A report Rebuild Trust: Rigged Economies, Fractured Societies and the Case for Change found that people everywhere believed the system was rigged. Credit: Earth4All

By Umar Manzoor Shah
SRINAGAR, India, Sep 14 2026 (IPS)

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.

The report, Rebuild Trust: Rigged Economies, Fractured Societies and the Case for Change, surveyed people in 17 countries representing 58 percent of global GDP, 38 percent of the world’s population, and 37 percent of global carbon emissions. Its findings paint a picture of societies that feel increasingly divided, economically insecure, and disconnected from political institutions.

As per the report, nearly two-thirds of respondents said they believe their country’s economic system is “rigged” to benefit the rich and powerful. Seven in ten said there is too much economic inequality in their country, while 69 percent called for major changes to economic systems to improve life for most people.

“The survey results show a mismatch between public support for economic change and what mainstream political parties are willing to offer,” the report’s authors, Owen Gaffney and Kate Pickett, write. They argue that the findings reveal an opportunity for governments to build new social contracts based on fairness, economic security, and long-term wellbeing.

The survey comes at a time when many countries are grappling with rising living costs, political polarisation, climate pressures, and growing public frustration with institutions.

One of the report’s most striking conclusions is that many people feel their societies are becoming more fractured.

Across the 17 countries surveyed, 67 percent said their country is more divided today than it was a decade ago. More than seven in ten respondents reported serious tensions between supporters of different political parties. Nearly two-thirds saw conflict between rich and poor, while similar numbers perceived tensions between immigrant and native-born populations.

The authors argue that these divisions are linked not only to economic conditions but also to a broader erosion of trust.

“Societies feel themselves coming apart. There is a trust deficit at the heart of societies,” reads the report.

Only 31 percent of respondents said they trust their governments to make decisions that will benefit the majority of people 20 or 30 years into the future. This was one of the lowest-rated measures in the survey.

The report also highlights a less visible issue. Many people feel they are not treated with respect and dignity.

Across all surveyed countries, only 41 percent agreed that people like them are treated with respect and dignity. The authors note that feelings of disrespect and humiliation can fuel political alienation and social resentment.

“A society in which one in four people feel they do not receive respect contains significant combustible material,” the report states. “Many people feel unseen, believe the system is rigged and do not experience their society as a collective enterprise.”

Asian countries included in the survey showed significant differences in public attitudes.

Indonesia emerged as one of the strongest supporters of economic reform. Nearly three-quarters of Indonesians said there is too much inequality in their country, while 74 percent believed the system benefits the wealthy. A remarkable 78 percent supported major economic changes, the highest level among all countries surveyed.

Indonesians also showed strong backing for climate action. Sixty-eight per cent said governments should take strong action against climate change even if it results in higher prices.

Yet Indonesia appeared less polarised than many Western countries. Only 53 percent believed the country is more divided than it was ten years ago, significantly below the global average.

Japan presented a different picture.

Trust in government was among the lowest recorded in the survey. Only 19 percent of Japanese respondents said they trusted their government to make long-term decisions benefiting the majority of citizens. Just one fifth felt they were treated with respect and dignity.

The findings also revealed unexpectedly strong support for authoritarian leadership in Japan. Nearly half of respondents agreed that the country would be better off with a strong leader unconstrained by parliament and elections. Meanwhile, only half said democracy was the best system of government.

India also featured prominently in the survey. According to comparative data in the report, 66 percent of Indian respondents agreed that there is too much economic inequality in the country, close to the international average. India ranked among countries where a majority still felt they were treated with respect and dignity, recording one of the highest scores in the survey on that measure.

Despite widespread frustration with governments and economic systems, the survey found continued support for democracy.

Overall, 68 percent of respondents said democracy remains the best way to govern their country. However, support was not universal. Forty percent also agreed that their country would be better off with a strong leader who does not have to worry about parliament or elections.

The authors describe this as a warning sign rather than a rejection of democracy itself.

In countries such as Brazil and Japan, support for strong leaders reached especially high levels. In Brazil, 51 percent backed the idea of a leader unconstrained by elections, while 63 percent still supported democracy. In Japan, support for strong leadership stood at 46 percent.

The United States presented a contrasting picture. Only 26 percent favoured a strong leader outside democratic constraints, while 68 percent supported democracy as the preferred form of government.

The report warns that declining trust in institutions can create openings for anti-democratic movements if governments fail to address public concerns about fairness and economic opportunity.

Climate Action Retains Public Backing

Despite growing economic anxieties, the survey found continued support for climate action.

More than half of respondents said governments should take strong action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions even if it leads to higher prices. Support was strongest in middle-income countries and weaker among lower-income households and politically conservative respondents.

The authors argue that climate policies are more likely to succeed when paired with measures that address economic inequality and social insecurity.

Public resistance to climate action often grows when people believe they are being asked to bear unfair costs while wealthier groups benefit from the existing system, the report suggests.

Kate Pickett, one of the report’s authors and a well-known researcher on inequality and social wellbeing, has long argued that unequal societies tend to experience weaker social cohesion and lower levels of trust. The findings of the new survey appear to reinforce that argument.

Economic Anxiety Remains Widespread

Beyond questions of trust and politics, the survey highlights persistent worries about basic economic security.

Across the countries surveyed, 41 percent of respondents said they were concerned about having enough money to cover their basic needs during the coming year. Economic anxiety was particularly high in countries facing inflation and financial instability.

Argentina recorded the highest levels of economic insecurity. More than two-thirds of respondents worried about covering basic needs, and 78 percent supported major economic reforms.

Even in wealthier countries, concerns about inequality remained widespread.

In the United States, 62 percent said there was too much inequality. In Sweden, often regarded as one of the world’s more equal societies, 71 percent shared the same view. Australia recorded 64 percent.

The authors argue that economic growth alone is no longer enough to reassure citizens.

Instead, people increasingly judge systems based on fairness, opportunity, and whether prosperity is shared.

The Earth4All initiative was launched by organisations including the Club of Rome, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and the Norwegian Business School. It seeks to identify pathways toward sustainable prosperity and social wellbeing.

The report’s authors say the findings should serve as a wake-up call for political leaders.

Rather than viewing public frustration as a temporary reaction to economic shocks, they argue that governments should recognize it as evidence of deeper structural problems.

The survey reveals what the authors call a “near-universal diagnosis”. Across different political systems, cultures, and income levels, large majorities share the belief that current economic arrangements favour elites while leaving ordinary citizens behind.

IPS UN Bureau Report

A female fish seller at a Saigon market was contacting her clients via her a smart phone. Digital technology has accelerated and facilitated business operations in South-East Asia. Credit: Unsplash / Robson Hatsukami Morgan

By Ruhimat Soerakoesoemah, Andrey Panteleev and Philip Diamant
BANGKOK, Thailand, Sep 7 2026 (IPS)

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.

This raises an important question of how economies in Asia and the Pacific can pursue digital sovereignty while remaining connected to trade, innovate and develop together. One promising answer lies in closer cooperation between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Both regions are trying to build stronger digital capabilities while keeping their economies open to cross-border trade. Despite their different economic structures and development pathways, the two blocs share many of the same digital ambitions and challenges.

Digital transformation has become a powerful driver of economic development, competitiveness and resilience. However, progress remains uneven within regions. While some countries are rapidly building digital infrastructure and services, others still face constraints in skills, financing and institutional capacity. This means digital transformation is no longer solely considered in terms of technology. Governments are increasingly seeing it as a strategic priority which is linked to competitiveness, national security, sovereignty and their citizens’ well-being. For regional blocs such as the EAEU and ASEAN, this makes cooperation and the exchange of experience more and more important.

In the EAEU, this ambition is reflected in the work of the Eurasian Economic Commission. In 2017, the EAEU launched its Digital Agenda, which serves as the overarching framework for digital transformation processes across members States. The EAEU’s regional approach is complemented by national efforts. A good example from Kazakhstan was how a dedicated ministry for artificial intelligence (AI) is established and that Kazakhstan already passed new laws on AI, cybersecurity and digital assets, and started running powerful computing centres. Kazakhstan’s nationwide AI training programme is already reaching thousands of people. This is a good example of what a push towards digital sovereignty can look like.

Such a similar ambition can be seen in the ASEAN region, where the ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA) is expected to be launched at the 49th ASEAN Summit this November. DEFA aims to create a more seamless regional digital economy by addressing areas, such as digital trade, cross-border shopping, e-signatures, cybersecurity, electronic payments and AI. The region has been asked for such a framework since SMEs account for 85% of jobs and 44.8% of GDP in South-East Asia, but they generate only around 18% of exports. At the same time, the region’s digital economy is already worth an estimated US$ 0.5 trillion and is expected to double to US$ 1 trillion by 2030. With an effective implementation of DEFA, this number can be further increased to US$ 2 trillion.

With all these developments, the complementary strengths of ASEAN and the EAEU are highlighted. The EAEU’s experience in building digital public platforms, solutions for critical infrastructure and cybersecurity frameworks is complemented with ASEAN’s dynamic markets, vibrant digital entrepreneurship and successful models for commercialising digital services. A stakeholder survey conducted by ESCAP across EAEU and ASEAN countries in 2025 found broad agreement on the nature of digital transformation, priority technologies and key risks. This suggests that, despite their different contexts, the two regions share significant common ground for cooperation.

This is where ESCAP can play an important convening role as the UN’s regional body for Asia and the Pacific. Through the project “Strengthening Regional Cooperation in Digital Transformation for Economic and Sustainable Development”, ESCAP is working with ASEAN and EAEU countries to help identify practical solutions, share experiences and advance opportunities for collaboration between the regions. Policymakers explored how both subregions can cooperate more efficiently across borders.

Interesting examples include the benefits of interoperability. Eleven South-East Asian economies now run their own QR-payment systems, with eight already working across at least one border. This same interoperability is starting to reach across other subregions, with a QR-code issued by a Russian bank already working in Viet Nam. These experiences demonstrate a clear scope to explore how similar approaches could support wider cross-border cooperation between ASEAN and the EAEU.

In hindsight, the first sentence of this blog could have been: Physical borders may be shrinking, but digital borders are still being drawn. Addressing digital fragmentation requires dialogue, shared standards, and practical cooperation that allows countries to benefit from the digital transformation. Initiatives like this aim to strengthen interoperability and knowledge sharing across subregions and promote a digital future of Asia that is connected, inclusive and supports sustainable development for all.

Ruhimat Soerakoesoemah, Head of Subregional Office for South-East Asia, ESCAP; Andrey Panteleev, Head of Economic Policy Strategies Section, Macroeconomic Policy Department, Eurasian Economic Commission; and Philip Diamant, Intern, Subregional Office for South-East Asia, ESCAP

IPS UN Bureau

Ouattara, senior midwife and head of the maternity unit at the Ayaou-Sokpa Health Centre in Côte d'Ivoire, consults with Awa, a pregnant woman, during a routine antenatal visit. Credit: UNFPA Côte d'Ivoire/Miléquêm Diarassouba

By Diene Keita and Jean Kaseya
NEW YORK / ADDIS ABABA, Sep 7 2026 (IPS)

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.

Maternal deaths in Africa have dropped 40 percent since 2000, but progress is now stalling. Africa still accounts for more than 70 percent of all maternal deaths worldwide. A woman facing pregnancy complications on the continent is around 130 times more likely to die than a woman in Europe or North America.

Most of these deaths are preventable. Postpartum hemorrhage remains the leading direct cause of maternal death, while indirect causes such as HIV, malaria, and anemia also account for a substantial share. What connects them is delay: delay in seeking care, delay in reaching a health facility, and delay in providing the best treatment to save a woman’s life. The fact that so many maternal deaths occur within health facilities is telling: the problem is not only the absence of care but also weaknesses in facility readiness, referral systems, teamwork, and emergency response.

Throughout the continuum of maternal care, a well-educated midwife can recognize danger signs before they become emergencies: managing complications, including coordinating timely referrals; and delivering respectful and high-quality care. Midwives already deliver up to 90 percent of essential sexual, reproductive, maternal, and newborn health services, often in communities where health systems are weakest. But midwives cannot do this alone and their impact depends on the strength of the health system: functioning primary health care, community referral and transportation systems, reliable medicines and blood supplies, and access to emergency obstetrical and neonatal care when complications arise. Despite this indispensable role, midwives remain one of Africa’s most overlooked and underfunded health workers.

Based on the latest comparable WHO and UNFPA data, only four of 51 reporting African countries meet the WHO needs-based benchmark of 9.23 midwifery personnel per 10,000 population. Forty-seven remain below the benchmark. But the numerical shortage is only part of the story. Even where midwives are educated, roughly 34 percent of midwifery personnel in reporting countries are unemployed. The challenge, in other words, is not simply to educate more midwives—it is to integrate those already educated and deploy and retain them where needs are greatest.

Ending preventable maternal mortality by 2030 has become one of the continent’s greatest tests of leadership, equity, and health sovereignty.

With the appointment of H.E. Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan, President of the United Republic of Tanzania, as the AU Champion on Maternal and Child Health, our collective quest to end maternal deaths is elevated with the highest level of political support. In a recent op-ed, President Hassan called on African leaders and partners to rally around a simple yet powerful roadmap: the Three Zeros framework. It includes achieving zero home deliveries where women are cut off from skilled care and emergency referrals; zero preventable maternal and newborn deaths by shifting from access alone to quality, respectful, and emergency-ready care; and zero unvaccinated children by placing zero-dose children at the center of primary health care and last-mile delivery. Investing in midwives is fundamental to achieving these Three Zeros.

The case for investment is not just moral — it is economic. The UNFPA midwifery investment case reveals that investing in midwives can generate as much as a ten-fold return through combined social and economic gains. In Sierra Leone, modeling shows that universal care provided by midwives could save 2,278 maternal lives, save 19,029 newborn lives, prevent 39,970 stillbirths, and avert almost 860,000 unintended pregnancies by 2035. Beyond these clinical and economic gains, midwifery is also a powerful engine for women’s economic empowerment. Since the vast majority of midwives are female, expanding this workforce translates directly into thousands of stable, skilled, and dignified formal-sector jobs for women—particularly in rural and underserved communities where employment opportunities are often scarce. Converting informal, unpaid caregiving into salaried careers saves lives and builds financial independence for women, while strengthening Africa’s broader economic development.

Investing in midwives alongside multi-skilled community health workers creates a stronger continuum of care—from the household and community to the primary health facility and referral hospital. Community health workers can support early identification of pregnancy risks, promote antenatal care attendance, encourage skilled birth attendance, strengthen immunization uptake, and facilitate timely referrals, while midwives provide the skilled clinical care required to prevent maternal and newborn deaths. Together, this workforce forms the backbone of a people-centered primary health care system capable of delivering the AU’s vision of health sovereignty.

Africa has already shown political leadership in achieving a strong health workforce. In 2016, Africa committed to train and deploy two million community health workers as part of addressing the chronic health workforce gap—a target already half met. Under the leadership of H.E. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and AU Champion for Human Resources for Health and Community Health Delivery Partnership (CHDP), the continent is committed to accelerating progress towards the target of two million multi-skilled community health workers by 2030.

Midwifery deserves the same political ambition, together with a clear continental target to close the midwifery gap.

Any midwifery target must sit within a broader health workforce agenda. Accelerating the reduction of maternal deaths depends on a wider multidisciplinary workforce, including nurses, doctors, anesthesia providers, laboratory personnel, pharmacists, blood service staff, and emergency transport teams. This model promotes integrated community health systems where trained, supported, and professional community health workers deliver a comprehensive package of essential services, including health promotion for maternal and child health, disease prevention, immunization, early identification of pregnancy risks, referrals, and links to health facilities.

Just as Africa united around scaling up community health workers, leaders should now rally around a target to educate, deploy and retain the midwives needed to end preventable maternal and newborn deaths on the continent and enhance the health outcomes.

The following priorities, supported by the evidence-driven global initiative The Midwifery Accelerator, offer a practical roadmap:

First, increase and institutionalize financing for the health workforce, including midwives, as a strategic investment for health security and sovereignty.

This means accelerating the Lusaka Agenda and Accra Reset and prioritizing domestic funding for workforce compacts to strengthen primary health care systems in high-burden countries for maternal and child deaths. Establishing dedicated workforce budget lines, and improving the efficiency of workforce financial management through digitalization will require strengthened public finance management capacity and capabilities and cross-ministerial coordination. Aligning partner contributions strategically with national health workforce development plans will improve efficiency and address issues linked to the transition from donor support.

Second, expand equitable access to skilled maternal and newborn care by deploying midwives strategically to underserved high-burden and rural areas.

We must educate, deploy, and retain enough midwives to improve the quality, continuity, and responsiveness of maternal and newborn care. This will require ensuring quality midwifery education aligned to international and national standards, financing new posts and absorbing unemployed midwives, educating more only where the needs are unmet. Retention is equally critical as poor conditions; limited career growth, low pay and migration continue to drain skilled midwives from many African countries. Building a resilient workforce requires investing in decent work, professional recognition, and supportive, accountable workplaces.

Third, we must advocate and empower midwives, building midwifery leadership, strengthening coalitions, and amplifying the voices of women and communities.

Midwives should play a central role in designing models of care, not just delivering them. Professional associations must be seated at policy and financing tables, the Chief Midwifery Officer Network should be formalized, and communities need a stronger say in holding health systems accountable.

Fourth, maternal survival must be addressed as a whole-of-government responsibility.

Backed by political and financial commitments, this requires engagement beyond health ministries, including the finance, education, gender, and planning portfolios, alongside local government and civil society partners.

Through the AU Champion Roadmap on Maternal and Child Health, the AU Commission is collaborating with Member States, Africa CDC, UNFPA, and other partners to strengthen accountability, data systems and peer-to-peer learning. Accountability must drive this agenda: every maternal death should be counted, reviewed, and used to strengthen health systems. What gets measured gets prioritized, and what gets prioritized gets funded.

The AU Champion Roadmap calls for sustained, African-led domestic financing for maternal, newborn and child health. Investing in midwives is an investment in maternal and newborn survival, women’s economic empowerment, resilient primary health care systems, and Africa’s future prosperity. Preventing maternal deaths protects families, creates decent jobs, strengthens trust in public institutions, and safeguards the continent’s greatest asset—its people.

Africa has shown that shared ambition can drive transformative change. That same ambition must be matched with sustained resolve and support to ensure that no woman or newborn’s life is cut short for reasons we can prevent. A strong and resilient midwifery health workforce is within our collective reach – let us use it to secure Africa’s health sovereignty, sustainable development, and future prosperity.

Dr. Diene Keita, Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and
Dr. Jean Kaseya, Director General, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC)

IPS UN Bureau

Drylands landscape near Kitui, Kitui County - Kenya. Credit: Axel Fassio/CIFOR

By Éliane Ubalijoro and Salina Abraham
NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 1 2026 (IPS)

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.

These are drylands. They cover 44 per cent of the planet’s land, hold 44 per cent of the world’s cropland and half its livestock, and two billion people live in them. We have spent decades describing them as empty or unproductive. For a long list of things most of us use without thinking, they are the only places on earth that produce them at all.

It is no secret that our world is becoming hotter and drier. Three quarters of the planet’s land experienced drier conditions in the last 30 years than the previous 30. This year’s El Niño is intensifying fast, compelling the world to look back at what dryland systems already know. Nearly every model now points to a record-strength event: the US Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of a “very strong” El Niño at over 90 per cent for this fall and winter, and a 69 per cent chance it exceeds anything on record since 1950.

Drylands have been living through exactly this kind of shock-and-recovery cycle for generations, and their playbook offers real lessons. Farmers in places that have always been able to count on rain are beginning to face a question that dryland farmers answered generations ago: what do you grow, and how, when the water is not guaranteed?

Dryland systems are the longest-running operating record anywhere of producing value under conditions of scarcity, volatility and shock. These landscapes are home to generations of knowledge on how to thrive with limited water and high variability. This includes practices such as spreading risk across several crops and animals rather than betting the season on one, understanding land closely enough to move livestock before the pressure is too much, and building income that arrives at different times of the year so a bad month is not a ruined one. These are powerful lessons needed now.

Now is the time to listen and learn from dryland communities, practices, and regenerative production models. When this wisdom, data, and experience serve as our foundation, we can transition to sustainable business models and unlock investments to power our future world using knowledge that already exists in the places we have been calling marginal.

Mongolia, the host of the recently concluded UN’s COP17 talks under the Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), is a case in point. Three quarters of Mongolia’s land is already classified as degraded or at risk. However, Mongolian herders supply 40 per cent of the world’s raw cashmere, increasingly innovating to shift away from an extractive model to practices that generate diverse value, from wool to grass-fed meat, examples of what a healthy landscape can offer.

In northern Ghana, the Ojoba Women’s Shea Cooperative processes shea butter by hand in the arid Upper East Region, using a skill passed down through generations. They now supply international buyers including L’Occitane and Lush.

In both instances, the land already had value, and the skills already existed within the communities. What was missing was a route to the market willing to pay for them. These initiatives demonstrate what is possible when investment is designed around the realities and value in drylands.

Investment can take many forms: from financing cooperatives through the shift to new practices; insurance that pays out on rainfall; water and energy infrastructure that keeps a harvest sellable in extreme heat. There is growth potential beyond raw commodities too; processing into oils, powders, waxes compounds the returns. And payments for ecosystem services, from stored carbon, biodiversity and watershed protection, sit alongside that.

Donors like the European Union have already recognised the value of drylands with the €20 million Thrivelands initiative, led by Landscape Alliance, to build the coalitions and action this work needs; including innovations needed to protect and restore land. These innovations range from the tools to monitor and restore soil health accurately to the Land Degradation Surveillance Framework and the Regreening Africa app, which brings this data into the hands of farmers.

But public funding alone cannot unlock the drylands opportunities. Adapting to a drier world means restoring a broken nature finance system and closing the $700 billion finance gap to apply proven expertise across a growing area.

Many companies already depend on drylands through what they source, without having assessed how much of their supply comes from them. For those in the agrifood, textiles, and cosmetics sectors, investing in restoring and protecting these landscapes is a way to stabilise their supply chains, manage growing levels of risk and meet climate goals.

There is also the question of what inaction costs. Investing in drylands agriculture could avert a 12 per cent reduction in global food production over the next 25 years and prevent the release of about 60 per cent of stored carbon.

COP17 is a reminder of how little time is left. The UNCCD finance framework closes in 2030, with 82 per cent of the cumulative need for finance unmet. Time is running out to leverage the lessons from drylands to protect future food security. The gap between what is needed and what is being invested remains enormous.

The landscapes on which our future depends may be getting drier, but they are not devoid of opportunity. With science and innovation that enhances traditional knowledge, they are saturated with opportunities to bolster food security and climate resilience.

Dr Éliane Ubalijoro, chief executive officer of Landscape Alliance
Salina Abraham, Head of Thrivelands, Landscape Alliance

IPS UN Bureau

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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.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

By fixing the gold price in dollars, the US currency became the world’s reserve currency, with other currencies pegged to it at fixed exchange rates. With this indirect gold standard, the metal’s price was fixed in US dollars.

Other currencies were pegged to the dollar, strengthening its role as the dominant currency. Other arrangements that could have mitigated the problems and adverse consequences of the dollar system were effectively rejected by the US at Bretton Woods.

Ninety per cent of foreign exchange market transactions now still involve the dollar. Most central bank reserves are still denominated in dollars, while the US dollar is still used to invoice around two-fifths of international trade.

Just after World War II (WW2), the US economy accounted for a quarter of world output, measured in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), and even more in nominal terms. The US share of the world economy has fallen to under 15% since.

The US also accounted for a quarter of world exports at that time. Unlike most other nations, US industry was strengthened rather than destroyed during WW2.

The size, liquidity, and depth of US capital markets have also reinforced the dollar’s role. Its special status in the Bretton Woods dispensation conferred an ‘exorbitant privilege’, increasing international demand for dollar bonds.

This has enabled the US government and companies to borrow at lower interest rates than others. The resulting increase in demand for dollar-denominated assets has also strengthened the greenback.

Erosion of dollar dominance
Since then, the US economy has become much more financialised and de-industrialised, now accounting for less than a tenth of world goods exports.

However, although the US now accounts for under 15% of global income at PPP, its stock market still accounts for over three-fifths of the world’s total market capitalisation.

Leading international monetary economist Barry Eichengreen’s 2022 survey of central banks’ foreign exchange reserves showed the dollar share of foreign reserves falling from 70% in 2000 to under 60% in 2021; it has since declined to below 58% in early 2025.

Ben Norton suggests that the actual dollar share of foreign reserves is even lower and continues to decline. Some central banks hold other reserves off the books for fear of Western actions to freeze and seize their foreign reserves.

With the US economy more de-industrialised and financialised, the dollar system has become more important in attracting foreign investors and inducing capital market bubbles from time to time.

De-dollarisation accelerating
De-dollarisation goes back many decades, even when the dollar-gold peg was still in place. France famously demanded gold for dollars, then shipped bullion back under armed escort.

Many recent Trump policies have heightened international concerns about holding dollar-denominated assets. Greater Washington belligerence, including illegal tariffs, sanctions and bombings, has also accelerated de-dollarisation.

Trump’s attempts to influence the US Federal Reserve Bank and other public surveillance and regulatory institutions have also shaken public and international trust. Humiliating dismissals of allegedly recalcitrant officials have not helped.

In the first half-year of Trump’s second presidential term, the dollar experienced its biggest fall since the 1973 OPEC oil crisis, by over 10% against other major currencies, before fluctuating considerably.

After Trump threatened massive tariffs against all other countries on 2 April 2025, fears of “a simultaneous collapse in the prices of all US assets” quickly grew.

Instead of the usual ‘flight to safety’ in dollar assets when crises previously loomed, it seems “The market has lost faith in US assets”, selling them down in response to new threats and uncertainties.

Since then, uncertainties have worsened market and dollar volatility worldwide. Unsurprisingly, foreign governments and investors are looking for alternatives to the dollar.

Eichengreen had previously expected a gradual decline in dollar dominance and a slow transition to a more balanced multi-currency reserve system.

Although the US president is not the sole cause of the recent acceleration of de-dollarisation, Trump 2.0 policies have prompted monetary authorities worldwide to consider alternatives to the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

More recently, Eichengreen has warned of a likely acceleration in the dollar’s decline, expressing concern about its adverse effects. That would threaten financial institutions holding dollar-denominated assets, causing them to lose value in foreign-currency terms.

No alternative?
However, Eichengreen insists “no other currency … is positioned to fill the dollar’s shoes”. Neither the euro nor the renminbi has the capacity or ambition to replace the dollar.

With privately issued cryptocurrencies not functioning as currencies except for mainly illicit transactions, Eichengreen expects the dollar to remain “the cleanest dirty shirt in the pile”.

IPS UN Bureau

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Downpours flood the streets of Dhaka. Credit: Farid Ahmed/ IPS

By Mohammad Zaman
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Aug 13 2026 (IPS)

Dhaka’s recent and recurrent flooding is often treated as a natural disaster, but rain is only the trigger. The deeper causes are political, planning and ecological failure: wetland loss, canal encroachment, unplanned growth, weak enforcement, fragmented institutions and short-term engineering fixes. Dhaka is not drowning because it rains; it is drowning because it has been built as if water had nowhere to go.

Historically, Dhaka was part of a watery landscape of rivers, canals, ponds, floodplains and low-lying retention areas. These were not vacant lands; they were essential drainage infrastructure that stored rainwater, slowed runoff and carried excess water toward surrounding rivers. As the city expanded, this blue-green network was filled, narrowed or severed, leaving drains unable to cope even with moderate rainfall.

Mohammad Zaman

Drains and canals have also deteriorated. Many are clogged with waste, narrowed by illegal structures or disconnected from smaller drains. Box culverts, often promoted as modernisation, have in some places buried waterways rather than restoring them as living drainage corridors. Drainage fails not only because pipes are small, but because the wider hydrological system has been cut apart.

Climate change adds pressure through shorter, heavier and less predictable rainfall, but it should not excuse bad planning. World Bank work on urban flooding in Greater Dhaka has warned that the city already has an adaptation deficit. The real problem is that Dhaka has reduced its own capacity to absorb shocks, treating flooding as a pipe-sizing seasonal issue rather than a citywide water-management challenge.

The consequences appear first in transport paralysis. When major roads in Mirpur, Dhanmondi, Green Road, Motijheel, Shantinagar, Old Dhaka and other areas go underwater, commuters lose hours, public transport stalls and businesses suffer. The cost includes damaged vehicles and inventories, delayed logistics, lost productivity and the daily stress of moving through a city that cannot function after rain.

Flooding also deepens inequality. Low-income residents in informal and low-lying settlements face contaminated water entering their homes, loss of daily income, damaged belongings and higher disease risk. Floodwater mixed with sewage, waste and pollutants increases infections and waterborne illness. The poor pay twice: through greater exposure and weaker access to healthcare, savings and political voice.

The scale of impact shows this is not a seasonal inconvenience. A 2023 GIS and remote-sensing study found that almost 35 percent of Dhaka falls within high or very high waterlogging-vulnerability zones, with slum households disproportionately concentrated there. Recent rainfall confirms the risk: Dhaka recorded 130 millimetres of rain in six hours on 12 July 2024, while another episode brought 196 millimetres in 24 hours in 2025, submerging major roads despite large drainage investments.

Infrastructure spending has not produced resilience. The two Dhaka city corporations reportedly invested more than Tk 262 crore over four years up to 2024 to build 334.19 kilometres of drains, box culverts and related infrastructure, yet large areas still flooded. Planning data show that Dhaka lost 3,440 acres out of 9,556 acres of designated flood-flow zones, retention areas and waterbodies since the 1995 Detailed Area Plan, while central-city waterbodies reportedly fell from 20.57 percent in 1995 to 2.9 percent in 2023. The city is paying to drain water while allowing the systems that make drainage possible to disappear.

This failure is reinforced by institutional fragmentation. Responsibility is divided among Dhaka WASA, the two city corporations, RAJUK, the Bangladesh Water Development Board and others. Each controls part of the problem, but no single body manages the full catchment: drains, canals, retention areas, pumps, river outfalls and land-use control. The result is scattered action followed by renewed flooding.

Weak enforcement makes plans meaningless. Master plans and Detailed Area Plans have identified flood-flow zones, retention ponds and wetlands, yet these areas continue to disappear under housing, roads and commercial development. Encroachment survives because it is profitable, politically protected or administratively tolerated.

Accountability is also weak. Spending is reported, but outcomes are rarely evaluated. Dhaka does not need another narrow drainage project; it needs the political courage to enforce existing plans, recover waterways and protect the remaining wetlands.

The city must treat canals, wetlands, ponds and flood-flow zones as critical public infrastructure. Remaining wetlands should be protected, encroached canals demarcated and recovered, and major waterways restored as open drainage corridors connected to surrounding rivers. Dhaka also needs an integrated flood-management platform with clear authority over land-use approvals, canal recovery, drainage investment, pump operation, solid-waste control and emergency response.

Future planning must also centre vulnerable communities. Informal settlements, low-income neighbourhoods, street vendors, schoolchildren and daily-wage workers face the harshest effects but are rarely treated as planning partners. Community reporting of blocked drains, health warnings, emergency transport plans and compensation for repeated losses should be part of resilience policy. A flood-safe Dhaka requires ecological restoration, institutional discipline and social justice.

Dhaka’s flooding is a warning about planning against nature. The city has tried to engineer its way out of a crisis created by land conversion, institutional weakness and ecological neglect. Until it restores and governs its blue-green network as essential infrastructure, each monsoon will bring the same result: a megacity halted by rain it once knew how to live with. The choice is no longer between development and drainage; it is between protecting people and flooding them in the name of progress.

Dr. Mohammad Zaman is an international development consultant whose work across Asia and Africa focuses on social safeguards, displacement, resettlement and inclusive development. He lives in Vancouver, Canada, and can be reached at: mqzaman.bc@gmail.com

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Sailing container ship. Credit: Unsplash/Kinsey Wang

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 13 2026 (IPS)

Global goods trade reached approximately USD 13.7 trillion in the first half of 2026, up 12.5 percent from the same period in 2025, while services grew 10.5 percent, together adding USD 2 trillion to global trade. While these figures point to continued expansion, much of the increase reflects rising prices rather than stronger trade volumes.

According to UNCTAD’s Division on International Trade and Commodities, disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have strained energy supplies, increased fuel costs, disrupted maritime logistics, and raised production costs across a wide range of industries. Prices for traded goods rose 3.6 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, accelerating to 5.1 percent in the second quarter. Although merchandise trade continues to expand, UNCTAD’s nowcast, its data and model-driven predictions of global trade over period growth, estimates that trade by value will grow by 4.2 percent in the third quarter of 2026 compared with the same period last year, suggesting that higher prices continue to account for a significant share of trade growth.

This inflation is driven by a roughly 160-day disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, where 25 percent of the seaborne oil trade, 20 percent of global liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), about one-third of global seaborne fertilizer trade, and significant petrochemical supply chains have been almost completely shut off from maritime trade flows. According to the Strait of Hormuz Tracker, roughly 7 ships have transited on August 7, 11.7 percent of traffic compared to normal pre-crisis levels: limiting daily throughput to 1.2 million compared to pre-levels of 10.3 million.

According to Freightos, the cost of a 40-foot equivalent unit (FEU) on a China/East Asia to North America East Coast voyage was roughly USD 9,100 in July, up from USD 4,300 in May. Similarly, on a China/East Asia to North America West Coast voyage it cost USD 7,550 in July, up from USD 2,828 in May.

This drastic price volatility for a FEU reflects the consequences of heightened fuel costs. Both the passages mentioned do not go near the Strait of Hormuz, both thousands of miles away. Yet, the effects of a disruption to the Strait cascade across global shipping. Logistics is the backbone behind every industry, with shipping a FEU becoming more expensive by more than double in multiple passages, the price of the items within those FEU also must rise in price to cover the costs.

The effects are particularly evident in East Asia, the world’s manufacturing hub and the center of the global semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain, where demand for AI infrastructure, digital technologies, and electric mobility continues to accelerate. According to UNCTAD, trade in critical minerals increased 38 percent during the first quarter of 2026 compared with a year earlier, and semiconductor trade rose 25 percent, batteries 15 percent, information and communication technology (ICT) products 14 percent, and electric vehicles 11 percent.

Yet despite being geographically distant from the Strait of Hormuz, semiconductor fabrication facilities in Taiwan and South Korea remain heavily dependent on reliable global shipping networks, affordable energy, and petrochemical inputs. As higher fuel prices increase the cost of transporting components between suppliers and manufacturers, and rising electricity, natural gas, and petrochemical prices raise production costs, the value of these high-tech exports continues to climb—even when the volume of goods traded grows far more slowly.

The Strait of Hormuz disruption demonstrates the interconnectedness of the global maritime system. A constriction in this strategic maritime chokepoint raises oil and LNG prices, increasing transportation and industrial energy costs, heightening manufacturing expenses, and ultimately raising the price of internationally traded goods. Consequently, manufacturers in East Asia, importers in North America, and consumers around the world all experience the effects of a disruption occurring thousands of miles away. As these costs accumulate across increasingly interconnected supply chains, the nominal value of global trade rises, even when underlying trade volumes and real economic output grow much more slowly, illustrating that higher trade values do not necessarily represent stronger economic performance.

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President Trump has blamed trade liberalisation advocated by globalists for US deindustrialisation. Instead, his own weaponisation of economic policies, instruments and institutions purport to ‘make America great again’ (MAGA).

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

While rejecting globalists’ claim that trade liberalisation enhances growth, employment and incomes for all, his own ‘America First’ policies are slowing the world economy, including the US.

Post-war trade policy
The US has dominated international relations and institutions, including multilateral economic governance, since World War Two (WW2). The US Congress rejected the 1948 Havana Charter proposing the International Trade Organisation (ITO).

Selective trade liberalisation was key to the ‘neoliberal’ Washington Consensus, which has been recommended, if not required, by multilateral economic institutions from the 1980s.

Meanwhile, the neoliberal era has been associated with slower, more volatile growth than the post-war Keynesian ‘Golden Age’ of the first quarter-century after WW2.

The West pushed for the World Trade Organization (WTO) to consolidate the international economic order on a neoliberal basis. The 1994 Marrakech Agreement establishing the WTO left little room for development policy initiatives.

For many in the West, neoliberal trade liberalisation ended with the first Trump presidency from 2017. However, the reversal had begun earlier in the 21st century, especially after the 2008-09 global (actually Western) financial crisis.

However, Trump should be acknowledged for brazenly weaponizing international trade and investment instruments against the rest of the world, including US allies.

Hegemony
Free trade advocate Jagdish Bhagwati showed that anything less than trade multilateralism, including plurilateral and bilateral free trade agreements, is sub-optimal and unfair.

Compromises, including those promoted by international financial institutions and the OECD, have, instead, strengthened US and Western hegemony.

Postwar decolonisation of Asia and Africa has seen discontent grow in multilateral institutions, prompting selective Western undermining of multilateralism after the Cold War.

Unable to ensure the WTO’s dispute settlement system consistently protects and advances its interests, the US has paralysed it by blocking key appointments since the Obama presidency.

Collective assertiveness by developing countries in multilateral fora has mitigated some adverse consequences of international economic integration under Western auspices.

Partial and uneven trade liberalisation has constrained Global South industrialisation. Recent deindustrialisation has reduced manufacturing’s share of national output in many developing countries.

Little new manufacturing capacity has developed in Africa beyond some minimal import-substituting and resource-processing activities protected by high transport costs.

Divide and rule
Economic concessions, such as trade preferences, to developing countries have been used to divide the Global South, including the ‘least developed countries’ and ‘small island developing states’, effectively weakening their collective negotiating strength.

Trade liberalisation has also reduced tariff revenue, especially important for the poorest developing countries, where it often accounted for up to half of total tax collected.

Additional taxes, typically from consumption or income, have never compensated for tariff revenue losses due to trade liberalisation. This has undermined their already weak fiscal capacities, often requiring them to borrow even more.

Promoting food agriculture in supposedly ‘land-abundant’ African countries was supposed to make them more food-secure and even export-competitive but there is no evidence this has happened.

Developing nations have long unsuccessfully asked the Global North to eliminate agricultural subsidies, tariffs, and non-tariff import barriers that protect their output.

This would make food production in developing countries more competitive. But rich countries have long insisted that developing countries must first ‘reciprocate’, e.g., by eliminating their manufacturing tariffs.

Structural adjustment has also undermined agricultural infrastructure and smallholder productivity in many developing countries. Meanwhile, lower farm subsidies in Europe have raised many food import prices in the South.

Gains from trade?
Purported gains from trade liberalisation are often either merely theoretical or one-time gains from static understandings of comparative advantage, with no cumulative potential.

Claims of gains from trade liberalisation presume internationally competitive productive and export capacities capable of generating a strong positive supply response.

Such preconditions are unlikely in most developing countries, especially the poorest, and need to be developed, typically by protecting against external market pressures.

Most studies of realistically achievable outcomes of WTO Doha Round negotiations from 2001, including those for the World Bank, projected net losses for most developing economies, except for a few Asian economies.

There is also no robust evidence of trade liberalisation significantly reducing poverty and hunger. Developing countries, especially the poorest ones and those in sub-Saharan Africa, would be worse off.

One may well ask why developing countries have to be bribed with ‘aid for trade’ if it is in their own best interests to commit to trade liberalisation, multilateral or otherwise.

Worse, trade liberalisation has made sustainable development nearly impossible by significantly reducing policy options for aspiring developmental states, especially for trade, industrial, investment and technology policies.

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Galala city, Egypt, the southern exit to the Suez Canal. Credit: Unsplash/M abnodey

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 3 2026 (IPS)

As the United States and Iran continue to escalate with military strikes across both fronts, the conflict took a new turn with Saudi Arabia becoming militarily involved on July 29, following coordinated airstrikes with U.S. Central Command according to the Saudi Ministry of Defence.

These strikes were carried out under what the Kingdom says was its right to self-defense, recognized under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, with the Saudi armed forces coordinating with U.S. Central Command to target Iranian-backed proxies operating from Iraqi territory, after interception of several UAVs which were attempting to target oil facilities in Eastern and Riyadh regions. The Kingdom reiterated that it does not seek escalation but will respond decisively to any aggression directed against it, according to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

On Saturday, August 1, U.S. President Donald Trump announced on his platform, Truth Social, that Iran and other Middle Eastern Countries have asked the U.S. to “hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to.” Trump added that “This would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat.” Following this, the U.S. has canceled a planned attack on Iran, but Tehran still has not claimed that these talks are ongoing, let alone any measure of mediation. The cancellation of the planned attack, however, does not mean U.S. military operations have ceased.

On Sunday, August 2, The Saudi Press Agency reported that HRH Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman spoke by phone with U.S. President Trump and “stressed the need to prioritize dialogue to reduce escalation and the importance of making every possible effort to achieve calm that paves the way for diplomatic solutions” in order to preserve both regional and international security. Prior to these latest updates, Washington has maintained that the U.S. and Iran were already engaged in what was described as “very friendly negotiations” following a pause in military strikes. However, Tehran had publicly denied holding direct talks with Washington. According to Axios, Oman is leading the mediation effort, with Qatar, Pakistan and Egypt involved alongside Washington envoys.

Last week on July 30, Saudi Arabia announced a multinational Red Sea maritime defense alliance, seeking the support of over 50 countries and organizations. Thirteen countries other than Saudi Arabia have already signed on, including Türkiye, Pakistan, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Nigeria, Jordan, Bangladesh, Yemen, Djibouti and Somalia. Other participating countries have also expressed support and are in the process of completing their internal procedures and approvals to join the declaration.

The declaration remains open to other interested parties. The Gulf states of the United Arab Emirates and Oman have not yet signed, despite having similar security objectives. Representatives from 43 of the 51 countries and organizations invited to join the alliance attended a meeting on Thursday in Riyadh, the headquarters of the operation.

The initiative effectively places Saudi Arabia at the center of multinational maritime security in the Red Sea at a time when U.S. naval resources are increasingly divided between deterring Iran in the Gulf and protecting commercial shipping.

The Saudi Defence Ministry noted that the EU already has a naval protection mission in the Red Sea, with a delegation from the European Union being present at the meeting. Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman also held a meeting with President Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday, however he reportedly told Washington that the Kingdom was opposed to further escalation of the wider U.S.-Israel war, and its objective is to “defend itself”.

The Kingdom reportedly told Washington that it can manage the situation with the Houthis in Yemen itself, and does not need the U.S. to get involved.

Why is the Red Sea so crucial?

The Red Sea forms part of the maritime corridor leading to the Suez Canal, through which around 15 percent of global maritime trade moves. When security in the Strait cannot be guaranteed, shipping carriers are rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid sailing through an active military zone, where cargo is at risk and war-risk insurance premiums can increase significantly.

Beginning in 2023, Houthi attacks on commercial vessels similarly targeted carriers in the Red Sea, which reduced container tonnage moving through the Suez Canal by 82 percent, and increased booking a voyage on short notice from Shanghai to Europe by 256 percent.

The Houthis demonstrated in that conflict that they did not need to strike every ship in order to create an incentive to avoid the Strait. However, when carriers chose to avoid the Strait, major consequences arose, significantly increasing the cost of every ton of cargo.

Rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope can add roughly 3,000 to 3,500 nautical miles, approximately seven to 10 days in additional sailing time, for a Europe to Singapore voyage. For some routes, consequences are substantially greater. A tanker carrying Saudi crude from Yanbu to Taiwan that avoids the Bab el-Mandeb Strait could extend the voyage from 19 to 48 days, adding roughly USD 2.5 million in cost, according to a Reuters analysis based on Kpler and LSEG data.

All of this is compounded by the severe disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, where on Aug 2, only 19 ships transited in 24 hours, representing only 31 percent of pre-conflict traffic, which has limited deadweight tonnage throughput (DWT) to 3.2 million of the 10.3 million pre-conflict average. However, this is an increase from Friday, August 1, where only 10 transits were recorded in 24 hours, marking only 11.4 percent of transits and 1.2 million DWT compared to pre-conflict levels.

Before the conflict, 25 percent of global seaborne oil trade moved through the Strait, alongside 29 percent of global liquefied natural gas trade, 38 percent of liquefied petroleum gas trade, 19 percent of crude oil trade, 19 percent of refined petroleum products trade, and 13 percent of chemical trade. Together, severe disruption of the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb would simultaneously constrain Gulf energy exports and render the shortest maritime route connecting Asia and Europe increasingly untenable for commercial shipping.

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For the last few years, Artificial intelligence has been making increasingly intrusive demands for our attention.

It burst onto the scene like a child prodigy, enthralling us with feats of brilliance. With consummate ease, it removed drudgery from our tasks and began helping us achieve our personal and workplace objectives.

Daud Khan

As is the case with adolescents, there have been calls to set rules and regulations on AI, applying appropriate limits on what AI can and cannot do. The aim being to allow us time to deal with its immediate impacts on, for example, the jobs market, on media and communication, and on its military use.

But would government imposed regulations solve the problem? The answer is no for several reasons.

Firstly, there is the siren call of easier access to vast stores of knowledge, top quality writing skills and polished images and infographics. It is hard to resist the temptation to delegate boring tasks to AI, such as drafting emails that respond to routine messages. From there it is a slippery slope towards AI writing our university or job applications, office memos, or manuals and instructional content. However, these are tasks that define who we are and how others perceive us. And this reliance on AI kills creativity, individuality and human relations – there is no longer a turn of phrase or a spelling mistake that makes the message special.

Thomas McMahon

Secondly, AI Psychosis is becoming a pervasive disruptor of social relations. AI models are purposely designed for “engagement farming” – a fancy term for hooking people into an ever-increasing reliance on these services. It achieves this through sycophantic responses that feed one’s ego or anxieties, releasing endorphins and creating a craving for more.

We can now access gratifying, yet wholly synthetic, social interactions at our fingertips via chatbots. Consequently, we risk crafting individualised reality bubbles that are unchecked by the social norms we experience in the real world. Will it become easier and more pleasurable to interact with an intelligent machine to fulfill our need to talk, to discuss books, or for emotional engagement without fear of rejection – at any time of day or night?

Thirdly, if we allow machines to shape our thoughts and emotions, we risk destroying diversity of opinion, crushing creativity and resulting in a unified, monolithic narrative that is controlled by the megacorporations providing these AI services.

Pope Leo XIV expressed this concern in his recent encyclical where he warned of “the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences, and the pretense that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance”.

Lastly, it is essential to consider how the mismanagement of AI has the potential to drive a further wedge between rich and poor populations. The Pope cautions us of being misled by “a technology that promises to free us from all weakness, and models of wellbeing that leave behind entire populations”.

Increased focus is being placed on the impact of data centers within local communities, given their inordinate usage of electricity and water and the constant noise pollution these facilities generate. At full capacity, processing a daily 10 billion Gigabytes of data, a 100 MW data center consumes up to 2.4 million KWh of electricity and 2 million litres of water per day – more than a small city.

The human brain can process 74 Gigabytes of data while sipping a tiny 0.3 KWh of electricity (260 calories or 12% of total daily energy intake). Our bodies require a daily ration of 2.5 litres of water to function normally. Contrast this with preparing a 100-word email using ChatGPT, where each prompt-and-response interaction consumes the water in a standard 500 ml bottle. Even from a strictly environmentally-conscious viewpoint, surely it would be better to use our brains for this instead?

However, whatever our concerns, the genie is out of the bottle and there is no going back – we must learn to use AI properly. We need to better understand its limitations and where it delivers greatest impact, given the resources required.

AI should not be seen as a substitute for human expertise but instead complementary to it. Indeed, the more expertise one has in any given field, the more valuable a contribution AI makes. Experts can better formulate more pertinent questions and redirect the conversation should the AI meander off course. Experts also detect errors more easily in what may appear to be perfectly valid responses.

It is essential that we encourage people, particularly our young people, to continue learning and perfecting their chosen crafts, ignoring the wild marketing claims that various professions have been largely solved by AI already. The more knowledge and expertise the younger generation can build, the more judiciously and selectively they can deploy AI in their work and for society’s future benefit.

Daud Khan is a retired UN staff based in Rome. He has degrees in economics from LSE and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a degree in Environmental Management from Imperial College London.

Thomas McMahon is a Data Engineer who specialises in developing bespoke AI systems for UN agencies.

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A container port in Bukit Merah, Singapore. Credit: Unsplash/CHUTTERSNAP

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 2026 (IPS)

East Asia and the Pacific’s (EAP) maritime system has powered the region’s rise as the world’s largest trading and manufacturing center, but the infrastructure supporting that system has become increasingly vulnerable.

According to a new World Bank report, EAP will require nearly USD 900 billion in maritime investment through 2040, as aging vessels, growing trade volumes, and the transition towards alternative fuels place pressure on vital shipping networks propping up the region’s rapid economic growth.

Container trade across the region is projected to grow by 3.5 percent to 4 percent annually over the next decade, meaning ports have to build the additional capacity to accommodate approximately 300 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) by 2040. The World Bank estimates that modernizing ports will require USD 180 billion through 2040, while more than USD 280 billion will be needed to replace and upgrade regional and domestic fleets.

Such investment comes as maritime transport remains a major contributor to economic activity across the region. Maritime trade in the region supports up to USD 3.7 trillion in economic activity, moving over 6 billion tons of cargo, approximately half of the entire seaborne cargo trade. For every ton of cargo moved through the region’s ports, approximately USD 155 in overall economic output is generated, alongside USD 75 in direct GDP. A ton of imported steel, for example, can become an input for manufacturers producing automobiles, machinery or construction materials, generating additional economic activity well beyond the initial movement of the cargo through the port.

EAP’s role in global maritime trade is particularly significant when looking at the countries that border the Strait of Malacca, where an estimated 38 percent of global maritime trade passed through in 2023, according to the OECD. More than 100,000 vessels transit the Strait of Malacca annually, making it the busiest maritime chokepoint globally, with more than twice the traffic of the Strait of Hormuz under normal conditions.

In Singapore, merchandise trade–the combined value of goods imported and exported– reached USD 964 billion in 2024, equivalent to approximately 179 percent of the country’s USD 540 billion GDP. Singapore’s ports simultaneously handled approximately 41 million TEUs of container traffic, and processed 295 million tons of seaborne trade, making it the second busiest container port in the world. In neighboring Malaysia, merchandise trade reached approximately USD 631 billion, equivalent to nearly 150 percent of its USD 422 billion GDP, while its ports handled another 28 million TEUs, processing 447 million tons of seaborne trade, with Port Klang, Malaysia’s main port, being the 10th-busiest port in the world. Indonesia processed the greatest volume of the three nations, at 900 million tons.

China demonstrates the scale at which the region’s largest ports are already operating, and how investment in automation and digital infrastructure can increase their capacity. The Port of Shanghai became the first in the world to handle more than 50 million TEUs in 2024, while its newest automated terminals require approximately 70 percent less labor while achieving 30 percent higher productivity. Container vessels spend an average of only 1 to 1.2 days at Chinese ports, compared with the Port of Los Angeles where container vessels spend an average of two days. For reference, six of the top 10 busiest ports in the world are located in China, demonstrating its role in global maritime connectivity.

Beyond the direct costs of port operations, ships can spend up to 9 percent of their time waiting at anchorage. These delays can leave vessels with less time to complete subsequent legs of a voyage, encouraging higher sailing speeds and increasing fuel consumption and operating costs. An IMO-backed study found that optimizing container-ship speeds around expected port arrival times could reduce average fuel consumption by approximately 14 percent per voyage. Greater predictability and faster turnaround can therefore allow ports and vessels to move cargo more efficiently while reducing fuel costs and emissions—an increasingly important advantage as EAP prepares to accommodate an additional 300 million TEUs by 2040.

While premier global ports require significant investments in automation and new technology to increase efficiency and expand potential TEU throughput, smaller ports can achieve substantial results through simpler, less capital-intensive infrastructure improvements.

At the Port of Funafuti in Tuvalu, improvements as basic as paving cargo-handling areas and improving drainage reduced cargo-handling breakdowns by 80 percent and cut average vessel turnaround from seven days to between two and three days. These gains show that the approach to modernizing ports in the region is not uniform. Some ports will require more advanced technology and higher investment while others simply need to revitalize their existing systems, in accordance with the volume of cargo their ports already receive.

Modernizing ports, however, addresses only one side of the region’s maritime infrastructure challenge. The vessels docking at ports are themselves aging. Replacing and upgrading vessels operating within and between economies across EAP will require more than USD 280 billion through 2040. Of that total, approximately USD 150 billion will be needed to renew domestic fleets and another USD 97 billion to replace regional vessels, with dual-fuel capability adding USD 36.5 billion in additional costs.

The investment is not solely about expanding capacity. Significant portions of the region’s fleets are already more than 25 years old, making vessels more expensive to maintain, less fuel efficient and more susceptible to breakdowns and accidents. The World Bank estimates that replacing just 30 percent of domestic vessels by 2035 with ships meeting international standards could cut accident rates in half.

The reliability of these vessels also carries consequences beyond the shipping industry, particularly for the region’s archipelagic economies. In the Philippines, 98 percent of inter-island trade in food, fuel, and other goods depends on domestic shipping. Across Southeast Asia in general, maritime networks are critical to regional food trade, with rice shipments alone supplying more than 60 million people across EAP.

Disruptions caused by aging or unreliable vessels can therefore extend beyond higher costs for shipping companies, affecting the movement and price of essential goods in communities dependent on maritime transport.

Yet the largest individual component of the region’s maritime investment requirement lies not in ports or vessels, but in the fuels that will power them.

Developing supply chains for alternative marine fuels could require approximately USD 433 billion through 2040. Green ammonia alone could require approximately USD 310 billion, followed by USD 81 billion for green methanol and USD 42 billion for renewable liquefied natural gas (LNG).

The scale of the required investment reflects how early the transition remains. More than 99 percent of marine fuel consumed in 2025 was still conventional fuel, while fuel accounts for approximately 40 to 60 percent of vessel operating costs, according to the report.

Transitioning away from those fuels requires more than replacing engines. New fuels must be produced, transported, stored, and ultimately supplied to vessels through new bunkering infrastructure at ports, effectively requiring the development of new maritime energy supply chains alongside the existing system.

The transition also presents a coordination challenge. Shipowners have limited incentive to pay premiums for dual-fuel vessels without confidence that alternative fuels will be widely available, while ports and fuel producers face similar uncertainty about investing in bunkering and production infrastructure without sufficient demand. The World Bank argues that predictable regulation and coordinated investment will be necessary to develop vessels, fuel production and port infrastructure simultaneously.

The nearly USD 900 billion investment requirement ultimately extends across every link of the maritime system. Ports will have to accommodate hundreds of millions of additional containers through a combination of new capacity, automation and basic infrastructure improvements, while aging domestic and regional fleets will require replacement on a massive scale. At the same time, the transition toward alternative fuels will require not only new vessels, but the development of entirely new production, storage, transport and bunkering networks.

Financing this maritime venture through 2040 is not the only challenge. The investment must be coordinated across ports, vessels, and fuel supply chains so that each leg of the network can develop alongside others, matching the volume of cargo that moves through rapidly growing region.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For nearby communities, the consequences are dire.

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

Forests Falling, Rivers Dying

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

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

The environmental consequences, he warned, have been severe.

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

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

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

Mercury’s Silent Toll

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The impacts extend far beyond mining sites themselves.

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

Following the Money

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

London’s Hidden Role

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Crisis Outpacing Regulation

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

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

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

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

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

Searching for Solutions

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

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

The results, she says, are encouraging.

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

Beyond the Gold Rush

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

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

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

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Ferdinand Wafula (left) explains a point to farmers during an exchange visit in Makueni, Kenya. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
MAKUENI, Kenya, Jul 15 2026 (IPS)

At Yumbuni Village in Kenya’s Makueni County, farmers from Vihiga and Kakamega counties have travelled over 560 kilometres to join their colleagues in Kathonzweni Ward and see the progress of experiments being carried out on different homemade organic fertilisers and other farm inputs.

“In a special way, we are conducting community-led agroecology research, comparing the performance of different on-farm-made biofertilisers in three counties: Kakamega, Vihiga and here in Makueni,” said Ferdinand Wafula, Coordinator of Bio Gardening Innovations (BIOGI), a local non-profit organisation coordinating the activity with support from the Agroecology Fund and the Drylands Natural Resource Centre (DNRC).

On Daniel Mulinge’s farm, members of the Yumbuni Community-Based Organisation (CBO) have strategically planted some of the most commonly used drought-tolerant crops, such as pigeon peas, cowpeas, bush beans, and open-pollinated maize varieties, among others, on different small blocks and in rows.

Each row is labelled based on the type of biofertiliser used during planting, among them bokashi, solid biostimulants, inoculated compost and composted manure, with a control line, planted without any form of fertiliser.

“Unlike in conventional farming, where nutrients from synthetic fertilisers are introduced to dead soils so as to feed the plant directly, here, we are giving life to the soil using organic fertilisers so that the soil can eventually feed the plant,” said Mulinge, who is one of the Lead Farmers in Makueni.

After planting, each row is monitored from the time of germination, with all features recorded in terms of germination rate for each row and the strength and length of the shoots. The next record is taken during flowering, to determine which lines flower first and at maturity. For bush beans for example, they count the number of healthy plants in each row at maturity, the number of pods on each bush, and the number of beans in each pod.

They also record the weight of 100 beans from each row to determine which biofertiliser delivered the best quality.

“This is a practical farm model for agroecology transition, and through this exercise, farmers are finding practical answers through hands-on, farmer-led experimentations that strengthen their understanding and their confidence,” said Wafula. “Our objective is to identify practical actions that are needed to scale successful agroecolocal innovation from the existing few farmers to the entire community,” he said.

According to the Heinrich Böll Foundation, soil degradation in East Africa is a silent crisis. The organisation points out that over 40 percent of soils are degraded, which threatens the region’s agricultural foundation and resilience. Yet, among other reasons, the problem is caused by unsustainable farming practices.

But according to BIOGI, use of biofertilisers can easily heal the soil over time, reduce and eventually eliminate dependence on expensive synthetic fertilisers, conserve soil moisture and facilitate adaptation to the climate crisis.

So far, in the first season, bokashi biofertiliser is emerging as one of the best inputs in both the Makueni dryland ecosystem and the tropical environment of Kakamega and Vihiga counties.

Unlike traditional composters, bokashi is a fertiliser made by fermenting organic matter in an oxygen-free environment. The process uses an activator made of micro-organisms like lactic acid bacteria or yeasts to help decompose waste by promoting fermentation. They break down organic matter while inhibiting the proliferation of bacteria responsible for putrefaction.

This is a technique that originated from Japan, with farmers using kitchen wastes to make small quantities of bokashi for kitchen gardens. But in Kenya, farmers are now producing it in larger quantities and even selling it in agro-vets.

“For the beans, lines that were planted using bokashi were able to give between 20 and 25 pods per bush, followed by those planted using compost manure, which yielded up to 18 pods per bush on average,” said Mulinge. The same trend was observed in Vihiga and Kakamega.

“Bokashi has performed well on vegetables such as kale, pumpkin and scallions in Vihiga County,” said Julius Asitiba, one of the farmers who travelled for the knowledge exchange trip.

According to Wafula, these findings will be of great value to county governments that have unveiled their agroecology policies. “I call upon county governments to invest in such farm inputs and research so that farmers do not have to depend on imported inputs that are often affected by geopolitics,” he said.

The ongoing community-led research was designed for three long rainy seasons for both ecologies of Western and Eastern Kenya, considering that seasons are not constant in terms of amount of rainfall, among other climatic factors.

“This is just the first season,” said Wafula. “We intend to repeat the experiments for two more seasons so that we generate as much data as possible.”

Beyond documenting the performance of biofertilisers, farmers are also sharing indigenous knowledge on pest control and the conservation of biodiversity.

According to Mulinge, pests in all the trials in Makueni are controlled using biopesticides made from locally available materials that include hot chilli, leaves from the neem tree, garlic and onions, Mexican marigold and even tobacco leaves.

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Ask why so many Indian classrooms struggle, and the answers arrive in the language of audit: Too few trained teachers, too many vacancies, weak colleges of education and low accountability. Each of these is real, and each matters. Yet none of them explains a quiet confession a veteran teacher made to me, years into her career, holding a teacher training degree all the while. “Only this program”, she said, “made me realize what my prior training had left out”. The program she was referring to is a small teaching preparation program in Gurugram, North India called I Am A Teacher, or IAAT.

Vani S. Kulkarni

We argue endlessly about whether teachers are qualified. We rarely ask whether they have been formed.

Across hundreds of hours of conversation, a pattern emerged. To become a teacher, these women and men had to become three things at once: a person, an educator, and someone who could earn a living from the work. We obsess, rightly, over the second and third. We build degrees and licenses and salary scales around them. The first we treat as if it takes care of itself. It does not.

Formation as a person sounds soft until you watch what it does in a classroom. One teacher described a child who was being difficult, the kind of child she once would have disciplined and labeled. After her training, she found herself feeling something closer to empathy, sitting with the situation instead of punishing it. A week later, she said, the child was thriving. Another spoke of finally learning to listen to her students, and to her own children, after years of mistaking instruction for relationship. Many said a version of the same thing: that a conventional degree had certified them, but had not made them ready to teach on the first day. This program, they felt, had.

There is a gendered story here too, and it is important. Almost ninety percent of the teachers in the program were women, many returning to work for a second innings, after the corporate world or after years at home. For them, the experience was about identity, confidence and economic independence as much as it was about pedagogy. When we talk about teacher quality in the abstract, we forget that the teaching workforce in this country is overwhelmingly of women, and a certificate, rarely captures that what brings them into a classroom, and keeps them there.

But here is the finding that should trouble policymakers most, and I offer it precisely because it complicates the hopeful story. Over a decade, the meaning of this program changed for the people inside it. Its earliest cohorts spoke of a calling. They used words like temple, transformation, a remaking of the self. Later cohorts, without quite abandoning that language, increasingly described the program more materialistically, in the currency of placements and salaries. The expressive was slowly giving way to the instrumental.

I do not read this as the failure of one program. I read it as the gravitational pull of a system that values teaching only as a credential and a job, and that drags even its idealists toward the transactional. If this is what happens inside a program built expressly to resist that pull, it tells us something about the field as a whole.

As the National Education Policy rebuilds teacher education around new integrated degrees, it has a rare chance to ask a better question than how many teachers we can certify. The harder question is whether we are forming them. And formation cannot be examined into existence. It needs mentoring, time, reflection, and the experience of belonging to a community of fellow teachers. These are exactly the things a metrics-driven system finds hardest to fund, because they do not show up on a dashboard, and because their results appear years later, in a child who was seen rather than sorted.

I want to be honest about the limits of what I studied. One program in one city is not a national blueprint. There were skeptics among the teachers I met, some who found the approach overdone, and circumstances my research could not reach. A small case is not proof. But a small case such as IAAT that for a decade has quietly and against the current, tried to keep the expressive dimension central by focusing on formation of teacher as a person can still hold up a mirror, and what this one reflects is a blind spot we can no longer afford.

India does not have a shortage of people willing to teach. It has a shortage of attention to who they become on the way. A license certifies that a person has met a requirement. It does not certify that a person has been made ready to stand in front of thirty children and actually see them. Until we learn to value that making, and until we are willing to pay for it, we will keep mistaking the certificate for the teacher. Recognising and resourcing teacher-training programs such as IAAT would cost little and benefit teacher quality a great deal.

Vani S. Kulkarni is a sociologist affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, and has held research and teaching appointments at Harvard and Yale universities. Her research navigates the intricate crossroads of Global Health, Education, Race and Caste, Gender, Sociology of Trust, Development, and Democracy.

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Trump insists the West must unite on his terms against the Rest, particularly China and Iran. Europe, however, wants greater Trump support for Ukraine’s Zelensky regime to replace Putin’s leadership of Russia.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

After Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s Munich appeal for Western unity based on shared race, culture and imperial history, this appears to have been a European effort to strengthen its alliance with the US.

The unsubstantiated charge of Chinese military support to Russia against Ukraine, a claim never corroborated by Kyiv, is expected to worsen relations between Europe and China.

Portraying China as a strategic threat to Europe justifies greater belligerence against Beijing. It no longer seems to matter that China has never endorsed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

However, China retains strong ties with Kyiv, calling for a ceasefire and political settlement, while repeatedly offering to mediate between the warring neighbours.

The G7summit of the seven largest rich economies in late June followed the EU in trying to consolidate Western strategic solidarity against Russia, China and Iran.

With financial crises from 1997 threatening G7 legitimacy, then US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers initiated the G20. But the recently expanded G7 role marginalises the more inclusive but less amenable G20.

Nurina Malek

More Chinese goods have entered European markets, with prices and quality that most others cannot match. For years, Western leaders happily enabled this by liberalising trade, appreciating cheap Chinese imports, for keeping inflation low.

After decades of state-encouraged investment, China’s still growing industrial capacity now supplies the world, enabled by Western-drafted WTO rules.

Before Trump 2.0, Washington had imposed investment restrictions, Section 301 measures, sanctions, tariffs and more following Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’. Facing less US market access, more Chinese exports have gone elsewhere.

European industry can no longer compete, even where it once led. Instead of neoliberal WTO trade liberalisation, EU protectionism supposedly ‘levels the playing field’.

US advisers increasingly warn European officials that China’s industrial ‘overcapacity’ will soon scale up the ‘China shock’ in most industrially significant supply chains.

China now refines and processes most of the world’s ‘rare earth’ minerals, exercising near-monopsonistic leverage over suppliers by processing at scale at much lower cost.

With China successfully countering Trump’s trade policies, Western leaders worry Beijing will abuse its near-monopolistic control of rare earth elements, which downstream industries need.

Jeffrey Sachs argues that New York and London rare earth market reactions indicate major institutional investors view recent developments as significant.

G7 vs China
Protecting European industry, labour and economic sovereignty is now constrained by the rules Western leaders put in place over decades, often coordinated by the OECD.

Splits inside the EU soon extended beyond commercial faultlines to ostensible strategic interests defined by the fluid geopolitics after the first Cold War.

German car exports to China have been superseded by Chancellor Metz’s military Keynesianism, in line with Trump’s demand for NATO allies to spend much more on the military to greatly strengthen Western military power and global dominance.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s earlier push for unaligned European ‘strategic autonomy’ has given way to a NATO+ strategic view embracing Western imperialism.

Meanwhile, smaller EU member states remain cautious, fearing the collateral effects of new Western ambitions, such as Chinese restrictions on imports that Europe depends on.

Great power rivalry
With the Iran war refusing to fade from daily headlines despite Trump’s on-off-on ceasefire, other myths are also evaporating. Few still believe Israel will accept a ‘two-state solution’ or that peace will prevail between trading partners.

NATO, OECD, G7, EU and other such arrangements have become variable links in the hegemonic US-led bloc. Such coalitions – including Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan – were never seamless together or fully fit-for-purpose.

Trump expects unilateral US aggression against Washington’s chosen enemies must be fully supported and subsidised by NATO allies, with reluctance deemed disloyal, even antagonistic.

Countries not aligned with the major poles may be alternatively courted and coerced by rival poles, especially by the affluent West. Cooperation among others may be seen and portrayed as proof of the existence of an antagonistic bloc.

Multiple poles are likely to coalesce into the West versus the Rest, competing for support and influence, as those courted try to gain from their suitors.

With reduced government engagement and less sustained inter-state cooperation and order, disruptions in an increasingly anarchic world economy have required governments to prioritise resilience as businesses, consumers and labour face rising costs.

As the US and its allies weaponise economic rules and arrangements to discipline both friends and foes, the world economy is slowing unevenly as prices rise sporadically.

The US-Israel war on Iran underscores how current conflicts can develop in unpredictable ways as states and other significant non-state ‘actors’ innovate strategically in unexpected conditions.

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Aerial view of the Port of Dubai Emirate located in Jebel Ali district, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Credit: WikiMedia/Imre Solt

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 14 2026 (IPS)

Despite the importance of international trade as an engine for economic growth and development, only fourteen of the twenty-two Arab states are members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The remaining Arab states risk missing out on opportunities for greater integration into the global economy and the multilateral trading system facilitated by the WTO.

A new joint study produced by the WTO, the Arab Monetary Fund, the Islamic Development Bank, and the Islamic Centre for Development of Trade examines the benefits of WTO membership, the barriers facing Arab states seeking accession and the economic characteristics which define the region.

According to the publication, WTO membership has “facilitated and secured significant export opportunities in the markets of other WTO members,” while also developing “competitive market conditions and a business-friendly environment.” Membership can create the predictability and stability needed to attract foreign direct investment, while encouraging economic diversification and supporting regulatory reform.

The potential benefits of WTO membership can also be reflected by logistics performance of Arab economies. According to the World Bank’s 2023 Logistics Performance Index, Arab members of the WTO generally outperform non-member economies across infrastructure, international shipments, logistics competence, and other logistics related sectors.

The Index recorded that Arab WTO members had an average logistics score of 3.17 compared to an average of 2.25 among non-member states. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) ranked the highest among Arab economies with a score of 4.0. In contrast, non-member states such as Somalia and Libya received scores of 2.0 and 1.9.

Source: Author’s visualizations using data from International Logistics Performance Index (LPI) 2023, World Bank Group

Despite the potential benefits of WTO membership, WTO accession has proven to be a lengthy process for Arab states. Seven countries seeking membership — Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, and Syria — have been engaged in accession processes for an average of 18 or more years, with negotiations for some countries remaining inactive for extended periods.

The report attributed these delays to a combination of institutional challenges, political instability and economic turmoil. Political instability and conflict have especially disrupted investment and infrastructure which has halted much needed development across parts of the region, while weak regulatory frameworks have complicated efforts to align national policies with WTO requirements.

For accession to occur, it requires extensive legal and institutional reforms, coordination among regulatory agencies and ministries, and sustained political commitment throughout the years of negotiations. The report identifies the history of centrally planned economies as one of the defining characteristics which has complicated accession for some Arab states.

“An inevitable consequence of this history was the limited experience gained in regulating and governing a competitive private sector-led economy.” the report states. “A transformation from a centrally planned economy to a market economy model normally requires a fundamental shift in the government’s role from being a producer to becoming a regulator.”

These challenges are further complicated by the considerable economic differences among the Arab economies seeking integration within the global trading system.

Dependence on oil and gas for exports remains particularly significant. In 2020, 97 percent of Iraq’s total exports and 95 percent of both Algeria and Libya’s exports were fuel, all three of which are seeking WTO membership. The report argues that this dependence leaves economies vulnerable to fluctuations in global commodity markets and calls for greater economic diversification.

Economic disparities in the region can also be seen through merchandise trade composition. During 2022, Saudi Arabia had recorded a merchandise trade surplus of USD 221.3 billion, followed by the UAE at USD 112.3 billion and Qatar at USD 97.5 billion. Egypt on the other hand recorded a USD 37 billion trade deficit, while Morocco and Lebanon recorded deficits of USD 30.3 billion and USD 15.1 billion, reflecting their respective trade.

These trade compositions highlight the vastly different economic characteristics between Arab states and how they partake in the global trading system. Several of the region’s largest commodity exporters depend heavily on oil and gas, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq, Algeria, and Libya. Other Arab economies such as Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, and Lebanon, have smaller hydrocarbon sectors and greater dependence on imported goods.

These structural differences alongside varying levels of political stability and institutional capacity, mean that strategies for greater integration into the global trade system cannot be uniform. The report argues that WTO accession strategies must instead be tailored to individual economic and institutional circumstances of each country.

Although the Arab states might differ in how they trade, trade remains central to the region’s economic engine, accounting for 87 percent of GDP across the Arab economies in 2023. Intra-Arab trade on the other hand only accounted only for 9.9 percent of total exports, while intra-Arab imports represented 12.1 percent of total imports during the same period.

International organizations have sought to address some of the barriers facing countries seeking WTO membership. In Iraq, the European Union (EU) funded “strengthening the Agriculture and Agri-Food Value Chain and Improving Trade Policy project” (SAAVI) which has provided aid to Iraq’s WTO accession. SAAVI aims to align Iraq’s trade policies and international standards with the WTO framework through technical assistance, capacity building, and advisory services.

The report argues that greater involvement in the multilateral trading system can greatly support economic diversification and further integrate Arab economies into global value and supply chains. Especially when looking at the model of the gulf countries, where vital energy, petrochemicals, and metals have become nonnegotiable parts of the international trade system. However the report indicated that WTO membership alone cannot guarantee these outcomes. For the seven Arab states seeking accession, strengthening regulatory institutions, improving coordination across government agencies and maintaining sustained political commitment will be critical to advancing accession processes that have already lasted an average of more than 18 years.

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CARICOM Heads of Government during the opening ceremony of the 51st Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community in Gros Islet, Saint Lucia, on July 5, 2026. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
GROS ISLET, Saint Lucia , Jul 6 2026 (IPS)

Caribbean leaders are meeting in Saint Lucia for their annual summit, confronting a convergence of global and regional challenges ranging from rising living costs and climate change to crime, food security and geopolitical tensions.

The 51st Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the regional organisation that promotes economic integration, coordinates foreign policy and fosters cooperation among its 15 member states, runs until Wednesday.

Leaders are expected to discuss regional security, climate resilience, economic integration, trade, migration, food and water security and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.

The country’s Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre assumed the grouping’s rotating chairmanship.

He said he was taking over at a time of “profound uncertainty”, with Caribbean people feeling the effects of international instability in their daily lives.

“Our people feel these pressures every day,” Pierre said during the conference’s opening ceremony, citing the rising cost of food and energy, worsening climate impacts and growing concerns about crime and public safety.

He told the gathering that his six-month chairmanship would focus on ensuring regional integration delivers tangible benefits for Caribbean citizens rather than remaining confined to official meetings and declarations.

“Our people are asking a serious and legitimate question: What more can CARICOM do for me?” Pierre said. “We must make integration work for the ordinary citizen.”

The Saint Lucian leader outlined priorities that included strengthening regional unity, advancing the CARICOM Single Market and Economy, improving food and nutrition security, addressing violent crime and illegal firearms, expanding transportation links, increasing access to climate finance and developing a coordinated regional approach to artificial intelligence.

He also called for stronger support for young people, women, people with disabilities and other groups that have historically faced barriers to opportunity.

Pierre renewed CARICOM’s call for climate justice, arguing that Caribbean nations contribute little to global greenhouse gas emissions while bearing a disproportionate share of climate impacts. He urged the international community to expand access to climate finance, loss-and-damage funding and debt relief mechanisms that better reflect the vulnerability of small island developing states.

The summit comes as Caribbean governments continue to navigate the economic effects of global conflicts, supply chain disruptions and inflation while confronting increasingly severe hurricanes, prolonged droughts and other climate-related disasters that disproportionately affect small island developing states.

CARICOM Secretary-General Carla Barnett said the region’s founders envisioned cooperation as a practical response to external pressures.

“Then, as now, external factors and influences put at risk the vision of regional integration,” Barnett said, adding that leaders must accelerate implementation of long-standing regional commitments, particularly within the CARICOM Single Market and Economy.

Barnett pointed to progress in expanding the free movement of skilled workers, increasing agricultural production under the region’s food security strategy and strengthening international partnerships but said much work remains to implement agreed regional measures fully.

Outgoing CARICOM Chairman, Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis, Terrance Drew said his tenure reinforced the importance of unity during a period marked by global uncertainty, climate threats and questions about regional cohesion.

“The question is no longer whether CARICOM will survive,” Drew said. “The question now is how we strengthen CARICOM for the next generation.”

He said Caribbean governments had continued working together on food security, climate resilience, regional security, Haiti, reparatory justice and international diplomacy despite mounting external pressures.

Founded by the Treaty of Chaguaramas on July 4, 1973, CARICOM promotes economic integration, coordinated foreign policy and functional cooperation among its member states. The organisation now comprises 15 member states and seven associate members and works across areas including climate change, agriculture, education, health, security, trade, transportation and sustainable development.

This year’s meeting is being held under the theme ‘People, Partnerships, Prosperity: Promoting a Secure and Sustainable Future’. Leaders will continue discussions through July 8 before issuing a final communiqué expected to outline decisions on regional security, climate resilience, economic integration and other priorities identified during the conference.

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With elections likely to be held in August, the young people in Haiti are moving ahead, creating opportunities in music and digitalization and agricultural cooperatives, which are reinventing food self-sufficiency. Credit: Shutterstock

By Xavier Michon
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Jun 29 2026 (IPS)

There is a question that is never asked plainly enough in reports on Haiti: why, despite decades of analysis, billions in international aid, and an abundance of national strategies, does the potential of Haitian youth remain so consistently underutilized? This report, The Silent Transformation, is an attempt at an honest answer.

And that answer begins with an admission: for too long, we have viewed this generation as a problem to manage rather than a solution to mobilize.

Haiti is one of the youngest countries in the Western Hemisphere. More than one in two Haitians is under the age of 25. This reality should be at the heart of every policy decision, every investment strategy, every dialogue with international partners. It is not yet. And it is precisely to change this that this report exists.

We are at a turning point unlike any in the country’s recent history. For the first time since 2016, general elections are on the horizon. What may appear as an institutional milestone is, in fact, a deeply human one: an entire generation is preparing to vote for the first time. Citizens who were between 8 and 17 years old during the last general election. Since then, they have built businesses, lived through an earthquake, a pandemic, a presidential assassination and an unprecedented security crisis—and at no point during all of this were they consulted about the future of their own country.

Ten years without elections. Ten years of shaping their own lives without their institutions recognizing them as full actors. This paradox lies at the heart of this report.

Because this generation has not waited for permission to begin its transformation. It has done so on its own, in adversity, with whatever tools were within reach. And this is where the central thesis of this document lies: Haitian youth are not waiting for development. They are already producing it.

Mannitòks are inventing fintech without waiting for banks to modernize. Agricultural cooperatives are reinventing food self-sufficiency in secure areas. Coding clubs in Cap-Haïtien and Carrefour are training the next generation of developers without formal computer science schools. Designers in Pétion-Ville, musicians exporting kompa and Kreyòl rap to global platforms, DJs connecting Port-au-Prince to the diaspora, and artisans in Noailles are sustaining a cultural economy still absent from official economic radars.

These are not isolated success stories. They are signs of a structural transformation unfolding before our eyes—quietly, because we have not yet learned how to see it with the right tools.

This report is an attempt to develop those tools. It documents, analyzes, and recommends. But it also does something rarer in development literature: it shifts the perspective. It starts from the creative genius of Haitian youth and works upward toward public policy, rather than moving from policy down to beneficiaries.

This inversion is not rhetorical—it is methodological. And it changes what we see.

What it reveals is demanding for all of us. It shows that the main barrier to youth development in Haiti is not a lack of potential, but a lack of recognition of that potential. It shows that the most effective policies will not be those designed for young people, but those designed with them. And it shows, finally, that the international community—including UNDP—must embrace a new kind of humility: sometimes, to support means to step back, to remove obstacles rather than impose solutions.

UNDP supports these dynamics: we promote digital skills, access to finance and innovation ecosystems. Our initiatives—from supporting Fab Labs to advancing regulatory reforms—aim to create an environment in which youth-led enterprises can thrive. But we also know that our most valuable role is the one we build on the ground, alongside those who are already taking action. This report calls on us to listen as much as we act.

I warmly thank Group Croissance and CEDEL Haiti, whose field expertise and unwavering commitment have shaped every page of this document. Above all, I thank the young Haitians who shared their experiences, their vision and their clarity—because this is their report before it is ours.

To them, I want to say this: your determination is not only your strength—it is, objectively, the most valuable resource Haiti possesses. The upcoming election will be your first meeting with the ballot box. It will not be your last. And if this report helps ensure that this moment lives up to what you have already built without itin adversity, without permission, with unwavering ambition, then it will have achieved its essential purpose.

None of this happens in isolation. Canada has been a trusted partner in Haiti’s development journey, and its continued support for initiatives that invest in people, ideas and long-term possibilities reflects exactly the kind of partnership Haiti needs. To the Government of Canada and Global Affairs Canada: thank you. Your commitment to a Haiti defined by its potential—not only its challenges—helps make initiatives like this one possible.

The path ahead requires courage, collaboration and clear-eyed reflection on what has not worked—but above all, renewed faith in what is possible. Because while the past teaches us caution, it is the future this generation is already shaping that must guide our choices.

Let us take this path together—by letting you show the way.

XAVIER MICHON IS Resident Representative, UNDP Haiti

Source: UNDP

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Excerpt:

(L-R) Horacio (Luis) Carvalho, CEO of Climate Change Ventures, and Faraz Khan, MBE, at London Climate Action Week. Carvalho's firm advises on carbon mitigation and green investment projects. They signed an MOU to develop markets with Brazilian CPR Verde (green rural product certificate), a Brazilian financial credit instrument used to fund environmental preservation, forestry conservation, and carbon sequestration. The markets they are eyeing will be Saudi Arabia, Africa and Pakistan. Credit: Faraz Khan

By Zofeen Ebrahim
LONDON & KARACHI, Pakistan, Jun 26 2026 (IPS)

The 30 COP gatherings may not have done what three months of US-Israeli war against Iran did: expose the world’s vulnerability to fossil fuels.

As the world faced its biggest energy shock in a decade, the case for investing in clean energy suddenly became far more compelling.

As an intense heatwave grips Europe, with London’s Met Office issuing a “risk to life” warning and the closure of shops, offices and schools alongside disruptions to transport during the London Climate Action Week (LCAW), calls for this shift are gaining even greater momentum.

New Sense of Urgency

“The sentiment is palpable among policymakers, investors and business leaders,” conceded Faraz Khan, MBE.

A Pakistani entrepreneur and co-founder and partner of Pakistan-based Sustainadility, a technology, data and advisory firm, with over 25 years of experience in multi-stakeholder investments and in drafting environmental, sustainability and governance frameworks, is among those gathered to discuss the future of climate finance and the energy transition.

Speaking to IPS by phone on the sidelines of LCAW which closes on June 28, Khan stressed the urgency of transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy, saying the shift would not be possible without investors and businesses.

Khan described the mood at LCAW, as “optimistic” tempered by caution. He also welcomed the attention Pakistan was getting. “Our country was lauded for its efforts in brokering the peace deal,” referring to the Islamabad Memorandum between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

From Rule-Making to Seeking Investment

Comparing the two events, he said the annual Bonn climate talks, held from June 8 to 18, focused on diplomatic negotiations and climate rule-making, while LCAW, also an annual event held since 2019, centres on mobilising private investment in sustainability and ESG and scaling these initiatives commercially.

“LCAW is more business- and private sector-orientated,” said Khan, who is also the founder and director of  SeedVentures, a Pakistan-based social impact organisation and impact investor.

Still, he said: “There are two sides to the coin. On the one hand, the US-Iran peace deal and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz have shown the world that oil remains crucial for the world to exist; but, on the other, many countries recognise that dependence on fossil fuels is not in their national interest and even poses a national security risk.”

Geopolitical conflicts have exposed the vulnerabilities associated with oil production, trade and transportation, which is why investment in alternative energy is expected to accelerate.

At a COP31 presidential meeting with the private sector at LCAW, which Khan attended, the conversation revolved around the circular economy, electrification and climate finance with some of the biggest names in the global climate community, including BlackRock, the World Bank, UNIDO, the IFC and several trade organisations.

“It was a gathering of the who’s who of the climate world,” Khan said with a laugh. “Even we made the cut.”

What was missing, however, Khan said, were women in decision-making roles. He was, however, impressed by those in the Turkish COP team, praising their intellectual rigour and commanding presence in the room, which he found to be “truly impressive”.

Beyond the composition of the meetings, Khan said the discussions themselves reflected a growing determination to move beyond rhetoric.

There was a strong sense in the room that a new precedent was about to be set by shifting the focus from negotiations to implementation, investment and action.

“Governments can create an enabling environment and UN frameworks can provide the rules, but ultimately it is investors, bankable projects and big businesses that will drive change,” he said.

While the Bonn climate talks focused on regulatory frameworks, LCAW’s focus is on climate finance and transactions, he noted. “And at Antalya, where the COP31 will be held this November, it will be about putting money where our mouths are—deploying capital into bankable projects and creating collaborative investment vehicles to scale climate action,” said Khan.

Private Sector Takes Centre Stage

He also observed that China was frequently cited as a global leader in clean energy investment.

“Across the various meetings, I sensed a strong and growing appetite for investment in renewable energy, and I believe this momentum will only accelerate,” he said.

Large businesses and institutions, he added, would be critical to delivering a just transition because their extensive operations and community links give them the reach needed to drive meaningful change.

The emphasis on electrification and reducing dependence on fossil fuels was echoed by Türkiye’s COP31 leadership.

Earlier this month, speaking to The Guardian on the sidelines of the climate talks in Bonn, Murat Kurum, Türkiye’s environment minister, said the 35% target would be “one of the defining priorities” of the COP31 presidency.

“By electrifying daily life, from transport to buildings and industry, we can protect families and businesses from volatile energy markets,” he told the media outlet.

Khan believed Pakistan has an opportunity to position itself at the forefront of this transition.

While Pakistan is frequently showcased as a victim of climate disasters, despite contributing less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, Khan said the global focus on solar should also shine a light on the country’s “silent solar revolution”, which has transformed its investment landscape.

“Pakistan has become a global example of how solar adoption can evolve rapidly, opening up substantial investment opportunities in solar manufacturing and battery production,” he said, adding that modernising the grid and scaling up utility-scale energy storage have become increasingly urgent.

Investing in Nature

Beyond renewable energy, Khan saw significant opportunities in nature-based investments.

Khan said Pakistan’s rich biodiversity—from mangroves and forests to wetlands, rangelands and mountain ecosystems—offers enormous investment potential, with private capital capable of both restoring and protecting these natural assets.

Agriculture accounts for a large share of Pakistan’s economy and is a major driver of biodiversity loss. He said private businesses could invest in regenerative agriculture, agroforestry and sustainable rice and cotton production, either to meet sustainability goals or as part of emerging biodiversity credit markets.

“Just as there are carbon credits, there are biodiversity credits, and these are directly linked to food security and agriculture,” Khan said. Given agriculture’s central role in Pakistan’s economy, he argued that the country holds enormous potential for biodiversity credits. “I think this is going to be truly phenomenal because it presents enormous investment opportunities,” he said.

But realising this potential will depend on Pakistan’s ability to attract sustained private investment.

Investment Challenges

Sadly, there are few takers.

Khan said Pakistan’s high sovereign risk remains the biggest obstacle to attracting international climate investment at scale, although recent policy reforms, including the Pakistan Green Taxonomy, green banking guidelines and ESG standards, have improved investor confidence.

He also pointed to a shortage of bankable projects, with many failing to attract global investors despite their strong fundamentals. Still, he said, the investment potential remains enormous.

Yet time may be of the essence.

If the recent turmoil in the Middle East exposed the world’s vulnerability to fossil fuels, Khan believes it also underscored the urgency of accelerating the clean energy transition. For Pakistan, he said, the opportunity is immense—but only if the country can create the conditions needed to attract the investment required to realise it.

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Leadership of the Global South has gradually declined since the 1980s. Many hope BRICS+ will fill the vacuum, but its purpose and membership suggest such hopes may be misplaced. A repurposed Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) offers the best way forward.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

In 1964, developing countries formed the G77 caucus and created the UN Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) within the UN system.

In 1974, the UN General Assembly called for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) after President Nixon ended the 1944 Bretton Woods international monetary system in 1971.

In 1979, the US Fed responded to Western stagflation by sharply raising interest rates. This triggered fiscal and sovereign debt crises in Latin America and Africa, forcing many to seek IMF emergency funds to cope.

Meanwhile, the Thatcher-Reagan-inspired counter-revolution against Keynesian and development economics led to ‘neoliberal’ Washington Consensus policy reforms, deepening economic contraction.

At New York’s Plaza Hotel, the US got its G7 caucus of the world’s 7 largest allied economies to address its overvalued dollar by requiring the currencies of Japan and Germany to appreciate sharply.

Nurina Malek

With its legitimacy at stake following the East Asian, Russian, and other financial crises of 1997-99, G7 finance ministers agreed in 1999 to create a more inclusive G20 grouping of finance ministers of the world’s 20 largest economies.

Soon after the 2008 global (actually Western) financial crisis began, the first G20 leaders’ summit convened in the White House in November 2008.

Making BRICS
‘BRICs’ was coined in late 2001 by then-Goldman Sachs Global Economic Research head Jim O’Neill, referring to Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

Ostensibly to include Africa, the BRICs invited South Africa to join, creating BRICS as a coalition of the five more independent large ‘emerging market’ economies.

Also serving as a caucus within the G20, BRICS has tried to improve international monetary and financial relations. It has since admitted more nations into an expanded BRICS+ with two tiers of affiliation.

To be sure, neither BRICS nor BRICS+ was ever intended to represent the even more diverse interests of the entire Global South. Understandably, it serves its ‘financially significant’ developing economy members.

BRICS and the South
The BRICS promise a world less dominated by the rich and powerful nations of the Global North, mainly in the West.

The world has been dominated by the US since the end of WW2, and especially after the first Cold War. Despite occasional dissent, the US’s European NATO allies seem happy playing second fiddle.

Many developing countries have long felt that existing arrangements do not serve their best interests. The BRICS seem to offer some ‘voice’ and alternative bases for international economic cooperation.

BRICS has undoubtedly strengthened the Global South’s voice and developed new arrangements to support developing country interests, especially to finance development.

The BRICS have also advocated on specific international issues for the Global South. All five BRICS countries have also led developing-country groupings on specific issues with varying degrees of success.

Unsurprisingly, many developing countries appreciate the BRICS role in such matters, with some choosing to publicly align with and even affiliate with it.

However, the BRICS expansion into BRICS+ is unlikely to resolve many problems faced by developing nations due to international power asymmetries and imbalances.

Potential and problems
The diversity of the Global South complicates any grouping’s claim to represent it.

BRICS+ brings together countries with very different political and economic systems, priorities and aspirations, including development goals and interests.

This diversity enhances BRICS’ broad appeal but also makes it difficult to ensure it becomes an effective platform consistently advocating all developing nations’ interests.

This challenge becomes more apparent when the interests and ambitions of weaker developing countries are compared with those of the major BRICS+ powers.

Many vulnerable nations are preoccupied with food security, structural change, deindustrialisation, environmental sustainability, planetary heating, and financialization.

Meanwhile, BRICS members seek to pursue their own strategic interests, garner finance and investments, boost their exports and increase their influence internationally.

Such objectives are not inherently contradictory, but rarely fully aligned. This makes it more difficult to pursue shared interests, advocate collectively, and sustain cooperation.

BRICS+ membership by invitation also limits its effective accountability to the Global South. It is unrealistic to expect BRICS+ to consistently advocate for the full range of concerns of all developing countries, especially the poorest and least influential.

The Global South should undoubtedly try to benefit from the economic weight and voice of BRICS+. But it can best advance its shared interests with its own voice and organised strength via a revived NAM, repurposed for peace, development and justice.

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As of now, geopolitics overtook trade policy uncertainty as the primary concern for countries. Credit: Unsplash / Sajimon Sahadevan

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 25 2026 (IPS)

Amidst increased geopolitical tensions, the risk of volatile energy markets, trade corridors, and regional stability in the Middle East has garnered more attention than trade policy in terms of its power to alter the global economy, according to new findings from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

In their report on trade and development, “Global Economy Faces a Geopolitical Challenge”, UNCTAD says that a protracted escalation “raises the likelihood of deeper disruptions in global trade and finance, potentially, foreshadowing a cascading crisis”.

Credit: UN Conference on Trade and Development (Trade and Development Foresights 2026)

Daily crude oil prices in the Middle East since the beginning of the conflict have risen from around USD 60-70, to a fluctuating rate between a high of over USD 110-. With oil prices surging more than 60 percent, and gas doubling in price, many markets have been left in an inflating scenario as higher energy prices increase macroeconomic pressure and overall slow and contract the economy.

The increase per barrel is largely due to a constriction of supply, where most Gulf economies can barely output oil due to a lack of transport ability through the strait of Hormuz. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) records a spike in the price of Brent crude rising over USD 100 per barrel and remaining at elevated levels, with European gas also jumping roughly “60 percent amid disruptions to LNG exports”.

The numbers are impacted by an estimated loss of capacity of 10 million barrels per day of oil and “about 500 million cubic meters per day of natural gas”. This is roughly 10 percent of global oil production, and roughly 5 percent of global natural gas production for every single day.

The IMF records the following:

Daily Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz (in number of vessels) between 26 February and 6 April 2026. Credit: IMF

Oil being an inelastic good means that consumers won’t be able to curb their spending. Rather, they have to pay more for as long as the conflict lasts as fuels are needed for many essential routine tasks, from driving your car, to taking your vitamins, to growing your food, and having your Amazon packages shipped.

In their April 2026 Regional Economic Outlook Update for the Middle East and Central Asia, the IMF details that a continued conflict will likely for every 10 percent rise in the average oil price lead to a loss of about 0.5 percent of GDP and an inflation increase of around 1 percent in Gulf economies, ultimately affecting global markets heavily.

As the report notes, “Longer trade disruptions or greater damage to oil production capacity raises the possibility of higher and more sustained oil prices and a larger risk premium than is currently embedded in oil futures prices”.

However, for developing countries higher energy prices hit a lot harder to consumers in developing countries, which in this case don’t have the same money to spare. The IMF warns that “Low-income countries and other fragile and conflict-affected states in the MENAP region are especially vulnerable to higher energy, fertilizer, and food prices”.

Due to the conflict, estimates stand that vulnerable economies, mostly least developed countries (16.1 billion) and small island developing states (4.3 billion), could incur a USD 20 billion a year increase in spending, representing a huge composition of their GDP expenditure.

Among least-developed nations, Mauritania is recorded to have their bill increase by 7.3 percent, The Gambia 6.3 percent, Burkina Faso 5.0 percent, Liberia and Zambia 4.3 percent, with 17 other least developed countries also estimating to increase their spending by at least 0.5 percent in terms of GDP points.

Similarly for small-island developing states, Vanuatu is recorded to have an increase of 5.8 percent, Maldives 5.2 percent, Tonga 4.4 percent, Mauritius 4.2 percent, and Fiji 3.2 percent, with 18 other small developing states recording an increase of at least 0.6%.

UNCTAD also expects this conflict to take away capital investment into developing nations, as these assets are perceived as riskier. The UNCTAD report states that “the start of the Middle East conflict triggered a sell-off of developing countries’ assets, with equity markets of emerging markets sliding by more than 12 per cent between 28 February and 29 March.” Likely such effects will trigger a compacting of issues, contributing to an economic downturn that could take years to recover from depending on the length of the conflict.

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Shifra Ainomugisha from Uganda receives the 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year award from the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Shirley Botchwey. Credit: Commonwealth

By Kizito Makoye
LONDON & DAR ES SALAAM, Jun 25 2026 (IPS)

Before anyone called her an innovator, before artificial intelligence entered the conversation, before solar-powered cold rooms, before the language of sustainable development, Shifra Ainomugisha knew food loss in its painful form.

At dawn, she would grab a bucket and walk into rows of tomato plants on her family’s farm in Western Uganda to collect what had already been lost.

The tomatoes looked healthy from a distance. But many had softened, burst, or spoilt before reaching the market – the true meaning of food loss.

“I used to wake up every morning to collect rotten tomatoes and throw them away while trying to save whatever remained,” she recalled.

Almost half the family’s harvest disappeared this way.

Yet the labour never stopped.

Her parents worked relentlessly. Seasons came and went. Fields produced food. But income remained painfully uncertain.

“Meanwhile, we struggled to pay school fees,” she said. “Some children dropped out of school even though we worked very hard during holidays on the farm. We were producing food but could not earn enough money to support our education.”

Shifra Ainomugisha poses beside a solar-powered irrigation system in Uganda. She was named the 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year. Her contribution includes combining renewable energy and AI-enabled agricultural support to help smallholder farmers increase productivity and reduce post-harvest losses. Credit: Solafam, Uganda

Mission Accomplished

Those childhood memories – of abundance turning into loss and hard work failing to translate into opportunity – would eventually shape a mission that has now earned Ainomugisha recognition as the regional winner for Africa under SDG 2: Zero Hunger in the 2026 Commonwealth Youth Awards.

Selected from almost 1,000 applicants across the Commonwealth’s 56 member states after a two-stage adjudication process involving 57 judges, Ainomugisha joined 19 finalists recognised for advancing the Sustainable Development Goals through innovation and community impact.

But the award was not her only accolade.

Today, the Ugandan farmer and innovator earned the prestigious title of 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year at the 2026 Commonwealth Youth Awards ceremony in London.

The Commonwealth Secretary-General, Shirley Botchwey, presented the award to Ainomugisha.

In her remarks Botchwey congratulated all the finalists.

“You are already winners. To be selected from across 56 nations is a testament to your courage and your creativity. You embody the very best of our family. You have shown resilience in the face of challenge and innovation in the face of constraint.”

She continued, “Today is not about recognition alone – it is about momentum. It is not about isolated excellence — it is about collective advancement. Together, we will continue to strengthen the Commonwealth Youth Programme as a flagship vehicle for youth development in the Commonwealth.”

A Journey That Began With a Big Question

For the young Ugandan entrepreneur, however, the journey did not begin with awards.

It began with a question she carried since childhood:

How can people who grow food still remain hungry?

“Nobody should die of hunger,” she tells IPS.

“Because we are here to help. Farmers are doing agriculture, and we are solving food waste, which means we are fighting hunger. That is one of the SDGs we are working on.”

Today, Ainomugisha serves as co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of  Solafam, Uganda Ltd, a social enterprise using solar-powered technologies and artificial intelligence to help smallholder farmers reduce food losses, improve yields and increase incomes.

Her work combines three interconnected interventions: solar-powered cold storage, solar irrigation systems and an AI-enabled advisory platform known as Lean AI – a WhatsApp chatbot designed to guide farmers on planting decisions, irrigation timing, pest management, post-harvest handling and market access.

Together, the technologies aim to solve one of Africa’s challenging agricultural paradoxes: producing food but losing too much of it before it reaches consumers.

According to regional agricultural estimates, post-harvest losses continue to absorb a huge share of food production across sub-Saharan Africa, undermining incomes, nutrition and rural resilience. Smallholder farmers – who form the backbone of food systems – are particularly vulnerable because many lack access to storage, irrigation and agricultural extension services.

For Ainomugisha, those statistics have faces.

Her mother’s face.

Her father’s.

Her neighbours’.

And her own.

“I come from a tomato-growing family,” she said.

“Growing up, we experienced food wastage and low returns despite all the hard labour we invested in farming.”

Her father became one of her earliest inspirations.

Although he never had the opportunity to pursue formal education, he constantly experimented with solutions.

“He tried solving it by buying a diesel irrigation pump to increase yields because we only have one major farming season,” she explained.

“If you don’t make enough money during that season, the whole year becomes difficult.”

He attempted to preserve produce in improvised storage spaces.

But tomatoes continued spoiling.

Years later, after gaining access to education and exposure to technology, Ainomugisha began thinking differently.

“First of all, it wasn’t simply my decision alone,” she reflected.

“It began with my father. My father did not get the opportunity to go to school, but I did. I felt I had a better chance to solve the problem than he did.”

That conviction followed her into university.

Shifra Ainomugisha (centre, in reflective vest), co-founder and CEO of Solafam, Uganda Ltd, stands with farmers and community members beside a solar panel installation that supports climate-smart agriculture initiatives. Through renewable energy and farmer-centred innovation, the project seeks to reduce food loss and improve rural incomes. Credit: Solafam, Uganda

Solar to AI to Filling Knowledge Gaps

Together with colleagues, she founded Solar Farm while still studying.

Initially, the concept was straightforward: cold-chain storage.

Support from entrepreneurship initiatives – including LEAP Africa – helped transform the idea into a functioning enterprise.

But customers quickly changed the direction.

People arriving at the cold rooms often revealed a deeper challenge.

Some had little produce to preserve.

Storage alone was not enough.

The team expanded.

Solar irrigation came next.

The goal was to help farmers reduce dependence on expensive diesel fuel and enable year-round production.

Farmers could access irrigation systems through a flexible financing model – paying 20 percent upfront and then making weekly payments of approximately USD 1.60 until ownership.

“We wanted to create a solution that farmers could actually afford,” she said.

Then came the next leap: artificial intelligence.

Ainomugisha says the AI component emerged from another observation.

Many farmers lacked access to agricultural training.

Knowledge gaps were driving losses.

“Many people are farming, but they are not always doing it the right way,” she explained.

“You might find a tomato farmer irrigating in the morning, yet tomatoes are better irrigated in the afternoon or evening.”

The team launched Lean AI – a chatbot accessible through WhatsApp that provides real-time agricultural guidance.

Farmers can ask questions and receive recommendations on farming practices, pest control, irrigation and post-harvest management.

The system is now being adapted to work via real-time messaging protocol known as USSD to reach users with basic mobile phones.

“We use AI to continue training farmers even when we are not physically present,” she said.

“We believe this will improve yields, increase incomes and eventually change the narrative that farming is only for the poor.”

Shifra Ainomugisha poses beside a solar-powered irrigation system in Uganda. She is combining renewable energy and AI-enabled agricultural support to help smallholder farmers increase productivity and reduce post-harvest losses. Credit: Solafam, Uganda

Changing the Narrative

That narrative matters deeply to her.

“In Uganda, there is a narrative that agriculture is for poor people,” she said.

“That is sad.”

She pauses.

“People believe that because despite hard work, they cannot escape poverty.”

One of the defining moments came in 2023.

After struggling to convince local markets to host their first cold room, the team installed it at her family home.

Her mother became the first customer.

Then came neighbours.

Then more farmers.

Initially, usage was free.

People needed proof.

One woman – a friend of Ainomugisha’s mother who traded fruits and vegetables – became an unexpected validation.

She stored produce for a month.

Fresh vegetables that once spoilt within days remained viable for nearly two weeks.

That extra time allowed her to wait for better prices instead of selling under pressure.

“She later realised how much it was helping her,” Ainomugisha said.

“Now she earns more from farming than she did before.”

Solafam eventually introduced a pay-per-use model.

The impact, Ainomugisha says, became measurable.

“What makes us proud is that we have increased farmers’ incomes by 28 percent.”

“We have also reduced post-harvest losses by about 30 percent.”

Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General (Programmes), Tanmaya Lal, Commonwealth Secretary-General, Shirley Botchwey, and Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General (Corporate), Tania Baumann, pose with the 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year and Africa Regional Winner, Shifra Ainomugisha, at the Commonwealth Youth Awards ceremony in London. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

Winning Reaction

Those outcomes helped propel Solafam onto the Commonwealth stage. The Commonwealth Youth Awards are an initiative of the Commonwealth Youth Programme, which has supported youth development work in member countries for over 50 years.

“I am honoured to be named the 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year.  This recognition is not only personal but also represents the farmers and communities in Uganda whom we serve.  It also affirms that solutions built from lived experience can create real impact. I cannot wait to continue this journey with the support of the Commonwealth and its remarkable network of partners.”

The Awards recognise young leaders advancing development solutions across member states.

For more than a decade, the programme has provided visibility, networks and funding opportunities to support youth-led initiatives.

This year’s finalists span sectors ranging from climate action and health innovation to entrepreneurship and communications.

For Ainomugisha, being selected is an honour.

“I’m glad to be a finalist for the Commonwealth Youth Award and a regional winner for Africa,” she said.

She believes three things contributed most to the selection.

Sustainability.

Impact.

Accessibility.

“First of all, our project is sustainable. We have maintained it from 2022 until now.”

“Secondly, we are creating meaningful impact.”

“Also, our technology is affordable for smallholder farmers.”

But perhaps what distinguishes her work most is who it centres.

Women.

“Because this problem is personal to me,” she said.

“I did not hear someone else’s story and decide to solve it.”

“I am a woman, and I saw how my mother worked every day on the farm, yet our lives were not improving.”

Across much of Africa, women form a large share of the agricultural workforce while often facing unequal access to land, financing, technologies and extension services.

Ainomugisha says designing with women in mind is not a strategy.

It is lived experience.

“Of course, we also work with men, but the majority of our beneficiaries are women.”

As global conversations increasingly focus on artificial intelligence, her message is clear.

Technology alone is not enough.

It must be accessible.

Affordable.

And designed around people’s realities.

Her next ambition is expansion—making agricultural intelligence available even to farmers without smartphones.

The larger vision is not simply digitising agriculture.

It is restoring dignity to farming.

The memory of rotten tomatoes remains.

So does the memory of school fees that almost went unpaid.

But today, those memories no longer represent failure.

They represent the beginning of a different harvest.

One where innovation is measured not only in algorithms or solar panels but also in whether families who grow food can finally afford to eat, learn and dream.

And for Ainomugisha, that future has already started.

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Excerpt:

Cécile Koffi and her colleagues collect salt from concrete pans on the beach in rural Benin. Credit: Neha Banka/IPS

By Neha Banka
OUIDAH, Benin, Jun 25 2026 (IPS)

It is barely noon, and a group of women sit near the beach on the outskirts of Djégbadji village, in West Africa’s Benin, sifting through mounds of salt harvested from the Gulf of Guinea’s ocean.

Large concrete vats covered with black tarpaulin show traces of white salt sediment as the seawater slowly evaporates under Benin’s midday sun – except that instead of using fire, the group uses solar energy.

The women have been working as part of a grassroots project called ProSEL Benin, a collaborative effort of the governments of Benin along with India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that focuses on strengthening local salt-producing communities to access sustainable energy sources and create medium-sized enterprises for the production and marketing of local iodised salt.

Salt production is one of the main income-generating activities for the populations living in and around southern Benin.

Generations-Old Traditions

“In Benin’s coastal areas, women skim the salt from the coastal marshes… they put up their little huts and boil salt water in massive vats over an open fire inside the hut. They then sell the ‘cooked’ salt at the markets and on the roadsides. It’s an unhealthy practice for various reasons,” says Robina Marks, who served as South Africa’s ambassador to Benin and Togo from 2021 to 2024 and was closely involved in the implementation of the IBSA-backed project.

The traditional method of collecting and cooking the salt has been practised in Benin since at least the 15th century, primarily by women, and involves collecting saline soil, evaporating the water and filtering brine by burning chopped mangrove wood to produce salt.

The practice harms women’s health due to how they collect the salt and the conditions in which it is prepared.

“It takes a very long time and is very labour-intensive,” Marks says.

The ProSEL Benin project attempts to change this traditional practice and make the process of collecting salt healthier and cleaner.

Salt-making is an important source of income for communities here, relying heavily on the cutting down of mangroves.

ProSEL Benin’s research estimates that approximately 20,000 cubic metres of mangrove wood are cut down annually in coastal Benin for use as firewood in Indigenous salt-making.

The UNDP and the Benin government discussed the new method about five years ago.

“But the idea came from the people on the ground, who had the needs. The Benin government came up with the project and wanted to work with UNDP,” says Aoualé Mohamed Abchir, who served as the UNDP Resident Representative in Benin from 2020 to 2024 and was instrumental in its development.

ProSEL Benin, Abchir says, is an attempt to advance three out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: gender equality; decent work and economic growth; and responsible consumption and production. This project aims to help rural women in Benin make and sell clean salt and become self-reliant.

In 2021, the Board of Directors of the India, Brazil and South Africa Facility for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation Fund awarded USD 1 million to the UNDP to implement the salt project.

IBSA is an example of collaborative efforts between the three developing countries, as well as a South-South cooperation initiative within the United Nations that focuses on development cooperation among developing countries in the Global South.

When 60-year-old Cécile Koffi was first introduced to the salt project, it took some time to convince her to switch from the traditional method of making salt.

“There are a lot of things the salt does. Salt is intrinsic to the community’s women,” Koffi says, examining the day’s salt collection.

Salt is culturally important to Benin, and its uses go beyond culinary applications.

“It is not only used as food, but it also has a cultural aspect to it. It is regarded as sacred and is used in many of the vodoun practices,” says Marks.

“When we go to the market to sell our produce, we sprinkle salt on the ground and sweep it up before setting up our spot. It is believed that every bad spirit will go away if we do that. Salt is very important. We use it in a lot of rituals,” says Koffi.

Julienne Dekon collects saline water using the traditional method to make salt in rural Benin. Credit: Neha Banka/IPS

These deep-rooted cultural beliefs were one reason why it was difficult to get the women to change and adapt to the ProSEL Benin project, even though it was backed by the Benin government, explains Abchir.

Traditionally salt production is a cultural activity carried out by the Xwla populations of the coastal zone in Benin. The traditional production of salt by the salt farmers in the villages is subject to many prohibitions related to working days, village deities, and so on.

“The name Xwlajè is also intimately linked to the Xwla ethnic group,” says Luc Obale, national project director of ProSEL Benin. The Benin government has been working to certify the salt so that it can be sold with the label ‘Xwlajè’ to identify its cultural origin.

“The old method is their ancestral way of producing salt, so it has significance. Sometimes when you change the way you produce something, some people believe it may have negative implications. The women could have got the salt directly from the sea, but there is a reason why they weren’t doing that before the project,” says Abchir.

The ProSEL Benin project targeted five areas in coastal Benin where people have traditionally harvested salt: Sèmè Kpodji, Grand Popo, Ouidah, Kpomasse, Comè and Lokossa.

“In those other areas, people have been more open to using sea water to make salt, but Ouidah is Ouidah. It is very special. They believe that the best salt can only be cooked, not dried. They believe that they have to cook it,” explains Abchir.

Ground-Level Interventions

The ProSEL Benin project is not the first intervention programme that has attempted to make local salt cleaner and more environmentally sustainable, but it has been successful because caseworkers managed to get it off the ground, says Cessi Marlene Capo-Chichi, who works with UNDP as a project coordinator.

“Organisations have struggled to convince the local community to change their ways,” she says.

Some 500 metres from where the ProSEL project is ongoing by the beach, within the limits of Djégbadji village, is a coastal lagoon where women work inside a network of thatched huts, making salt in the traditional way.

“The traditional way of making salt is more laborious,” says 45-year-old Julienne Dekon, lifting a cane basket heavy with saline soil collected from the marshy land that surrounds her.

These days, the Benin government prevents the chopping down of mangroves for wood, and women are encouraged to use dried palm leaves and coconut shells for fuel instead.

Dekon says that she wants to continue working using the traditional method, although many of her friends have now switched to the modern method of salt making using seawater after joining the ProSEL project.

As she begins boiling the saline water inside her hut, smoke fills the small space.

“When I have to work a lot, I do get tired. But I don’t know much about how this affects my health,” says Dekon.

Dekon doesn’t remember when she started making salt, but it has been a very long time, and she is now accustomed to preparing using the traditional methods.

“The method on the beach (ProSEL project) is easy to do. But when it is raining, it is not possible to do it outside. But I can continue to make salt even in the rain, because I collect the soil and start cooking indoors. The two systems are too different,” says Dekon, referring to the open-air concrete salt vats by the sea that are susceptible to the vagaries of the weather.

However, the wet weather also affects the women using traditional methods.

From April to August, Benin experiences its rainy season, with short spells of rain between September and November, and the low-lying marshes near the lagoons are prone to flooding.

“We are pushing them to switch to the ProSEL system because during the rainy season the area where the salt is produced traditionally is inaccessible. It is completely flooded, and so for more than half the year, there is no production of salt. We needed to give them alternatives,” says Abchir.

While it is easier for the women to avoid the rains by tracking the weather, it is harder to bypass the persistent floods, he says.

Abchir says the project focused on giving the women access to seawater to make sure they could make salt and have steady income through the year.

“Using the seawater to make salt is less painful. You just get the water and let the sun evaporate it. You don’t have to cook it, and it is safer. You can also make more money,” says Abchir.

Just down the unpaved road from where Dekon works, a woman stands by the highway selling salt.

The difference between the salt produced by women like Dekon, who have been working using traditional methods and those engaged with ProSEL Benin is clear: the traditional salt is visibly yellow-brown with streaks of grey, colours that come due to the lack of a filtration process. The ProSEL Benin salt is clean and white, fortified with iodine that the women mix into the salt just before filling it into bags.

A one-kilogram bag of salt produced by women using the traditional method, sold in local marketplaces and by the road, would cost approximately 800 West African CFA franc (approx. USD 2), while the same amount produced by ProSEL Benin would sell for 1,000 CFA.

For Public Consumption

ProSEL research indicates there are about 4,000 women harvesting salt in Benin. The country imports most of its salt from countries like Ghana, Senegal and India because its Indigenous salt farming covers only a small fraction of the country’s actual needs.

Stakeholders realised that it was not enough to teach the women how to make cleaner salt; they also had to be given access to markets to sell it. One market that the project aims to tap into is the World Food Programme (WFP) under the UN’s Benin office, which helps feed over 1 million children annually with daily school meals. The WFP has been undertaking research to understand the feasibility of purchasing and using salt through these cooperatives led by women under ProSEL.

The Benin government has ambitious plans for the harvested salt.

In December 2025, Benin’s food safety agency, ABSSA, the Agence Béninoise de Sécurité Sanitaire des Aliments, certified the salt for public consumption, after which the salt was prepared to be sold under the label Xwlajè.

Presently, the Xwlajè salt is sold in seven different supermarket chains across Cotonou, as well as in standalone shops located in the municipalities of Porto-Novo, Cotonou and Comè.

“In addition, steps are underway to market Xwlajè salt in the duty-free shops at Cotonou International Airport,” says Obale.

Abchir adds that a process that would take the women six hours now takes them two. Bringing about change has been difficult, he says, because it involved convincing people who were accustomed to working in a specific way for generations.

He admits that they wouldn’t have been able to do much without winning the trust of the women, their husbands who still oversee their lives, the mayor and the local community leaders.

“The local team went down to the women and understood their needs so that sensibilities could be understood and it would be accepted. It is very difficult in Benin when outsiders come in and tell them what to do.”

Abchir says that there is a high risk of undoing all that work if there is mistrust in the community towards the project.

“They are accepting the changes. Now we are trying to build construction for storage, keeping machines, etc. It is a sensitive phase, but we are hopeful that it will work.”

Benin’s government has prioritised tourism over the last few years, and its Indigenous salt farming practices are a key part of its plans to introduce tourists to Beninese culture.

The ProSEL project does not aim to fully remove the traditional method of salt farming, says Obale.

“The modern salt production unit is located not far from the traditional production site to allow tourists to see the difference between the two production methods,” he says.

Mireille Adjovi, a new mother in her 20s, has come to work at the ProSEL site with her infant sleeping on her back.

“With the money I get, I am able to take care of my children. I will be able to send them to school. I think about myself last: my husband and children come first. Maybe the men give money for the household, but women still suffer a lot. If women need something, husbands give the amount of money they want to give you, not what you need. The men don’t think about the women. So the project helps me earn my own money,” says Adjovi.

For women like Adjovi, making salt is not just about following the jobs women before her have done for generations.

She doesn’t know what the UN’s SDGs are or even what IBSA means, but the work at ProSEL Benin allows her to prioritise her own health and well-being while working collectively in a women-led cooperative.

When she talks to other women working at the site, she also thinks about the hard-earned independence and self-reliance she now has.

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

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June 27-28 is the 16th Social Business Day, observed in Savar (Dhaka) Bangladesh. In June 2024 at the Western Sydney University’s graduation ceremony where I was conferred Emeritus Professor status, I urged the new business graduates to:

• purge the world of the… obnoxious Friedmanite idea that is destroying our planet and tearing our communities apart;
• look instead to the “Social Business Model” of Bangladesh’s Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus; and
• work on the right side of history; stand up for justice and liberation; spread the “moral violence” for peace; and put people and the planet before profit.

Anis Chowdhury

In his 1970 article for The New York Times, Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman wrote, “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits”. He further argued, “There are no ‘social’ values, no ‘social’ responsibilities in any sense other than the shared values and responsibilities of individuals. Society is a collection of individuals and of the various groups they voluntarily form”.

This Friedmanite world view has been at the core of the neo-liberal counter revolution led by Ronald Reagan and Margarette Thatcher in the 1980s. In his inaugural speech, Reagan famously declared, “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem”, and ushered in an era driven by unrestrained individual pursuits of profit.

Promoting unrestrained individualism, Thatcher questioned, “who is society?” Then she dismissed, “There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families…”.

“Greed” became the all-consuming passion at the height of unrestrained individual pursuit of profit as captured famously in the 1987 movie, Wall Street. The lead character, Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas) addressing the shareholders said:

“The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed – for lack of a better word – is good.
Greed is right.
Greed works.
Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Greed, in all of its forms – greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge – has marked the upward surge of mankind”.

Has it?

Has greed, in all forms, marked the upward surge of mankind?

Yes, global income and wealth increased manifold since the 1980s; but so did global inequality. The wealth and income gaps between the wealthiest and the poorest have widened. The richest 1.5% own almost 48% of the world’s wealth, according to the UBS Global Wealth Report 2025, while the poorest 40% own only 0.5%.

The World Inequality Report 2026 reveals an even starker wealth gap. The wealthiest 0.001%, comprising around 56,000 multi-millionaires, now hold three times more wealth than the bottom half of the world population. Their share has grown steadily from 3.7% in 1995 to 6.1% in 2025. According to the UBS Global Wealth Report 2025, as of 2023, the world’s 26 richest billionaires owned a shocking US$2.872 trillion in wealth, which is greater than many nations’ total goods and services (GDP).

Cheerleaders of unrestrained greed may dismiss these facts and say “so what? Global abject poverty has also declined”. In fact, economist and historian Deirdre McCloskey, the author of Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economists Can’t Explain the Modern World, floated the idea of “Great Enrichment” asserting that real per capita incomes in the developed world have surged by a factor of 10 to 30 (or roughly 2,900%) since 1800. She argues this historic explosion of wealth fundamentally benefited the poor and working classes. For her, the concerns about inequality are a result of insatiable envy.

Some others have described the phenomenon of rising inequality amidst the wealth boom as “inclusive” because the process has lifted millions from abject poverty. According to them, rapid globalization has given rise to a new global wealth middle class. They see this as progress!

They also decry “the perception that billionaires make money for themselves at the expense of the wider population”, and attribute billionaires’ fortunes to successful investments, while highlight philanthropy and patronage of the arts, culture and sports by billionaires.

But the cheerleaders ignore billionaires’ tax evasion and tax avoidance, and the fact that societies should not rely on the generosity of the rich.

The cheerleaders are also climate deniers. They ignore the overwhelming scientific evidence linking rising inequality and the climate crisis. The world’s wealthiest 10% has caused two thirds of global warming since 1990, according to a new study published in Nature. It also reports that the top 1% of the wealthiest individuals globally contributed 26 times the global average to increases in monthly 1-in-100-year heat extremes globally and 17 times more to Amazon droughts.

It’s time for change

It is time for a paradigm shift from profit to people and the planet. Social business, a concept first introduced by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus, offers a path forward. In his 2009 book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism, Professor Yunus defines a social business as “A business:

• Created and designed to address social problems
• A non-loss, non-dividend company, i.e.
1. It is financially self-sustainable and
2. Profits realised by the business are reinvested in the business itself (or used to start other social businesses), with the aim of increasing social impact, for example expanding the company’s reach, improving the products or services or subsidising the social mission.”

In short, a social business is oriented to social value creation. It is designed to address specific social or environmental problems such as hunger, poverty, unemployment, pollution, and climate adaptation and mitigation. In many ways, it is a hybrid between a traditional business and a non-profit organisation. Like a traditional business, a social business generates revenue and is financially self-sufficient rather than relying on philanthropy. However, like a non-profit organisation, the primary goal of a social business is NOT profit, but social or environmental impacts.

But, not a magic bullet

Social business is not a panacea for all evils or social-environmental problems. More fundamentally, systemic or structural social and environmental issues should not be treated as market opportunities. The framing of social problems as technical or managerial issues that can be solved with “business” solutions can obscure underlying structural causes like systemic discrimination and power imbalances which must be addressed through deep reforms, backed by political will.

There also is a risk of “impact-washing”, much like “greenwashing”. That is, weak regulatory standards can allow companies to cherry-pick metrics, exaggerate their societal benefits, or use their social status as “moral licensing” to justify otherwise dubious business practices.

Therefore, the “euphoria” of celebration must not distract us from the urgent need to develop proper monitoring and accountability frameworks for social business so that “greed” does not infest it.

Anis Chowdhury, Emeritus Professor, Western Sydney University (Australia). He held senior UN positions in Bangkok and New York and served as Special Assistant to the Chief Advisor for Finance (with the status and rank of State Minister) in the Professor Yunus-led Interim Government. Anis has written extensively on macroeconomic issues, sustainable development, international financial architecture and political economy. E-mail: anis.z.chowdhury@gmail.com; a.chowdhury@westernsydney.edu.au

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Farmer-turned-fishermen from the local indigenous community are fishing in the Dumboor lake in north-eastern India. At the Eighth Global Environment Facility Assembly, a project was approved involving three communities across India, including Dumboor Lake. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
DUMBOORNAGAR, India and SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan, Jun 24 2026 (IPS)

At dawn, when the waters of Dumboor Lake lie still under a pale grey sky, Santo Chakma, 63, nudges his narrow wooden boat into a reservoir that swallowed his childhood.

The lake is a growing attraction for tourists who come here in search of beauty and tranquillity, with dozens of islands scattered across a vast expanse of water. But for Chakma, the lake reflects a past erased.

“Once, these were rice fields. My father and my grandfather cultivated rice,” he says quietly. “But now we catch fish because there is no land.”

Spread across 41 square kilometres in Tripura’s Gomati basin, Dumboor Lake is now known for its 48 small islands and a growing tourism economy. But beneath its surface lies the submerged Raima–Saima valley – once a fertile agricultural landscape that sustained indigenous communities for generations.

That landscape disappeared in 1974, when the Gumti Hydroelectric Dam transformed the Gomati River into a reservoir, displacing thousands of people, mostly from indigenous tribes such as the Chakma, Reang, and Tripuri.

From Farmers to Fishers

In villages like West Gandecherra – a lakeside village – elderly people carry the memories of their old days in their hearts.

“The Gumti (Gomati) River was our lifeline,” recalls Phulorani Tripura, an elderly resident. “We used to sail bamboo rafts.”

Across the region, communities tie bamboo in large bundles and throw them upstream. The river carries the bundles down and people travel on them using these bundles as their rafts. For days, they live on these bamboo rafts, sleeping on them and selling produce from their farms, such as homemade butter and peppers, until they reach a market where the bamboo is sold.

“Water was not our livelihood – it wasn’t our way of living,” Chakma reminisces.

That world collapsed after the dam was built as farmland, homes, and markets were submerged. Families were relocated to uplands, where agriculture proved unreliable. Many eventually returned to the lake – not as traders or farmers, but as fishers.

Today, nearly 5,000 families depend on the lake’s fisheries, navigating livelihoods born out of displacement rather than choice.

An Increasingly Fragile Livelihood

Every morning, lines of small boats move out across Dumboor. By afternoon, they return with their catch, which is often smaller than in previous years. Fish diversity has declined due to overfishing, reduced stocking, and ecological stress.

“Earlier, fish were plentiful. We caught big fish like rahu (Labeo rohita), katla (South Asian carp) and gojal (channa marulius). If we sold one fish weighing 4-5 kg, it would be enough money for a whole week. Now we catch more small fish, which sell for less and also don’t stay fresh for long, which brings even less. So, now we work harder for less,” says Sushil Chakma, a fisherman, untangling his net.

Economic pressures add another layer of strain. Fishing licences cost up to ₹10,000, while government-fixed prices can be lower than 1 dime (US) per kilogram, leaving fishers dependent on middlemen.

“The government charges us, but the benefits don’t reach us,” Chakma says.

There are also constant safety risks due to erratic weather, fluctuating water levels, and fragile bamboo fishing platforms – known locally as ‘mancha’ – which have led to repeated fatalities.

“We call these platforms ‘mancha’, and we often hear that one has broken and fishermen have drowned,” says Bryn Tiprasa, a youth originally from East Gandecherra village near the lake, now living in Agartala, about 120 kilometres away.

“In fact, only last month, a fisherman died like that. Two years ago, four fishermen died in a single incident. Will this project consider addressing these kinds of problems? We don’t know yet.”

Tourism Grows, but Locals Miss Inclusion

Dumboor has increasingly been promoted as a tourism destination, with sites like Coconut Island attracting visitors for boating and festivals.

The Government of India has invested significantly in developing tourism infrastructure around the lake. But locals say these efforts prioritise visitors over indigenous communities whose livelihoods depend on the lake.

“The big businesses are not ours,” says a local boat operator. “We build boats ourselves, take loans, and earn only during the season.”

Some residents also report losing access to land and resources because private aquaculture or tourism ventures lease parts of the reservoir.

For communities already displaced once, these developments revive a familiar fear: marginalisation in the name of development.

Environmental pressures are also compounding these challenges. Invasive species such as Mikania micrantha (locally referred to as ‘Pichash’) due to erratic rainfall and changing water levels have disrupted fish breeding cycles and degraded ecosystems around the lake.

Despite supporting thousands of livelihoods, Dumboor Lake still lacks a comprehensive management plan.

“We depend on the lake, but no one manages it properly,” says a cooperative member. “How long can this continue?”

A New GEF-Backed Project Enters the Picture

Amid these overlapping pressures, a new biodiversity initiative supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) is drawing cautious attention.

The project – Conservation of Biodiversity, its Sustainable Use, and Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits in India (CONSERVE) – was approved at the 6th Global Biodiversity Framework Fund Council meeting, held under the framework of the Eighth GEF Assembly.

Backed by USD 13.8 million and implemented by the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank, the project aims to strengthen community-led conservation while ensuring fair sharing of benefits.

At its core is a shift toward recognising Indigenous communities as key custodians of ecosystems – a long-standing demand in regions like Dumboor.

However, details of how the project will work on the ground and what it will specifically deliver for Dumboor’s fishers are not yet clear.

This uncertainty shapes local reactions: hopeful, but cautious.

Potential – and Unanswered – Questions

The initiative is expected to involve at least 25,000 people across project areas in governance and decision-making, including women.

For communities in Dumboor, this could mean,

• recognition of traditional knowledge
• participation in resource management
• access to financial support and new livelihood models
• improved ecosystem sustainability.

It also reflects the GEF’s growing emphasis on blended finance approaches – combining public and multilateral funds with other sources – to support environmental outcomes alongside community development.

Some, however, say the project needs greater transparency.

“How will local women be integrated into this project? What will be the means and level of women’s access to finance and opportunities to play a leadership role? These are some of the questions,” says a member of the CBD Woman’s Caucus who participated in the GEF global council.

According to the GEF, several gender-specific targets are included in the project design, ensuring that women will make up 50% of the estimated 25,000 beneficiaries and at least 40% of the beneficiaries of an Access and Benefit-Sharing financial mechanism that will be implemented as part of the project.

For residents, the real test lies in implementation.

“Most of this money might just go into big pockets and not to the locals,” says Tiprasa. “A lot of projects are launched in the region, but few bring actual benefit.”

He adds that many interventions fail because they do not account for local realities.

“The projects do not always consider the local challenges, so not all solutions help improve their conditions.”

Despite scepticism, some residents see promise in the project’s stated focus on community participation.

“We have always lived with this lake,” says Santo Reang, a local resident. “But no one asked us how to manage it.”

“This time, if they involve us properly, things can change,” adds Niranjan Debbarma, a fisher cooperative member. “We understand this lake better than anyone.”

The GEF noted that the GBFF recently developed one of the most stringent and progressive guidelines to ensure that Tribal Peoples and local communities are in the driver’s seat when designing and implementing every project and will act as bona fide partners in identifying priorities and implementing the project.

A Fragile Turning Point

For decades, Dumboor’s indigenous communities have adjusted to realities imposed from the outside – shifting from land to water and from stable agriculture to precarious fishing.

Now, with a new GEF-backed project on the horizon, change is possible – one that could finally recognise both the lake’s ecological importance and the people who depend on it.

But in Dumboor, hope is never uncomplicated.

For those who have lost land once before, the question is not just whether change will come but whether it will finally include them.

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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US President Trump’s policies are supposed to make America great again (MAGA), which means different things to various parties. Some of its consequences are inadvertent, including undermining dollar dominance and inducing stagflation worldwide.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The US held 70% of the world’s gold reserves at the time, with gold priced at $35 per ounce. Other central banks bought and held US Treasury bonds and similar dollar assets as liquidity reserves.

This effectively made the US dollar the primary means of payment in the post-war international monetary system. The exchange rates of other national currencies were all set against the dollar.

As other economies recovered post-war, the US current account and trade surplus declined. Until 1971, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) occasionally adjusted fixed exchange rates for ‘structural’ balance-of-payments deficits or surpluses.

Exorbitant privilege
This dollar-based international monetary system gave the US what France’s Gaullist leadership called an ‘exorbitant [economic] privilege’.

Under the Bretton Woods arrangements, the US would never face balance-of-payments problems, as it paid for imports with its own currency, which it could print at will.

Nurina Malek

Foreign central banks soon became accustomed to holding US Treasury bonds as official reserves, effectively funding the large and growing federal debt.

Such foreign central bank demand kept the dollar strong in foreign exchange markets. Persistent capital inflows into the US have kept the dollar overvalued.

The strong dollar has boosted domestic consumption of imports, depressed exports, widened trade deficits, and kept consumer price inflation in check.

In 1960, Robert Triffin warned the US Congress about the inevitable problems that arise when a national currency is also used as an international reserve currency.

He urged the US Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) to consider the dollar’s international role when making domestic monetary policy.

In August 1971, President Richard Nixon unilaterally ended the US Bretton Woods commitment to redeem dollars with gold. Thus, the dollar clearly became a fiat currency, with exchange rates shaped by market confidence.

Protection through diversification
After the 2009 Great Recession, Western central banks kept nominal interest rates low for over a decade through coordinated ‘quantitative easing’ (QE).

Low interest rates were maintained for over a decade through the 2020-21 Covid-19 recession before the Fed raised interest rates from 2022, ostensibly to address inflationary pressures.

Borrowers worldwide were thus induced to take on more debt. Governments, corporations, and households borrowed more, increasing accumulated debt.

International payment obligations are increasingly being settled by other means. Gradually, dollar-based arrangements are co-existing with euro- and renminbi-based arrangements and BRICS-initiated alternatives.

Thus, US indebtedness and stagnation have been growing with inflationary pressures. Unsurprisingly, other monetary authorities’ previous preference for holding US Treasury bills as official reserves has declined.

Instead, official reserves have been increasingly diversified to include more gold holdings ostensibly to help hedge against inflation and currency debasement.

About 36,200 tonnes, a fifth of all gold holdings, are now held by central banks, up from 15% at the end of 2023. By 2025, non-US central bank gold holdings exceeded their US Treasury bonds for the first time this century!

Trump 2.0
Criticism of the dollar system has resurfaced from time to time, especially as Washington weaponises more financial instruments and arrangements.

The second Trump administration has threatened major US federal government creditors, including China and longtime allies such as Japan and the Gulf monarchies.

As loyal allies are bullied, many are quietly moving away from prevailing dollar-based international monetary and financial arrangements, which have long been preferred for convenience.

After bombing ten nations in the first year of Trump 2.0, US military spending has been rising rapidly, especially with the Iran war and many of its consequences likely to be protracted despite the promise of a ceasefire.

With international confidence in the US consistently undermined by unexpected unilateral White House initiatives, governments are trying to reduce their vulnerabilities, especially by diversifying their reserve assets.

But unlike early in his first term, Trump now welcomes a weaker dollar as “great”. His ongoing efforts to lower Fed interest rates also reflect successive US presidents’ refusal to address ever-larger federal fiscal deficits over the decades.

With inflation rising, market premiums over Fed interest rates are pushing up commercial rates. These hurt the real economy, employment, and banks, many struggling with rising defaults.

All this exacerbates financial ‘market corrections’ in the US and beyond. Trump-induced international disruptions are worsening instability and slowing economies worldwide.

Trump’s policies have slowed the world economy, including the US. With efforts to address the Hormuz crisis undermined by Israel, his legacy will now surely include having induced the first major stagflation in almost half a century.

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Credit: HuyNguyenSG/iStock by Getty Images. Source: IMF

By Kristalina Georgieva
WASHINGTON DC, Jun 17 2026 (IPS)

More than three months into the war in the Middle East, the global economy appears to be holding up. Commodity prices, inflation and expectations for it, and financial conditions have all been impacted—but not yet in ways that signal a global slowdown. And we have seen strong economic momentum in the world’s biggest economies, the United States and China.

But an overall resilient global picture masks significant disparities. Even among advanced economies, some countries and communities have been harder hit. And in Africa, the negative impacts are more conspicuous. Meanwhile, with the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz and infrastructure in the Middle East damaged by the fighting, uncertainty and risks remain high.

We will provide an updated analysis of this global picture on July 8, in our next World Economic Outlook Update.

Drivers of global resilience so far

At the conflict’s outset, our immediate concern was the impact on energy prices and knock-on effects on inflation. And they have been considerable. Oil prices are 30 percent higher than pre-war levels. Yet that is lower than was seen earlier in the conflict, despite the straits’ prolonged closure.

Some countries, such as China, have been able—for now—to cushion the disruption by tapping deep oil reserves. This has also helped with demand pressures in otherwise hard-hit Asia. Increased production and refinery utilization outside the Gulf, although not sufficient to offset the shock, have also contained the increase in oil prices. In addition, actions to dampen demand or limit the price passthrough have mitigated the impact so far. But, here too, there are limits to how long countries can manage the higher budgetary costs and higher external financing requirements.

In many economies, higher oil prices are nonetheless contributing to a pickup in headline inflation. That is concerning—but not the full story. It is also important to consider whether people and businesses expect a more persistent erosion of their purchasing power. And these medium-term expectations generally remain well anchored. That’s an encouraging sign of confidence in central banks’ commitment to price stability.

Financial markets have also proven resilient. Government bond yields have climbed significantly since the war began, but risk assets have rallied on strong earnings, and we see little evidence of a broader flight to safety. By historical standards, financial conditions remain accommodative.

Technology is another bright spot. Strong technology-related investment—particularly in artificial intelligence and data centers—has been a driving force in the countries where economic momentum is holding up. The United States is benefiting from this global technology cycle, as are economies in Asia that have seen stronger technology exports. Most countries, however, are yet to feel the productivity and growth impact of technology, leading to concerns about further economic divergence.

To sum up, the combination of economic resilience and technological advancements have helped to cushion the impact of the energy supply shock on growth at the global level and there have been bright spots within regions. But there are countries that are harder hit, largely depending on geography, degree of energy dependence, and available policy space.

Hardest hit

For war impacts, proximity matters. Oil exporters around the Gulf that are directly affected by the war face steep downward revisions to growth this year, with five out of eight countries seeing outright contractions.

For Europe, which is heavily dependent on imported oil and gas, higher energy prices are weighing on growth and putting upward pressure on inflation, with the ECB recently raising interest rates.

Emerging market economies in Asia are also bearing the brunt—with the relatively higher oil and gas intensity of the economies in the region. They face retail gasoline prices that have increased 40 percent since the war began, while rising government bond yields and currency depreciation and capital outflow pressures have amplified the costs of the shock.

Yet, it is the countries that combine heavy reliance on energy imports with limited policy space that are especially hard-hit.

The strain is especially visible in Africa, where many of these factors are at play. For countries in the region that rely heavily on imports, rising costs are worsening external balances and increasing budgetary pressures—and financing needs.

Several African countries have been managing fuel shortages—including Ethiopia, Malawi, and Zambia—and most are feeling the pain of sharp fuel price increases. In countries such as Lesotho, Rwanda, and Tanzania, gasoline prices have increased by about half since the onset of the war.

Higher energy prices have also driven up fertilizer and food costs, increasing the risk of food insecurity. If disruptions persist, farmers in many low-income countries may struggle. That in turn may further fuel inflation for months to come.

Needed: policy discipline and agility

As we have said before, much depends on the duration and intensity of the energy supply shock. The sooner it is resolved, the better—especially as supply will take time to recover given the significant infrastructure damage—and Sunday’s ceasefire announcement is welcome. But should the conflict or disruptions intensify, this is a clear risk to global growth.

This continued high uncertainty underscores the need for all policymakers to be agile and disciplined. Maintaining price stability is essential. Already, some central banks have begun to tighten to keep inflation expectations anchored.

With borrowing costs rising, fiscal discipline is equally important. Price caps, subsidies and similar interventions may be popular, but they are costly. Fiscal responses should be targeted, temporary, preserve price signals, and well-sequenced to protect the vulnerable without undermining public finances.

This is even more important given the need to make room for the fiscal costs of ensuring that AI-driven growth translates into shared prosperity. That includes both the fiscal costs to address new vulnerabilities, as well as investing in technology and people to ensure that emerging and developing economies are not left behind.

Supporting affected members

While there is much our members can do to cushion the impact of the war, they shouldn’t have to go it alone. The Fund remains as committed as ever to helping our member countries navigate this period of heightened uncertainty. Just as the effects vary across countries and regions, our support is tailored to meet the differentiated needs of our members.

For now, most member countries are asking for clear, candid policy guidance rather than financial support. And we have duly responded—providing tailored policy advice and capacity development. While the risks have not yet receded, embracing the right policies will help provide some relief.

For those countries that need financial support, we are stepping up. We are working with several countries and will soon present to our Executive Board proposals to adjust existing programs in response to the shock. The Gambia has requested an augmentation and program extension. Burkina Faso has reached staff-level agreement on a funding increase to address higher external financing needs. In Ethiopia, we aim to bring forward financing to this year, while we have initiated discussions on a new program with Malawi. Bangladesh also has requested a new program.

That the global economy is so far weathering the shock is cause for reassurance—but not complacency. The IMF remains on high alert. We are also deeply mindful of the economic damage some of our members are already suffering. We will work with them to manage the shock and limit its negative impacts, especially on the vulnerable. Our commitment to our membership is unwavering.

Kristalina Georgieva has been serving as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund since October 1, 2019. She began her second term on October 1, 2024.

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Children dry fish in the sun at a village in the natural gas-rich Afungi peninsula of the northern Mozambique region. In countries including Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, and Mozambique, gas is extracted and exported to serve external markets, while domestic energy needs go unmet. Photo courtesy of Justica Ambiental

By Maina Waruru
NAIROBI, Jun 11 2026 (IPS)

A new report examining the economic impact of oil and gas production in Africa has found that fossil fuels have failed to deliver sustained or inclusive economic development, observing that the resources have contributed to economic vulnerability and inequality and have constrained growth through prohibitive commodity prices, inflation, and weak local currencies.

It reveals that oil- and gas-rich countries were running on economies that are ‘extractive’ in nature, while their other economic sectors remained weak and tended to have elevated levels of corruption, benefiting a few rich, thus perpetuating inequality. This is while delivering few job opportunities, and the sectors employ about 0.3% of the national workforce overall.

The document titled Pipe Dreams, based on evidence from 13 oil- and gas-producing countries, finds that the structure of the oil- and gas-producing economy concentrates on exporting wealth while leaving populations to bear the costs of producing it, ultimately fuelling poverty.

Observing that Africa is in the midst of a “fossil fuel crisis” where global energy prices have surged in the wake of the American-Israeli-Iranian war, exposing countries to expensive petroleum, the analysis by advocacy groups Power Shift Africa and Oil Change International note that producing countries have not been spared the price shocks.

Shanties serving as shops in a village in the natural gas-rich Afungi peninsula of the northern Mozambique region, where poverty remains high. A new report discloses that the government will not receive significant revenues until the mid or late 2030s because contracts allocate most of the early revenues to foreign companies. Photo courtesy of Justica Ambiental

This is because while many of them exported crude, they later imported costlier refined products refined abroad, including petrol and diesel. This happens as hundreds of millions of people across the continent still lack access to electricity and clean cooking energy.

“In some cases, such as Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, and Mozambique, gas is extracted and exported to serve external markets, while domestic energy needs go unmet,” the analysis explains.

This happens against a backdrop of millions living in extreme poverty, Nigeria and Angola being two such countries where the report acknowledges that an estimated 40% of the population survive on less than USD 3 per day, decades of extracting oil notwithstanding.

“In fact, according to the African Import-Export Bank, Africa’s oil exporters have mostly had lower economic growth and higher inflation than their non-resource-intensive counterparts in recent years,” it explains.

Basing its conclusions on peer-reviewed literature, official data, and independent reports, it asserts that, among others, the fossils sector in Africa is ‘extractive’ in nature, with extraction occurring in ‘enclaves’.

Fishermen at a village in the natural gas-rich Afungi peninsula of the northern Mozambique region, where poverty remains high. The new Pipe Dreams report reveals that the government will not receive significant revenues until the mid or late 2030s because contracts allocate most of the early revenues to foreign companies. Photo courtesy of Justica Ambiental

By breeding an extractive economy where the commodities are mostly exported, the main economic function for producer countries is restricted to generating revenues and export earnings.

This is made worse by the fact that the natural wealth is dominated by multinationals, who often “take a disproportionate share of the revenues either through one-sided contractual terms or through lopsided accounting schemes”.

Citing the example of Mozambique’s Coral South gas project led by Italy’s Eni, which began producing gas in 2023, it discloses that the government will not receive significant revenues until the mid- or late-2030s. The reason is that the contract terms usually allocate most of the “early revenues” to foreign companies to the exclusion of governments.

The report faults fossil sectors for having few links to other sectors in an economy, noting that related sectors, including services and supplies, are “generally imported, while the products and the profits are mostly exported”.

Released on 11 May to coincide with the Africa Forward 2026 summit sponsored by France and bringing together more than 40 African presidents and heads of government in Nairobi, Kenya, it asserts the fossil wealth was creating minimal employment opportunities, even when it constituted a large share of gross domestic product (GDP).

“The enclave effect is especially strong with floating offshore facilities, as companies can tow these facilities into place and load oil and gas onto tankers without ever setting foot in a country”,

For example, in Nigeria and Congo Brazzaville, the oil industry employs only 0.01% of the countries’ workforce and 0.3% in Angola, the document reveals.

Even worse, the extractive economy tended to harm other economic sectors, worsening poverty, a good example being the west African country suffering frequent oil spills that negatively impacted agriculture and food security.

Almost all African oil producers have suffered corruption scandals related to their oil and gas revenues, and between 1989 and 1993, senior executives of French company Elf, now part of TotalEnergies, allegedly paid bribes to politicians in Gabon, Angola, Cameroon and Congo-Brazzaville in a USD350 million scandal.

In other instances, the fossils are exposed and vulnerable to the dynamics of international markets, leaving countries heavily indebted during oil price collapses, a good example being 2014 when oil prices crashed, forcing Angola to cut its budget by 25%, with public employees and suppliers going unpaid for months.

The report makes a strong case for accelerated adoption of renewable energy across Africa as a more just and inclusive alternative, explaining that fossils are not a “viable foundation for equitable economic development”.

What Africa needs now is a green and more resilient energy system and rich countries should support the continent financially and technologically for the transition to happen, said Power Shift African head Mohamed Adow.

“What we need right now is an energy future built around people, not exports, because it is obvious that we cannot drill ourselves out of poverty,” he said.

It was a shame that as many as 600 million people had no access to electricity and around 900 million lacked clean cooking energy despite the abundance of renewable resources such as solar all over Africa, he said.

“It is also sad that African countries are locked up in fossil dependency while big countries like China are exporting technologies. Our presidents see oil and gas as shortcuts to wealth. We must adopt development that genuinely serves the people,” he told a media briefing on the report in Nairobi.

“Real prosperity” for Africa, he noted, will come from investing in renewables while ending the tradition of using the limited forex available to “import problems”, in the form of finished petroleum products.

For this reason, international facilities such as climate finance must be made to work and help prove that development and climate action can go together. “It is our duty to help challenge the notion that there is no development without fossils,” he added.

The continent must therefore adopt a development model that serves its people, rather than one that benefits external actors, including for key services such as finance and insurance, all of which take place overseas.

Extracting and shipping resources out of Africa amounted to shipping out value, including jobs, according to Amos Wemanya, Power Shift Africa’s Senior Advisor, Renewable Energy and Just Transition.

The notion that renewables cannot power development across the continent has been debunked, and what is needed is continued scaling up of tested and proven renewable models of development.

“The oil and gas era has failed our continent and the energy revolution is happening on our rooftops, not in the oilfields,” he stated in reference to growing uptake of solar for powering homes and institutions across Africa.

Currently the global financial system has left many countries in distress, with nearly 57% of the African population, or about 751 million people, living in countries that spend more on interest payments than on health and education, according to UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

This has resulted in calls for debt restructuring and a review of credit ratings. Wemanya added, “Building resilience in African economies needs a fair international financial system.”

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Report say illegal logging, hidden ownership structures, and weak transparency laws are depriving governments of badly needed climate and biodiversity financing. Credit: Financial Transparency Coalition

By Umar Manzoor Shah
SRINAGAR, India, Jun 8 2026 (IPS)

A new report has found that billions of dollars linked to illegal deforestation are flowing through global supply chains, with secrecy around land ownership and company records helping timber, soy, and beef products enter international markets unchecked.

The report, Financial Secrets of the Forests: How Secrecy Fuels Deforestation in Brazil and Cameroon, was released by the Financial Transparency Coalition in partnership with the Center for Economics and Finance for Latin American Development (CEFILAT) on May 26, this year, examined forest loss and illicit financial flows in Brazil and Cameroon, two countries that hold some of the world’s largest tropical forests.

Researchers behind the report say illegal logging, hidden ownership structures, and weak transparency laws are depriving governments of badly needed climate and biodiversity financing. They argue that while countries have passed anti-deforestation laws, the lack of public access to company ownership records allows those benefiting from environmental destruction to remain hidden.

The report estimates that trade mispricing linked to timber exports cost Cameroon an average of US$289 million every year between 2013 and 2023. In Brazil, unexplained discrepancies in timber exports amounted to around US$214 million over a similar period.

When asked whether the report argues that financial secrecy is central to illegal deforestation and what the biggest obstacles were faced while trying to identify the real beneficiaries behind timber, soy, and cattle businesses in Brazil and Cameroon, one of the report’s lead authors, Matti Kohonen, Executive Director of the Financial Transparency Coalition, told Inter Press Service (IPS) in an exclusive interview that they weren’t able to identify the beneficial owners of these businesses despite using the best available data, including satellite GIS data.

“For the state of Mato Grosso in Brazil, which represents a fifth of the country’s total deforestation, we identified hundreds of thousands of plots of land which had been illicitly deforested from 2010 to produce soy and cattle but could only find the ID of the plots and, in some cases, companies behind them, but not their beneficial owners. When we asked the local authority for this information for the top plots of land, they replied this could not be provided due to privacy concerns despite this being a clear example of a public interest request,” he said.

“For Cameroon, on the other hand, we focused on timber and were able to map the main timber concessions (Forest Management Units (FMUs) and Sales of Standing Volume (SSVs), described in the report) and the companies that had these concessions were mostly identifiable in the datasets, but we could not find out using the best data whether these were shell companies owned by foreign firms and also could not identify their beneficial owners.”

According to him, Cameroon does have a BO database, but this is not publicly accessible.  Matti said that there is some data on mining and fossil fuel companies through the EITI (extractive industries transparency initiative), but forestry is not in their scope.

“When we asked for this information from the Cameroonian government, we didn’t get any reply, not even about the updated list of sanctioned timber companies, which we actually found were still being given concessions as late as July 2025.  Some of these sanctioned timber companies were available online, but not for the most recent years and there was no historical data that we found through earlier reporting by Pulitzer.”

The findings suggest that existing international regulations are failing to stop products linked to deforestation from entering global markets. Matti said that the biggest enforcement gaps in producer countries or importing countries are the inability to identify the companies and their beneficial owners responsible for deforestation and the lack of transparency in the supply chains which prevent tracing products to the source.

“This is a good study by WRI highlighting these issues. Another key problem is the lack of political will to tackle these issues. This is reflected in our report in the case of Cameroon, whose authorities didn’t provide us with any data, as well as the state of Mato Grosso, which refused to reveal the beneficial owners of the top plots of land linked to illicit deforestation despite the freedom of information legislation in Brazil.”

Matti added that the lack of publicly available beneficial ownership registries is a key problem as well, preventing NGOs and journalists from finding out those benefitting from the illicit clearing of forests.

“From the importing countries, the lack of political will to stop products from deforested land from entering global markets is also a major problem, especially now in major importing countries like China and Vietnam, which keep importing these products from companies that have been denounced and sanctioned in the past, as we see in Cameroon. That’s why we’re saying that without financial ownership and supply chain transparency it’s largely impossible for initiatives such as EUDR to succeed.”

The report argues that forests are not only being destroyed by chainsaws and fires, but also by opaque financial systems that make it difficult to identify who profits from deforestation.

“Financial and land ownership secrecy is a key driver behind illicit deforestation,” the report states.

In Brazil, investigators focused heavily on Mato Grosso, a state known as one of the world’s largest hubs for soy and cattle production. Satellite data showed that from 2010 to 2023, vast stretches of land were cleared without proper permits. Researchers found that 48 percent of soy production areas and 15 percent of intensive grazing pasture overlapped with plots lacking deforestation permits.

The environmental impact has been severe. Illegal cattle grazing linked to deforestation in Mato Grosso produced an estimated 502 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions between 2001 and 2023. Soy cultivation linked to illegal forest clearing generated another 250 million tonnes of emissions during the same period.

Researchers say tracing responsibility is extremely difficult because ownership information is often hidden or inaccessible.

Brazil maintains land and environmental registries, but public access to the real individuals behind companies and land holdings remains restricted. Investigators said even official requests under Brazil’s transparency laws failed to reveal the identities of people linked to illegally cleared land.

One case study highlighted a massive ranch in Mato Grosso called Fazenda Santa Silvia, where more than 3,000 hectares were allegedly cleared illegally between 2022 and 2023. Investigators connected the property to companies involved in soy and cattle production and traced supply chain links to meatpacking giants including JBS and Marfrig.

“We only analysed Mato Grosso but this state we strongly believe reflects the reality across Brazil, so the fact that such a large percentage of land for soy and beef has been illicitly deforested is really concerning. Afterwards, some of these plots get permission to grow soy/pasture but the literature suggests they’re the minority and doesn’t replace the fact that they were illicitly deforested in the first place,” Alfonso Daniels, lead author, said.

“Our data appears to reflect global research done by NGOs, such as a report from the NGO Forest Trends a few years ago that found that at least 69% of tropical forests cleared for agricultural activities such as ranching and farmland between 2013 and 2019 was done in violation of national laws and regulations, with other research showing similar percentages,” he added.

The report says such investigations currently depend on time-consuming fieldwork by journalists and environmental groups because public databases do not reveal beneficial ownership details.

The Congo Basin rainforest, where Cameroon is located, is the second largest rainforest system in the world after the Amazon. Cameroon lost more than 100,000 hectares of forest in 2025 alone, producing an estimated 130 million tonnes of carbon emissions.

Researchers found large discrepancies between the value of timber exports reported by Cameroon and the import figures recorded by trading partners such as China, Vietnam, and European Union countries. Between 2013 and 2023, the trade gap reached US$1.2 billion with China and US$760 million with Vietnam.

The report says this may point to underreporting of exports to evade customs duties and taxes.

Cameroon has introduced reforms requiring companies to disclose beneficial ownership information to tax authorities. However, the registry is not public, making it difficult for watchdog groups and journalists to track who ultimately controls logging companies and forest concessions.

Investigators also found that some companies sanctioned for illegal logging continued receiving logging permits years later. One table in the report lists several firms that were granted new concessions even after being penalized by authorities.

Environmental groups say weak enforcement in importing countries is adding to the problem.

Although the European Union, United Kingdom, and United States have laws banning illegal timber imports, the report argues that companies linked to deforestation continue accessing major markets because ownership structures remain hidden.

The European Union’s new Deforestation Regulation, expected to take effect in late 2026, will ban products linked to recently deforested land. But researchers warn that enforcement will remain difficult unless governments make ownership records fully public.

The report has pitched for public beneficial ownership registries, stronger supply chain transparency, public databases on environmental crimes, and a global asset registry that would reveal who owns forests, farmland, and logging concessions worldwide.

Researchers argue that tackling climate change and biodiversity loss will require more than promises to protect forests. They say governments must also confront the financial secrecy systems that allow environmental crimes to remain profitable.

The report estimates that money lost through illegal logging, tax evasion, and hidden financial flows could help close major global funding gaps for forests, biodiversity, and climate action.

When asked why Cameroon and Brazil both have beneficial ownership registries, yet public access remains limited and why governments continue to resist transparency around land and company ownership despite the environmental stakes, Daniels said that the laws that established these beneficial ownership registries are narrow in their scope concerning the use of the data, often such registries are made in compliance with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recent changes in its recommendations 24 and 22 that now require government-run and centralised beneficial ownership registries for anti-money laundering purposes.

“In the case of Cameroon, they are on the FATF grey list and establishing a high-quality and centralised government-run registry gets them off that list, and that’s one of the motivations to establish a BO registry, but there is no requirement to make it public under existing frameworks.

“Only in the case of extractive industries defined as mining and oil/gas do we have the requirement, as Cameroon is a signatory to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and they should comply with its requirement for public access, and some data on these is publicly accessible, but forestry is not considered an extractive industry and is outside of its scope,” said Daniels, adding that also, public pressure thus far from inside the country has not made this data fully public for any other reason.

“In the case of Brazil, the federal tax authority runs the beneficial ownership registry established before the FATF rule to comply with the OECD information exchange provisions from 2016 onwards, largely for tax collection reasons,” Daniels said.

According to him, the data is shared also with anti-corruption authorities to comply with later FATF rules.  However, Daniels said that this data is not made public.  “As Brazil is not a member of the EITI, it also does not make this data public even in the scope of mining, oil and gas companies.  There isn’t enough internal pressure from any section of society to make BO registries public, even if this could tackle illicit logging that is a major political concern for the current presidency.”

According to Kohonen, illicit financial flows linked to illicit deforestation can arise at different stages.  “If logging takes place without the proper licences, it is considered illegal, and the whole value of timber is therefore illicit.  It is important to ensure that sanctions and fines are promptly administered to deter anyone from illegal logging, but currently it is still far too commonplace that land is illegally logged, as up to 30% of all timber comes from land that was illegally logged.  This is an enforcement gap, where you can automatically issue sanctions and fines to companies that, based on satellite data, have deforested without adequate licences,” said Kohonen.

“Another stage is at the point of exporting (some 10-15% of all timber in Brazil is exported; the domestic consumption is quite high, while in Cameroon, most of the timber is exported), so at this point, the customs authorities could be checking if the timber is correctly valued at the point of export and if there are irregularities in customs declarations that may then lead to trade mispricing (unexplained value gaps between the export at the source and import prices at the destination country).”

He added that finally, there are also issues with tax authorities, where mispriced timber is often also a case of tax evasion, if this leads to paying less in VAT, royalties or export taxes.  Also, according to Kohonen,  companies may misdeclare their corporate taxes if they don’t report adequate sales of timber or wood products or if they don’t declare their products grown on deforested land correctly (e.g., soy/beef).

“Finally, companies may engage in profit-shifting activities, where they move taxable profits to offshore tax havens where they are taxed at a lower rate or may attract tax exemptions, or profits could be moved to tax havens through intra-firm transfers that are mispriced (e.g., mispriced internal financing or internal use of brand or IP).  These all contribute to making deforestation and deforestation-linked commodities more profitable and less likely to be detected.”

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Claude Gascon, interim CEO of the GEF and Aziz Abduhakimov, Minister of Environment of the Republic of Uzbekistan, at the closing ceremony of the Eighth GEF Assembly in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Gascon was presented with a traditional Uzbek outfit. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Cecilia Russell
SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan, Jun 5 2026 (IPS)

“While pressures on public budgets are growing and geopolitical tensions rising, it can be tempting to see environmental finance as optional. It is not,” GEF Interim CEO and Chair Claude Gascon told the closing plenary of the Eighth GEF Assembly in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, today.

For developing countries, least developed countries, small island developing states and fragile and vulnerable countries, overseas development aid is the cornerstone.

“Because what is at stake is not only a set of international targets. What is at stake is the future quality of life on this planet. What is at stake is whether children inherit rivers that still run clean, forests that still stand tall, coastlines that still protect communities, and economies that can thrive without destroying the natural systems on which all prosperity depends.”

Assembly chair Aziz Abdukhakimov, Advisor to the President of Uzbekistan on Environment and Chairman, the National Committee on Ecology and Climate Change, noted the event had been highly productive with over 50 side events, bilateral meetings, and informal exchanges.

“The GEF council reviewed and improved key decisions, including the GEF-9 programming directions and (the last) GEF-8 work program,” he said, while welcoming a strong focus on integrated programming, innovative financing, and inclusive participation, including the aim to direct at least 20 percent of GEF-9 resources to Indigenous peoples and local communities.

He said that Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s message that Uzbekistan would become a donor country reflected the country’s “commitment to environmental sustainability.

“This shows our readiness not only to benefit from cooperation but also to contribute to global environmental relations,” Abdukhakimov said.

Earlier in a high-level panel discussion, Dr Rosina Bierbaum, Chair of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) of the GEF, reminded the Assembly that while half of the global GDP depends on nature, there is a “USD 700 billion annual biodiversity financing gap”.

However, she said, an analysis by management consulting firm McKinsey confirms that implementing the 30 by 30 biodiversity goals, aimed at effectively conserving at least 30% of the Earth’s land and oceans by 2030, will generate significant conservation and socioeconomic goals and lift people out of poverty.

While the discussion about funding was coming at a difficult time, Kenneth Lay, Senior Managing Director at RockCreek and former Treasurer of the World Bank, said the good news was that the private sector could help tackle the problems.

Detailing how the global savings pool has grown dramatically “driven by 15 years of exceptional markets”, he said there were trillions of dollars available in pension and sovereign wealth funds, insurance sector reserves, and others, and these funds could become available to invest in nature, but “asset owners were not in the room”.

Lay suggested that the GEF convene the players who run central banks, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and securities regulators among others and ensure that “investing in nature is as natural as investing in infrastructure.” Ensure that investing in nature is as natural as investing in infrastructure.

Valerie Hickey, Director, Environment, World Bank Group, said the GEF had a role to play in building enabling regulations and policy predictability to help the private sector manage risk – with a focus on what she called the ‘Goldilocks’ blend of concessional and commercial finance to cushion investment failures while ensuring the investment has commercial returns and is financially solid enough to unlock private capital that has “measurable environmental outcomes.”

There were warnings too.

Rachel Kyte, Special Representative for Climate, United Kingdom, warned that a study showed her country was “highly vulnerable to ecosystem collapse.

“What does that mean? It means that for a British family, their ability to fill their supermarket trolley with the things they need to keep their children healthy is entirely linked to the integrity of the Congo Basin. And that if anything were to further threaten it, there would be security and defence implications.”

Getting local communities and Indigenous people involved through people-centred, inclusive, and economically viable solutions was key, Joyelle Clarke, Minister of Sustainable Development and Environment, Climate Action and Constituency Empowerment, Saint Kitts and Nevis, said. She explained how the blue carbon market was underappreciated and often hard to grasp.

Clarke gave an example of a UNESCO world heritage site that conserves turtles – in an area where the fishing community’s diet included turtles. By offering alternative job opportunities in the tourist industry, they were able to garner the community’s support for the site.

Leaders and delegates from the Uzbek government and the GEF pose for a group photo at the conclusion of the Eighth GEF Assembly in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

Gascon reminded the plenary that the environment was not a “side issue”.

“First, we must defend and strengthen continued public development assistance for countries… Continued public ODA is therefore not only a moral commitment. It is an investment in global stability, in human security, and in the shared future of all nations.”

Then, he said “countries need to align national policies with the environmental outcomes they seek. We cannot say we are committed to sustainability while still rewarding the destruction of ecosystems, the overuse of natural resources, or the pollution of air, land, and water.”

Third, the GEF should unlock the full power of private capital and ensure that the private sector becomes “not just a source of finance but a true partner in governance and delivery of global environmental outcomes”.

And finally, “cabinet-wide commitment and society-wide participation” were needed for the environment goals to be achieved.

“We need national leadership, but we also need local ownership. That means listening to and working with communities, Indigenous Peoples, women, youth, civil society, scientists, local authorities, farmers, workers, and entrepreneurs. It means recognising that durable solutions are not imposed – they are built together.”

Finally, Gascon said the final push to 2030 “must be more than a countdown. It must be a turning point.”

Note: The Eighth Global Environment Facility Assembly held its final plenary today, 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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Credit: Adobe Stock Photo / Source: UN News
 
A staggering 55 million people across West and Central Africa are expected to suffer crisis levels of hunger, or worse, during the lean season from June to August as funding cuts to humanitarian operations continue amid rising violence and displacement. UN News January 2026

By Kester Kenn Klomegah
MOSCOW, Jun 3 2026 (IPS)

Within the framework of the Expert Council on Africa at Russia’s State Duma, the lower chamber of parliamentarians, during its annual round-table conference, held in late May 2026, focused concretely on food security in Africa.

The Expert Council has further outlined a strategic roadmap to raise collaboration in the sphere of food security, emphasizing the necessity to address policy inconsistencies that have generally dominated Russian-African relations since the Soviet collapse.

Under the chairmanship of Deputy Speaker of the State Duma, Alexander Babakov, the council’s round-table session on—Russian-African cooperation in the field of ensuring food security, introduction of closed cycle technologies in agricultural and bioeconomy projects—was held in the State Duma.

Opening the meeting, Alexander Babakov, noted the importance of continuing cooperation with African countries already in the new convocation of the State Duma, to which elections will be held in September 2026.

“I am sure that right from the beginning of the work of the new convocation, the theme of cooperation between Russia and African countries will work as an example for circulation and use in other areas,” he said.

A member of the Committee on the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, deputy chairman of the Expert Council on Africa, Nikolai Novichkov, in his speech stressed the importance of a gradual transition to trade with African high-tech countries. “Our African partners are interested in producing and processing food locally, including earning a living on it,” the parliamentarian stated.

The Director of the Department of Partnership with Africa at the Russian Foreign Ministry, Tatiana Dovgalenko, drew attention to the continued importance of the humanitarian component of Russian-African cooperation, which, despite efforts, “unforeseen including and along the lines of specialized UN agencies, the number of hungry people in the world, has been growing over the past few years.” According to Dovgalenko, the food crisis is localized in about 10 countries, four of which are in Africa.

There are still a few points to underline here: Russia is committed to supporting African countries in need of humanitarian assistance, while strengthening the prospects of developing and expanding aspects of bilateral cooperation. Russia has offered many African countries with food supplies over the years.

As traditionally expected, Africa can leverage for Russia’s food supplies. It is essential to acknowledge that serious efforts are being directed at coordinating mechanisms in advancing political dialogue and pursuing other sectoral cooperation with African partners.

At the same time, Foreign Ministry’s records show stages of supporting food security and African beneficiaries such as Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Madagascar, Libya, Sudan and South Sudan, and Zimbabwe. Mostly, ethnic-conflicting African countries are the beneficiaries, and many reasons are assigned for Russia’s engagement in this aspect of diplomacy.

Reasons for Development Assistance

Russia’s humanitarian and development assistance to Africa is primarily driven by its geopolitical ambitions to expand its global influence, counter Western isolation, secure access to vital natural resources, and foster dependency among African nations.

Countering Western Influence: Russia seeks to position itself as an alternative to Western powers, often advocating for a “multipolar world” and non-interference in the domestic affairs of African states. This approach is particularly appealing to authoritarian regimes on the continent.

Securing Diplomatic Alliances:
African nations represent a significant voting bloc at the United Nations General Assembly. Humanitarian outreach, such as free delivery of grains, helps Russia secure diplomatic support, strengthen food security and votes on key international resolutions.

Leveraging “Grain Diplomacy”:
By providing humanitarian food aid, Moscow mitigates the effects of the global food shortages and supply chain disruptions caused by its own military actions in Ukraine. It uses these provisions to maintain African countries within its geopolitical orbit.

Food Aid Deals:
Aid serves as an entry point for deeper strategic ties. Russia utilizes this assistance as part of its diplomacy to project an image of a benevolent global power. Funding and providing food assistance helps build long-term relationships with the continent’s future leaders and local populations.

As first deputy chairman of the Committee on International Affairs, Alexei Chepa noted at the State Duma, the food crisis and a number of other serious threats on the African continent are today exacerbated by a complex international, United States and Israel vs. Iran causing rising energy prices worldwide.

“This has also reflected on the cost of fertilizers that needed to be purchased previously. Even if prices fall in a few months, the yield still won’t. And there will be problems in Africa. At the same time, we understand that population growth in the coming years will be at Africa’s expense,” Chepa underlined in his contribution at the meeting.

Chepa also mentioned the special role of security enhancement in Africa, including in countering extremism and terrorism.

As part of the continuation of the work of the roundtable to promote cooperation with African countries in ensuring food security, the introduction of closed-loop technologies in agricultural and bio economics projects was discussed. As traditional procedure, some recommendations are addressed to the Government of the Russian Federation.

In addition to representatives of the State Duma, the State Duma’s deputy chairman Alexander Babakov, brought also representatives of ministries, related-agencies and departments, and the expert community to develop concrete steps directed toward raising connectivity between Russia and Africa, the main reason for establishing the State Duma’s Expert Council on the Development and Support of Comprehensive Partnerships with African Countries.

Kester Kenn Klomegah focuses on current geopolitical changes, foreign relations and economic development-related questions in Africa with external countries. Most of his well-resourced articles are reprinted in several reputable foreign media.

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