systems Integrated Program does not fund separate projects for climate change, biodiversity, and land degradation. Instead, it combines them into one unified project, which helps achieve stronger and longer-lasting results while making better use of funding.

The GEF helps fund biodiversity across the globe, helping to create conditions to prevent the further endangerment of species like the Sumatran Orangutan (Pongo abelii). Credit: Thomas Gabernig/Unsplash

Global Biodiversity Framework Fund

The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund is a relatively new component of the GEF family of funds. It was created to help countries implement the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which was adopted in 2022 under the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The biodiversity framework sets ambitious targets for protecting nature by 2030. Its most prominent targets include the “30 by 30” target, which calls for protecting at least 30 percent of the world’s land and ocean areas by the end of the decade.  The Framework also sets a 30 percent target for the restoration of ecosystems and a target of mobilising 30 billion dollars in international financial flows to developing countries for biodiversity action.

The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund supports actions that help countries meet these targets.

Actions that are supported include the following:

• Expanding protected areas,
• Restoring degraded ecosystems,
• Protecting endangered species, and
• Strengthening biodiversity monitoring.

Another important focus is the integration of biodiversity into economic planning. Many projects supported by this fund work with governments and businesses to match financial flows with biodiversity goals. This means reducing financial support for activities that damage the environment and encouraging more sustainable farming, forestry, and fishing practices.

By providing targeted financing for biodiversity commitments, the fund helps translate global agreements into practical actions at the national and local levels.

It is also important to highlight that the fund sets a target of providing at least 20% of its resources to support actions by Indigenous Peoples and local communities. This form of direct financing is unique for a multilateral environmental fund.  To date, this target has been exceeded and mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund and the Tropical Forest Forever Facility are considering replicating this approach.

GEF-9 biodiversity investments will bring together four interconnected pathways:

• Scaling up financial flows to close the nature financing gap,
• Embedding environmental priorities in national development strategies,
• Mobilising private capital through blended finance, and
• Empowering Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and civil society as active conservation partners.

“A renewed emphasis on the Forest Biomes Integrated Program will continue directing investment into the landscapes most critical for achieving 30×30 – ensuring that GEF financing remains focused where the stakes are highest,” said Chizuru Aoki, the head of the GEF Conventions and Funds Division.

Medicinal and aromatic plant species, such as the baobab, are often exploited; however, the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing aims to ensure fair use of the planet’s genetic resources and secure benefits for Indigenous knowledge holders. Credit Noah Grossenbacher/Unsplash

Nagoya Protocol Implementation Fund

The Nagoya Protocol Implementation Fund supports countries in implementing the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing. This international agreement, part of the Convention on Biological Diversity, aims to make sure that the genetic resources of the planet are used fairly and equitably, with benefits shared with those who provide them.

Genetic resources include plants, animals, and microorganisms that are used in research and commercial products such as medicines, cosmetics, and agricultural technologies. Historically, many developing countries have expressed concerns that companies and researchers benefit from these resources without sharing profits or knowledge.

The Nagoya Protocol fixes these issues by requiring users to do the following:

• Get permission from the country providing the resources, and
• Agree on how benefits (like money or knowledge) will be shared.

The fund supports countries by helping them:

• Create laws and rules for using genetic resources,
• Improve monitoring systems, and
• Build skills among researchers and policymakers.

Projects funded also support Indigenous peoples and local communities, who often hold traditional knowledge associated with biological resources. Protecting this knowledge and ensuring fair compensation is a key objective of the Nagoya framework.

Least Developed Countries Fund

The Least Developed Countries Fund focuses on supporting climate adaptation in the world’s most vulnerable nations. These countries often face severe environmental risks but lack the finances and systems to respond efficiently.

The fund supports the preparation and implementation of National Adaptation Programs of Action and National Adaptation Plans. These are country-specific strategies that identify the most urgent climate risks facing each country and outline measures to reduce vulnerability.

Typical projects include the following:

• Strengthening climate-resilient agriculture,
• Improving water management systems,
• Protecting coastal zones, and
• Building early warning systems for extreme weather events.

Because many least developed countries face multiple environmental issues at once, the fund often supports integrated projects that address climate change alongside biodiversity conservation and land management.

This funding system makes sure that the poorest and most vulnerable countries get the help they need to deal with climate change, even though they did very little to cause it.

Villagers in Nyamisati, Rufiji District, wade through muddy tidal flats to plant mangrove seedlings—part of a grassroots effort to curb saline intrusion that has begun to poison nearby rice paddies as saltwater seeps underground. The initiative reflects growing local responses to environmental degradation driven by human activity along Tanzania’s coast. The GEF supports projects like these that help mitigate the impacts of climate change. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

Special Climate Change Fund

The Special Climate Change Fund supports climate action in developing countries and works alongside the Least Developed Countries Fund.

While the Least Developed Countries Fund focuses on the poorest nations, this fund helps other developing countries that are also affected by climate change.

It supports projects that:

• Help countries prepare for climate impacts,
• Include climate planning in development and infrastructure,
• Improve water management and agriculture.
• Reduce disaster risks, and
• Promote environmentally friendly technologies.

The SCCF also, in some cases, supports mitigation efforts, particularly when they involve innovative technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By financing both adaptation and mitigation initiatives, the fund contributes to global efforts to stabilise the climate system.

Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency Trust Fund

The Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency Trust Fund supports countries in implementing transparency requirements under the Paris Agreement.

Under this agreement, countries must regularly report their greenhouse gas emissions and track their progress on climate goals. However, many developing countries do not have the tools or skills to do this properly.

This fund helps by supporting:

• Training for government officials,
• Creation of national emissions data systems, and
• Better monitoring and reporting methods.

Strong reporting systems are important because they:

• Help track climate progress,
• Build trust between countries, and
• Ensure countries meet their commitments.

The fund helps developing countries improve their climate reporting so they can fully take part in global climate efforts.

How the “family of funds” works together

One of the defining features of the GEF funding model is that each part speaks to the others.

Think of it like a team of funds working together, rather than separate, isolated programs.

These funds are coordinated so they can:

• Support the same project from different angles,
• Avoid duplication (no overlapping funding for the same purpose), and
• Align with global environmental agreements.

For example:

• A biodiversity project might use:
  • The main GEF Trust Fund
  • Plus the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund
• A climate adaptation project could combine:
  • Least Developed Countries Fund
  • Special Climate Change Fund

This ‘family’ structure improves:

• Coordination, so different funds work in sync,
• Efficiency, so funds work with less waste and duplication, and
• Flexibility, so projects can tap into multiple funding sources.

Environmental problems are interconnected. A single project (like forest conservation) can:

• Reduce carbon emissions,
• Protect biodiversity,
• Improve water systems, and
• Avoid land degradation.

Because of the integrated funding system, the GEF can support all these goals at once, rather than funding them separately.

The “family of funds” is a coordinated funding system that allows the GEF to:

• Combine resources;
• Support complex, multi-sector projects; and
• Maximise environmental impact

The Future of GEF Financing

As global environmental crises grow, so does the demand for money and resources to meet climate and biodiversity needs. International assessments suggest that hundreds of billions of dollars are needed each year.

The GEF aims to play a “catalytic” role in closing this gap – in short, the GEF acts as a “catalyst” or tool for using limited public funds to unlock much larger investments.

Its funding model mobilises additional resources from

• Governments,
• Development banks, and
• Private investors.

“In practical terms, the mechanisms being supported in GEF-9 include debt-for-nature and debt-for-climate swaps, green bonds, pooled investment vehicles, and outcome-based financing structures. Each of these can serve a different purpose depending on the context – but the common thread is that they allow the GEF to use its resources strategically to unlock much larger pools of capital from the private sector, multiplying the environmental impact that public funding alone could achieve,” Aoki said.

Note: This feature is published with the support of the GEF. IPS is solely responsible for the editorial content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the GEF.

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From the left, Rev. Tolbert Thomas Jallah Jn with Mariann Bassey Olsson during the launch of the campaign in Cartagena, Colombia. Credit: AFSA.

By Isaiah Esipisu
NAIROBI, Apr 14 2026 (IPS)

Over 800 households in Ikolomani Constituency in Kakamega County, Western Kenya, fear eviction to pave the way for a British firm, Shanta Gold Limited, to begin extracting gold valued at Sh683 billion ($5.29 billion) on an estimated 337 acres of residential and agricultural land.

Efforts by residents to protest against the looming displacement during an attempt for a public participation session on the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) by the government on 4 December 2025 were met with police brutality, leading to four deaths due to bullet wounds, arbitrary arrests and scores of injuries.

According to the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), the incident is part of a disturbing and escalating pattern in Kenya’s extractive sector, where communities seeking accountability are met with brutal force, political threats, and procedural manipulation.

“Mining zones are increasingly becoming death traps rather than engines of community development,” reads part of a statement issued by the commission following the incident.

This trend mirrors what is happening in many other countries across Africa, where communities living in mineral-rich areas face forceful displacements, abuse of basic human rights, and environmental degradation linked to industrial mineral extraction, often perpetrated by foreign firms with full support of the political class.

According to Appolinaire Zagabe, a Congolese human rights activist and the Director for the DRC Climate Change Network (Reseau Sur le Changement Climatique RDC) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), often, people he terms ‘greedy government officials’ sign contracts with extractive firms to legalise their activities, then use police machinery to forcefully and brutally evict communities without informed consent and proper compensation.

It is based on such injustices that civil society organisations, social movements, faith-based actors, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralist and peasant organisations from Africa under the umbrella of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) launched a campaign calling for land policies that protect African smallholder farmers and communities against punitive extractive practices and land grabbing, which are currently a threat to human rights, livelihoods and sustainable food systems.

“Land is more than a resource; it is our heritage, our identity, and our future,” said Rev. Tolbert Thomas Jallah Jr, the Executive Director at the Faith and Justice Network, during the launch of the campaign on the sidelines of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20) in Cartagena, Colombia.

“Across Africa, our soils feed our families, sustain our economies, and connect generations, yet today, land degradation, industrial extractive practices by foreign enterprises, climate change, and land grabbing threaten the very foundation of our food systems,” he added.

In a joint declaration at the conference, the organisations observed that rural communities across the world continue to face dispossession, land concentration, and ecological destruction.

“Despite global commitments to end hunger and poverty, land and food systems are increasingly controlled by corporate and financial interests, while communities that produce food remain marginalised and insecure,” reads part of the declaration statement.

It was further observed that carbon offset projects, extractive industries, agribusiness expansions, and speculative land markets are accelerating dispossession, soil degradation, and social inequality, often excluding communities from territories they have governed collectively for generations.

The campaign, dubbed “Protect Our Land, Restore Our Soil”, is now calling on governments to strengthen land rights and protect smallholder farmers; communities to embrace sustainable farming practices that rebuild soil fertility; and youthful farmers to view agriculture not as a last resort but as a powerful pathway to innovation and resilience.

“When soil is degraded, food becomes scarce, and when land is taken or misused, communities lose dignity and security,” said Rev. Tolbert, who is also the sitting Chairperson at the AFSA’s Board of Directors.

Just like the looming evictions of residents of Ikolomani in Kenya, Amnesty International has also observed that people of the DRC also pay a high price to supply the world with copper and cobalt: forced evictions, illegal destruction of their homes, and physical violence – sometimes leading to deaths.

The DRC supplies 70 to 74 percent of the copper and cobalt used in lithium-ion batteries. These batteries power our smartphones, laptops, electric cars, and bicycles, and they play a major role in the energy transition away from fossil fuels. This transition is urgent and necessary.

However, according to Amnesty International, mineral-rich regions of the DRC are sacrificed to mining development, leading to a shocking series of abuses in the region. Thousands of people have lost their homes, schools, hospitals, and communities due to the expansion of copper and cobalt mines in the country, especially in Kolwezi, which sits above rich copper and cobalt deposits.

The AFSA-led campaign calls on governments and corporate organisations to guarantee meaningful participation of affected communities and free prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples in land, agriculture and climate decision-making to avoid conflicts and abuse of basic human rights.

“The future lies not in further commodifying land and food systems, but in restoring community control over territories, securing pastoralist mobility and commons, and supporting agroecological transitions rooted in justice and ecological integrity,” observed Mariann Bassey Olsson, a Lawyer, and Director at Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria).

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A motorcycle rider riding through flood in Kolkata, India. Cities should transform into sponges to absorb flood as part of climate adaptation. Credit: Pexels/Dibakar Roy

By Temily Baker, Leila Salarpour Goodarzi and Elisa Belaz
BANGKOK, Thailand, Apr 13 2026 (IPS)

As the Pacific recovers from a severe cyclone season and Asia braces for the monsoon, flood readiness has become a defining test of sustainable urban development.

The Asia and the Pacific 2026 SDG Progress Report signals a hard truth: while poverty reduction, health and basic infrastructure have advanced, the region is regressing on climate action, disaster resilience and biodiversity—areas now decisive for long-term development.

The widespread flooding across the region in November 2025 was not merely a weather event; it was a warning and a new baseline. From Hat Yai to Colombo, dense urban districts were underwater for days, exposing millions of people and billions in assets to cascading disruption.

Across the Asia-Pacific region, climate extremes are intensifying, increasing water inflow to drainage systems by over 53%. In coastal areas, flooding can halt transport, isolate communities, delay emergency response and lead to saltwater intrusion that damages agriculture and freshwater supplies.

ESCAP’s analysis (Figure 1) examines how these threats are expected to continue to increase in the region’s low-lying river deltas, small island nations and rapidly growing coastal cities. For example, Seenu Atoll in the Maldives is expected to face a six-fold jump in population exposure to coastal flooding by 2050.

Looking across the region, Jiangsu Province in China, West Bengal in India, Khula and Marisal Divisions of Bangladesh, and Bến Tre and Bạc Liêu Provinces of Viet Nam are all expected to see hundreds of thousands of people exposed along their respective coastlines in the next 25 years.

Figure 1 – Percentage of People Exposed to Coastal Flooding of 0.5 Meters and Above in States/Provinces Across the Asia-Pacific Region and in Atolls of the Maldives (2018 Baseline vs. 2050 RCP8.5).

In the face of these risks, cities become engines of growth only when they are resilient. So, why do many cities across the Asia-Pacific region find themselves underwater while others weathered the storm with far less disruption? The answer lies in whether cities treat rain as a resource or as waste

Traditional “grey” systems, such as pipes, pumps and channels, aim to move water out fast. In a nonstationary climate and denser urban fabric, this is no longer sufficient. Sponge city design blends green-blue-grey systems (permeable surfaces, parks, wetlands, bioswales, green corridors) with modernized drainage to capture, store, and safely release rainfall at the source.

China’s national Sponge City Initiative (launched in 2015) built on international practice and showed how integrated planning can retrofit districts and guide new growth to manage water where it falls. The logic is simple: expand infiltration and storage, reduce peak runoff and use engineered conveyance when and where needed.

Results from early adopters are tangible

In Wuhan, sponge city measures contributed to a 50% reduction in locations experiencing overflow and pipe overloading during high flow years. Over the life of assets, green-blue systems can cost significantly less than like-for-like grey expansions, while delivering co-benefits that traditional drains cannot: cooler neighborhoods, improved air quality, biodiversity and accessible public space.

For cities facing rising loss and damage under SDG 11.5 (deaths, affected people and economic losses), sponge city programmes generate a resilience dividend—not just a flood fix.

Sponge city thinking is also evolving toward smart hybrid infrastructure

Nature-based systems are being coupled with engineered assets and digital tools, such as digital twins, to model urban hydrology and optimize performance in real time, enabling city planners to simulate rainfall scenarios, forecast flood hotspots and manage infrastructure adaptively, thereby improving the effectiveness of sponge-city interventions.

This pairing turns static drainage into adaptive urban water management, essential as rainfall intensity and patterns shift, reducing and managing risk through early warning, community preparedness and basin scale controls.

Urban resilience is also ecological

The Asia-Pacific region is home to an estimated 30–40% of the world’s wetlands, yet only around 22% are formally protected. As wetland buffers are drained or reclaimed, cities lose natural absorption, filtration and surge moderation, just as extremes intensify. Protecting and restoring urban and peri-urban wetlands is therefore core infrastructure policy, reinforcing SDG 15 while directly advancing SDGs 11.5 and 13.1.

Sponge city approaches are not a panacea. Their effectiveness can be constrained by governance capacity, implementation scale and maintenance requirements, land availability and high-density development. They must therefore be complemented by robust end-to-end early warning systems and coordinated disaster risk management frameworks.

To this end, ESCAP supports countries across the region by providing regional and national risk analytics through its Risk and Resilience Portal, enabling policymakers to integrate climate and disaster information directly into development planning.

These analyses and tools are tailored to regional and country needs, such as ClimaCoast, which focuses on coastal multi-hazard and socio-economic exposures. These initiatives are complemented by targeted financing from the Trust Fund for Tsunami, Disaster and Climate Preparedness, through programmes that strengthen coastal resilience in Asia and the Pacific. Together, these initiatives aim to reverse the current regression in resilience related SDG targets and help safeguard sustainable development in the region’s high risk hotspots.

Asia and the Pacific region can no longer rely on drainage systems built for a different climate and century. By adopting sponge city principles, Asia Pacific cities can embed resilience into everyday urban life—a development imperative, not just a technical shift.

Strengthening urban resilience is essential to advancing SDG 11 and SDG 13 and protecting hard won development gains that too often wash away when floods strike.

Temily Baker is Programme Management Officer, ESCAP; Leila Salarpour Goodarzi is Associate Economic Affairs Officer, ESCAP and Elisa Belaz is Consultant, ESCAP

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The Global Environment Facility (GEF) announced that donor countries ​p​ledged an initial ​U​SD 3.9 billion to ​the facility for the ninth replenishment cycle​, indicating that nature remains a priority, as in this image, where a veterinary team applies a collar to a sedated elephant​ in KwaZulu-Natal​, South Africa, as part of an ambitious project aimed at conserving the animals. Credit: Dan Ingham/IPS

By Alison Kentish
SAINT LUCIA, Apr 9 2026 (IPS)

With just four years left to meet a series of global environmental targets, governments are committing to shore up one of the world’s main environmental funds, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), with a $3.9 billion pledge.

The funding will form the backbone of the GEF’s ninth replenishment cycle, known as GEF-9, a four-year financing round running from July 2026 to June 2030. Those years are widely seen as decisive for slowing biodiversity loss, tackling pollution and keeping climate goals within reach.

While the $3.9 billion pledge signals renewed momentum, it comes at a moment of deepening environmental strain. Ecosystems are continuing to decline, coral reefs are bleaching at scale and small island states are already grappling with the economic and social fallout of environmental change.

“This replenishment sends a clear message: the world is not giving up on nature,” said Claude Gascon, the GEF’s interim chief executive. He noted that donor countries had “risen to the challenge and made bold commitments towards a more positive future for the planet” despite competing global priorities.

“The coming four years of the GEF-9 cycle will reflect this high-ambition push to achieve the 2030 environmental goals,” he said.

The GEF, the world’s largest multilateral environmental fund, supports developing countries in meeting commitments under major global agreements on climate change, biodiversity, land degradation, chemicals, and ocean governance. Since its establishment, it has provided more than $27 billion in grants and mobilised a further $155 billion in co-financing.

GEF’s next funding round, its ninth replenishment cycle, aims to scale investment and mobilise private capital to close widening environmental financing gaps. Credit: Kea Mowat/Unsplash

Rewiring Economies Around Nature

At the centre of the new funding cycle is a push toward what the GEF calls “nature-positive development”. It is an effort to embed environmental value into economic decision-making rather than treating it as a secondary concern.

That includes reworking systems that drive environmental degradation, such as food production, energy, urban development and public health, so they operate within ecological limits.

The strategy also leans heavily on attracting private investment. Around 25% of GEF-9 resources are expected to be used to mobilise private capital, reflecting a growing recognition that public funding alone cannot close the global environmental financing gap.

Focus on the Most Vulnerable

The allocation of funds carries a clear political signal.

At least 35 percent of resources are expected to go to Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States (SIDS), countries that contribute least to environmental degradation but face some of its most severe impacts. A further 20% is earmarked for Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

For Caribbean nations, where coastal erosion, stronger storms and coral reef loss are already reshaping economies, the funding could prove significant if it translates quickly into action on the ground.

“We need multilateral cooperation more than ever to protect our planet for future generations,” said Niels Annen, describing the replenishment as a “joint effort” between countries in the Global North and South. “Environmental action and sustainable development have to go hand in hand. In GEF-9, we see Germany’s priorities very well reflected: innovative finance for nature and people, better cooperation with the private sector and stable resources for the most vulnerable countries.”

Support for the funding round has also come from Spain and Mexico, with Inés Carpio San Román emphasising the importance of “effective multilateralism” and Mexico backing “country-driven solutions” to global environmental challenges.

Calls to Deliver Results

Civil society groups have welcomed the increased emphasis on inclusion, particularly the allocation for Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

“This will strengthen a whole-of-society approach,” said Faizal Parish, Chair of the GEF’s Civil Society Organization Network, while Aliou Mustafa, of the GEF’s Indigenous Peoples Advisory Group, said the shift reflects efforts to place Indigenous groups “at the centre of decision-making.”

Still, expectations are high and time is short.

“The environmental crises we face are accelerating,” said Richard Bontjer. He described the  replenishment as “a vote of confidence” while stressing that “every dollar must count.”

“This replenishment will sharpen the GEF’s focus on impact, drive greater efficiency and mobilize private finance alongside public investment. It will also strengthen support to SIDS and LDCs and give recognition to the importance of supporting Indigenous Peoples and local communities.”

With the 2030 deadline fast approaching, the success of this funding round will ultimately be judged not by the size of the pledges but by how quickly they translate into measurable gains—restored ecosystems, protected coastlines and more resilient economies.

For countries on the frontlines, including those in the Caribbean, the $3.9 billion is not just another funding cycle.

It is a narrowing window of opportunity.

Additional pledges are expected before the end-of-May GEF Council meeting, when countries will lock in the final size and ambition of the four-year funding round.

The 71st GEF Council meeting will be held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, from May 31 to June 3, 2026. The meeting will take place in advance of the Eighth GEF Assembly, when individual country pledges will be publicly announced.

Note: This feature is published with the support of the GEF. IPS is solely responsible for the editorial content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the GEF.

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