September 11 and the End of the American Dream
The Day That Changed Everything

On 11 September 2001 I was in New York, on one of my frequent visits to the United Nations, to which I was tied by a consultancy contract. That morning I woke up late, around eleven, sleeping off the jet lag of the flight from Italy. I was staying at the Hyatt Park, today the Millennium. A hotel a few metres from the Glass Palace, built to serve the world of the United Nations.

Global Survey Finds Deep Crisis of Trust as Majority Say Economic System Favours the Rich

An international survey released by Earth4All has found a growing crisis of trust in governments, widespread anger over inequality, and strong public support for major economic reforms, suggesting that many people across the world believe current political and economic systems are failing to serve ordinary citizens.

Investment in Irrigation Systems Is Vital in Preparing for the Next Climate Shock

When the African continent experiences erratic rains, crops fail, leaving millions of people facing hunger.

International Trade Theory Not Developmental

Most free trade advocates falsely claim that comparative advantage ensures developmental gains from trade liberalisation. Mainstream trade theory does not promise that partial trade liberalisation guarantees optimal international specialisation.

Bridging Digital Transformation in an ASEAN-EAEU Cooperation

Physical borders are shrinking, and digital ones are quietly taking their place. As governments use digital transformation as a powerful driver of economic and sustainable development, the challenge is no longer simply a digital divide between those with technology and those without it. It is a question of digital fragmentation, where infrastructure, standards and regulations make cross-border cooperation more difficult.

Midwives: The Workforce That Will Determine Maternal and Newborn Survival and Africa’s Future

Tonight, thousands of women across Africa will give birth. Whether they survive to see daylight will largely depend on where they live, how quickly they reach care, and whether the health system around them is ready to respond.

Nepalese Experts, Victims Contemplate the Future After the Flood

That day, Subash Tamang was mining sand along the banks of the Trishuli River near the Trishuli Hydropower Project, working alongside his wife, brother, sister-in-law, and two other family members. Suddenly, he noticed water gushing down from above the hydropower site. His first thought was that the dam had burst.

Between the Reef and the Stars
A reflection on humanity’s twin longings.

There is an older wisdom, quieter than the noise of our times, that whispers a simple truth: we are not the architects of nature, only its guests. Long before there were nations, economies, or even language, there was the pulse of the tide, the patience of coral, the breath of forests exchanging air with the sky. Into that ancient conversation we arrived — late, curious, and forgetful — mistaking our cleverness for sovereignty and our tools for wings.

Africa Has the Answers to Its Food Security Challenges. What It Needs Is the Architecture to Act on Them

As leaders gather in Kigali for the Africa Food Systems Forum, they face an urgent question: why do so many proven agricultural innovations still fail to reach the farmers and communities that need them most?

The Drylands Dividend: The Smart Investment for Powering a Water-Scarce World

Open a can of something fizzy and the reason the sugar doesn’t separate immediately is gum arabic, tapped by hand from acacia trees across the Sahel. Spray on perfume and the reason the scent is still there at dinner is frankincense, a resin cut from Boswellia trees on the dry escarpments of the Horn of Africa. The fat that gives a chocolate bar its snap may well be shea, gathered and pressed by women in the parkland belt of West Africa. The cashmere jumper came from goats that can only be raised on cold, dry rangelands.

Dollar Dominance Eroding Slowly but Surely

The US dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency has been eroding gradually for decades. However, various US policies, including recent deliberately unexpected actions, have at times accelerated de-dollarisation.

Africa’s Pastoralists Need More Than COP17’s $1.2 billion Rangelands Pledge

When the rains fail across Tanzania’s northern Maasai Steppe, herders drive their cattle farther in search of pasture and water.

Beyond Resilience: Climate Change and the Rights of Char Dwellers in Bangladesh

Bangladesh’s riverine and coastal chars have always been landscapes of movement, but climate change is making that movement more violent, frequent, and unequal. The shifting islands of the Jamuna, Brahmaputra, Padma, and other rivers now reveal how climate stress multiplies deprivation, weakens citizenship, and forces char dwellers to absorb the costs of a crisis they did little to create.

Fishers’ Organisations in India Demand Recognition From FAO

India is ranked the second-largest fish-producing nation globally, accounting for around 8 percent of global output. The fisheries sector in India accounts for nearly 7.43 percent of Agricultural Gross Value Added (GVA), the highest (independent) share among the agriculture and allied sectors.

The Indian Ocean Is Sounding the Alarm and Its Islands Are Among the First to Hear It

Across this vast ocean, the latest monitoring by Mercator Ocean International shows marine heatwave conditions ranging from moderate to severe. At the same time, the World Meteorological Organization expects a strong El Niño to intensify through August to October, with a positive Indian Ocean Dipole also likely to develop. These are not distant scientific signals. They are an urgent warning that the ocean system on which millions depend is under mounting stress.

Beyond the Horizon: Raising a Generation to Protect the Blue Pacific

For generations, Pacific children have grown up with the ocean as part of everyday life. It is where families fish, where stories are passed down, where livelihoods begin and where cultures are rooted.

Grand Planetary Challenges Need a Grand Coalition to Solve Them

Several coalitions exist today to defend the territories in which people live and work. Global leaders have long understood the importance of shared responsibility for collective security and have invested significant time in establishing networks, partnerships and alliances. In 2025, global spending on defense reached a record $2.9 trillion.

A Divided Vote for the UN’s Human Rights Chief

On 24 July, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly reappointed Volker Türk as High Commissioner for Human Rights for a further four years. Only 10 states – among them Israel, Russia and the USA – opposed the decision.

South Africa’s Anti-Immigrant Violence Slows SDG Goals, Rips Apart Africans’ Free Movement Call

When the Malawian government announced the conclusion of the repatriation of its citizens trapped in anti-immigrant violence against foreign Africans in South Africa on August 12, 2026, it had brought home 56,723 nationals, according to data from the Department of Disaster Management Affairs.

GEF Proposes $140 Million Program to Strengthen Drought Resilience

For pastoralists in Arvaikheer — a village in Mongolia’s dry central plains — rain can determine whether there is enough grass for cattle to roam, whether waterholes are replenished and whether families make it through another dry season. But as climate change makes rainfall increasingly unpredictable, even a wet season may no longer provide water and pasture needed to sustain people and livestock.

Cockroach Insult Unleashes Biggest Challenge yet to Modi’s Repressive Rule

India’s strongman leader, Narendra Modi, has just been forced to do the thing he likes least: making concessions in response to protests.