Farmers in Bangladesh. Credit: Heifer International
 
As conflict in the Middle East disrupts critical fuel and fertilizer supply routes, smallholder farmers across Asia are once again caught in the crossfire of global shocks. This piece argues that repeated crises are exposing a deeper structural flaw in agri-food systems—Overdependence on External Inputs. It presents a compelling case for regenerative agriculture as a pathway to resilient food systems in Asia.

By Neena Joshi
UTTAR PRADESH, India, May 15 2026 (IPS)

The latest shock to global food systems, triggered by conflict in the Middle East and disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz, has once again exposed a fragile truth: the world’s food systems remain highly vulnerable to external shocks.

For Asia, especially South Asia, where agriculture underpins millions of livelihoods, the consequences are immediate and severe. Rising fuel prices, supply chain disruptions, and limited access to fertilizers are pushing already fragile systems to the brink.

The Strait of Hormuz is not just a geopolitical chokepoint; it is a lifeline for fuel and agricultural inputs across Asia. A significant share of fertilizers and their raw materials, including natural gas, transit through or originate from this route.

For countries such as India, Bangladesh, and Nepal, where agriculture employs between 38 and over 60 percent of the workforce, this dependency creates systemic risk. When supply chains falter, the effects cascade quickly: input costs rise, planting cycles are disrupted, and farmer incomes shrink.

Solar panels installed in a farm in Bangladesh. Credit: Heifer International

Even if shipping routes reopen, recovery will be slow

Damage to energy infrastructure and continued geopolitical uncertainty mean price volatility and supply constraints can persist for months. For smallholder farmers, this creates a dual crisis. Exporting produce becomes difficult due to logistical bottlenecks, while fuel shortages hamper domestic distribution. At the same time, the next cropping cycle looms, with essential fertilizers either unavailable or unaffordable.

This is not an isolated disruption. From the COVID-19 pandemic to the war in Ukraine, global shocks are becoming more frequent and interconnected. Each crisis compounds the last, pushing smallholder farmers, the backbone of global food production, into deeper uncertainty. The question is no longer whether disruptions will occur, but how prepared our systems are to withstand them.

At the heart of the problem is overdependence on external, input-intensive systems, chemical fertilizers, fossil fuels, and long, fragile supply chains. Reducing this dependence is central to building resilience.

Regenerative Agriculture and Renewable Energy Offer a Compelling Pathway Forward.

At its core, regenerative agriculture restores soil health, enhances biodiversity, improves water retention, and reduces reliance on synthetic inputs. Practices such as crop diversification, organic soil enrichment, reduced tillage, and integrated pest management shift farming from an extractive to a restorative model.

By rebuilding natural soil fertility, these approaches reduce dependence on external inputs. Instead of relying heavily on urea in rice cultivation, regenerative systems promote nutrient cycling and biological nitrogen fixation through legumes, alongside the use of compost and manure to strengthen soil organic matter and ensure a steady, natural nutrient supply.

Integrating renewable energy further strengthens resilience. Solar-powered irrigation replaces fuel-based inputs with clean, reliable energy, lowering operational costs and improving water-use efficiency—especially critical during periods of disruption.

The evidence base for these approaches is both growing and compelling. In Bangladesh, multiple studies show that solar irrigation consistently outperforms diesel systems, delivering higher returns, improving food security, and reducing irrigation costs by 20–50 percent, while significantly boosting profitability (Rana, 2021; Buisson, 2024; Sunny, 2023; Sarker, 2025).

Research also shows that bio-based inputs like compost, biochar, and green manure can partially replace synthetic fertilizers, often without yield loss, while improving soil health (Naher, 2021; Ferdous, 2023; Behera, 2025).

Regenerative Agriculture is Not Just an Environmental Solution—It is an Economic One

By reducing dependence on volatile external inputs such as chemical fertilizers and fossil fuels, regenerative agriculture shields farmers from global price shocks while improving long-term productivity and profits.

Emerging evidence from Nepal and India reinforces this trend: while yields generally remain stable, reduced input costs significantly increase farm profitability (Magar, 2022; Dhakal, 2022; Berger, 2025).

A broader analysis by the Observer Research Foundation (2025) finds that although yields may dip slightly during transition, most cases report higher yields over time, alongside improved income stability driven by lower input dependence.

Similar trends are being observed globally, reinforcing that regenerative approaches can deliver both resilience and profitability across diverse farming systems (link).

Importantly, these outcomes are already visible on the ground in South Asia. Through programs led by Heifer International, smallholder farmers are adopting regenerative and climate-smart practices that reduce costs, improve yields, and strengthen resilience.

In Bangladesh’s Jashore district, for instance, women farmers organized into cooperatives have reduced irrigation costs, improved productivity, and strengthened market access through solar irrigation, organic soil management, and collective action.

As one farmer, Shirin Akter, shares: “Adopting climate-smart practices and pooling resources through my cooperative allowed me to grow diverse crops. When drought hit, I still had harvests to sell, and my cooperative helped me recover quickly.”

For farmers like Shirin, these shifts are transformative, turning vulnerability into resilience through diversified systems, lower input dependence, and stronger collective support. Similar models in Nepal show how regenerative, community-based approaches can reduce resource pressure while improving incomes.

Scaling this Transition Requires Action Beyond the Farm

To transition to a resilient and sustainable food system, a multi-stakeholder approach is essential. Policymakers should realign incentives to support sustainable practices and reduce dependence on imported inputs. Financial institutions and insurers should recognize the lower risk profiles of regenerative systems.

Businesses must embed sustainability into core decisions, prioritizing sourcing from farmers adopting regenerative practices and building longer-term, stable supply relationships. At the same time, marketing teams can shape consumer demand by communicating the value of sustainably produced food. Together, these shifts can align supply chains and markets in support of more resilient food systems.

The stakes are high. The World Food Programme warns that roughly 45 million more people could be pushed into hunger if current disruptions persist, adding to the 318 million people already food insecure.

We cannot continue rebuilding fragile food systems after every shock. We must redesign them. Regenerative agriculture offers a pathway to reduce dependence on volatile external inputs, restore ecological balance, and build resilience where it matters most—at the farm level.

To replenish what has been used up is not just an environmental necessity—it is the foundation of more secure, equitable, and resilient food systems across Asia.

Neena Joshi is the Senior Vice President for Asia Programs at Heifer International. With over 20 years of experience, she leads initiatives to build inclusive, sustainable agrifood systems and empower smallholder farmers, especially women and youth, across Asia.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

One of the biggest hidden threats to ocean health comes from biofouling — the accumulation of algae, barnacles and microorganisms on ships’ hulls that can transport invasive species across oceans. Credit: Aaron Smulktis/Unsplash

By Kizito Makoye
MAFIA ISLAND, Tanzania , May 14 2026 (IPS)

Under the warm waters off Tanzania’s Mafia Island, marine scientist Asha Mgeni hovers above a coral reef she has studied for years. Small fish dart through the currents. To most divers, the reef appears pristine. But Mgeni notices something unusual.

Tucked between coral branches are invasive organisms disrupting the reef’s natural growth and species, which were not there before, she says.

“We know these reefs,” she tells IPS. “When something new appears, it stands out immediately.”

For communities along Tanzania’s coastline, coral reefs are ecological treasures. They cradle fish stocks, soften the blow of crashing waves and support coastal economies increasingly threatened by climate change and environmental degradation.

Scientists say one of the biggest hidden threats comes from biofouling — the accumulation of algae, barnacles and microorganisms on ships’ hulls that can transport invasive species across oceans. For decades, ballast water was considered shipping’s main pathway for spreading invasive aquatic species. But maritime experts now say biofouling can no longer be ignored.

“Ballast water has certainly, historically at least, been considered the primary vector for IAS introductions,” says Will Griffiths, Project Technical Analyst at the International Maritime Organization. “However, the role played by biofouling in this regard has become more recognised in recent years, with some studies suggesting that in some locations, such as parts of Hawaii and New Zealand, it may have been the primary vector.”

Fish vendors wait for the arrival of the day’s catch along the shoreline in coastal Tanzania, where fishing sustains thousands of livelihoods. Marine scientists say invasive aquatic species linked to international shipping could disrupt fisheries and threaten food security for vulnerable coastal communities. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

As global shipping expands, marine experts warn that invasive species are spreading through trade routes, disrupting ecosystems and threatening biodiversity. Scientists and regulators say biofouling can transport  marine organisms and pathogens across ecosystems, threatening fisheries and coastal economies.

“It is also worth noting that biofouling can represent a great species richness in terms of species transported by ships and also, therefore, potential pathogens,” Griffiths tells IPS.

Mwanahija Shalli, a professor of Marine and Coastal Resources Management at the University of Dar es Salaam, says marine biodiversity underpins livelihoods for millions of coastal residents through fisheries and tourism.

“Invasive aquatic species threaten ecosystems and fisheries by displacing native species,” she says. “If we fail to manage biofouling, we undermine important conservation efforts.”

A broad alliance led by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is stepping up efforts to confront a major environmental threat from shipping: the spread of invasive aquatic species through biofouling.

Port and maritime officials inspect a vessel at the Port of Dar es Salaam as part of efforts to monitor the environmental risks posed by invasive marine species spread through global shipping routes. Experts say biofouling on ship hulls has become a growing threat to marine biodiversity and coastal economies. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

Known as the GloFouling Partnerships Project, the initiative aims to help countries strengthen regulations, improve monitoring systems and build technical capacity to reduce the transfer of invasive species through international shipping. The project supports  efforts to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals — particularly the target to conserve and sustainably use oceans, seas and marine resources — while delivering climate benefits through improved vessel efficiency and lower emissions.

Scientists say organisms nestled on ship hulls increase drag, forcing vessels to burn more fuel and produce more emissions.

“Biofouling changes the affected ships’ hydrodynamics and increases drag, meaning there is increased fuel consumption and thus increased greenhouse gas emissions,” Griffiths says. “This can also be a major issue when fouling is on the ship’s propellers, which, due to shape, require specialist cleaning.”

He says biofouling can also interfere with vessel operations.

“There is also some anecdotal evidence to suggest fouling can cause blockages in seawater intakes, affect engine performance and even firefighting systems in extreme cases, which further increases fuel consumption,” he says.

Andrew Hume, Senior Environmental Specialist at the Global Environment Facility, says the initiative builds on earlier international efforts to control invasive species transported through ballast water.

“The GloFouling project builds on a long-standing partnership between the GEF UNDP and the IMO to address shipping impacts on the marine environment,” he says.

According to Hume, the project closes a major gap by targeting hull biofouling, another key pathway for invasive species transfer.

“Keeping ships’ hulls free from just a thin layer of slime could reduce a ship’s greenhouse gas emissions by up to 25 per cent,” Hume says.

A cargo ship enters the Port of Dar es Salaam, one of East Africa’s busiest maritime gateways. As shipping traffic increases, scientists and regulators are raising concerns about biofouling — the buildup of marine organisms on ship hulls that can transport invasive species across oceans. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

Marine scientists warn that invasive aquatic species can dramatically alter ecosystems, outsmart native organisms and damage fisheries that support coastal livelihoods. The issue is  raising international concern as governments struggle to balance burgeoning maritime trade with the protection of ocean ecosystems. Griffiths says the international community has made substantial progress regulating ballast water through the Ballast Water Management Convention, but biofouling controls still lag behind.

“An important aspect to consider is that there is a robust international legal framework for managing ballast water, whereas at the international level biofouling provisions are, for the moment, recommendatory and only a few countries have biofouling regulations,” he explains.

Across East Africa, rising cargo traffic has increased concern about shipping’s ecological footprint. Similar efforts are underway globally. Indonesia estimates improved biofouling management could generate up to USD 7 million annually through healthier reefs, lower fuel consumption and reduced port maintenance costs.

In Peru, authorities are building a national aquatic biodiversity database to help scientists detect invasive species before they spread along the coastline.

“Collaboration in the project enabled the authorities to develop a national aquatic biodiversity catalogue providing the baseline knowledge to detect invasive species early and undertake rapid response,” Griffiths says.

In Fiji, the results are impressive.

“Fiji reported that as a result of the GloFouling dry dock training, they had improved the technical capacity of local personnel and gained access to resources to upgrade local facilities,” Griffiths says, adding that the programme had strengthened confidence among local maritime operators and enhanced Fiji’s position in the regional maritime services market

Meanwhile, Mauritius is encouraging private-sector investment in technologies designed to protect fragile marine ecosystems. Over the past six years, countries participating in the GloFouling initiative have moved toward stricter regulation and greater regional cooperation.

Australia and New Zealand have already introduced fully enforceable national regimes requiring clean hulls, biofouling management plans, record books and inspections consistent with the IMO’s 2023 Biofouling Guidelines. Griffiths says Brazil has emerged as a leader among developing nations.

“Brazil is the newest and most explicit adopter, directly embedding the 2023 guidelines into mandatory port state law,” he says. “Unlike the IMO’s voluntary approach, however, Brazil sets an explicit enforceable standard: vessels must arrive with no more than microfouling.”

The project has also expanded into maritime training and private-sector cooperation. Through the Global Industry Alliance, companies are testing hull coatings and cleaning technologies to limit the spread of invasive species.

“One of the project’s most transformative impacts has been creating a collaborative platform where technology innovators, regulators and industry leaders jointly develop and implement solutions for biofouling,” Griffiths says.

The alliance, initially created to support the project, has since evolved into a permanent collaboration. Griffiths says the group is expanding research into hull inspection technologies and the environmental impacts of antifouling coatings.

“The continuation of the GIA and its ongoing studies offers exceptional value as a driving force for industry innovation, standard-setting and knowledge dissemination,” he says.

Hume says the initiative builds on earlier GEF-supported efforts that led to the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments in 2004. He says the programme has since helped develop the IMO’s 2023 Biofouling Guidelines and supported pilot projects in 12 countries.

Hume says the GEF is preparing a second phase of investment aimed at helping more countries implement the IMO’s 2023 Biofouling Guidelines and strengthen international cooperation.

“The objective is to strengthen national and institutional capacity of developing countries to implement the guidelines in order to reduce invasive species and lower greenhouse gas emissions,” he says.

A second phase of investment expected before June  aims to strengthen national capacity, expand implementation and advance discussions toward a legally binding global framework on biofouling management. Although the GloFouling project officially concluded in May 2025, Griffiths says efforts are continuing through training programmes, technical studies and industry partnerships designed to maintain momentum ahead of anticipated binding international regulations by 2030.

Experts say cleaner hulls not only reduce the spread of invasive species but also lower fuel consumption and carbon emissions. However, scientists caution that poorly managed hull-cleaning practices can release chemicals and microplastics into marine environments.

Back on Mafia Island, Mgeni says the changes beneath the water are often subtle before they become irreversible.

“Once invasive species establish themselves, it becomes much harder to restore the balance,” she says.

For communities that depend on reefs for food, tourism and protection from storms, the battle against biofouling is becoming a fight to protect the ecosystems and livelihoods that depend on the ocean.

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

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau

Opening plenary session, INC 5.2 of the global plastics negotiations, Palais des Nations, Geneva, 5 August 2025. Credit: Craig Boljkovac

By Craig Boljkovac
GENEVA, May 14 2026 (IPS)

Norway’s reported decision to review and place on hold aspects of its funding to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) should be understood as more than a budgetary matter. It is a political signal. It is also a warning that the global plastics treaty negotiations may now be approaching the point at which governments must decide whether the present UNEP process can still deliver the treaty they promised, or whether a different pathway is required.

There should be no misunderstanding. Norway has been one of the strongest supporters of an ambitious global plastics treaty. It co-leads, with Rwanda, the High Ambition Coalition. It has also been the largest listed contributor to the INC process, with UNEP’s donor table showing more than USD 7.2 million in contributions received from Norway as of 25 March 2026.

Its apparent decision to pause or review funding therefore cannot be dismissed as marginal. It comes from a country that has invested politically and financially in the process and that has consistently positioned itself on the side of ambition.

That is precisely why the signal matters.

If Norway is now forcing a moment of reflection, it may be doing the negotiations a service. A process that cannot conclude, cannot decide, and cannot distinguish between genuine compromise and procedural obstruction needs more than another round of careful facilitation. It needs political clarity.

The original mandate was not ambiguous. In March 2022, the United Nations Environment Assembly agreed to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, addressing the full lifecycle of plastics, with the aim of completing the work by the end of 2024. That deadline has passed.

The fifth session in Busan did not produce a treaty. The resumed fifth session in Geneva did not produce a treaty. INC-5.3 in February 2026 was essentially an organizational session, including the election of a new Chair. We are now looking toward INC-5.4, possibly at the end of 2026 or in early 2027.

At some point, the numbering itself approaches the point of absurdity. INC-5.4 is not a normal negotiating milestone. It is the fourth attempt to complete the fifth session of a process that was supposed to conclude in 2024. This is not multilateral patience. It is clearly a form of procedural dysfunction.

None of this is intended as disrespect toward Ambassador Julio Cordano of Chile, the newly elected Chair of the INC. On the contrary, he has taken on one of the most difficult environmental negotiations in recent memory.

He inherited a fractured process, an absurdly complicated text, deeply polarized delegations, and an increasingly visible divide between countries seeking a full-lifecycle treaty and those seeking a narrower waste-management instrument. This is despite his stated and admirable determination to get the treaty “over the line.”

The difficulty, however, is that all indications suggest that the Chair is pursuing a highly neutral, process-oriented path. That is understandable. A Chair in this setting is expected to maintain confidence across the room, including among delegations whose positions are far apart. But neutrality is not the same as progress.

At a certain point, a too-neutral process can become a shield for those who prefer no outcome, or only the weakest possible outcome. And his treatment of observers, despite recent indications that he will take their views more fully into consideration, still leaves much to be desired in a UN system that contends to be as broadly inclusive as possible.

The gap between the Like-Minded countries and the High Ambition Coalition is not a drafting problem. It is a political problem. One group of countries wants an agreement that addresses the full lifecycle of plastics, including production, design, hazardous chemicals, products, trade, waste, finance and implementation.

Another group seeks to confine the treaty largely to downstream waste management, recycling and national discretion. These are not merely different textual preferences. They are different theories of the treaty. The mandate for the negotiations clearly states that the former, not the latter, is what should be pursued.

If the process continues to treat these positions as equally bridgeable, it will continue to reward delay. Consensus can be a tool for legitimacy. But in this process, it is increasingly at risk of becoming a veto mechanism for the least ambitious actors.

The result is predictable: more informal consultations, more revised texts, more late-night sessions, more statements of disappointment, and still no treaty.

This is why Norway’s move deserves, at minimum, a measure of credit. It has introduced a hard political question into a process that has become too comfortable with postponement. If countries are serious about concluding a meaningful treaty within UNEP, they should do so now. Not after another “informal” round. Not after another partial session. Not after INC-5.5 or INC-5.6. Now.

But if they are not prepared to do so, then high-ambition countries should begin preparing an alternative. The obvious precedent is the Ottawa Process on anti-personnel landmines. When the established disarmament machinery could not deliver a comprehensive ban, a coalition of like-minded governments, supported by civil society and international organizations, moved outside the blocked forum and negotiated a treaty among those prepared to act.

The Mine Ban Treaty was opened for signature in Ottawa in December 1997 and was later (after agreement was reached) brought back into the broader UN treaty system.

That example is important because it shows that moving outside a blocked UN process is not necessarily anti-UN. It can be pro-multilateralism. The Ottawa Process did not reject international law; it created it. It did not wait for the least ambitious actors to become ready. It allowed the most ambitious actors to move first and then invited others to join.

A plastics “Ottawa Process” would not need to start from zero. The UNEP negotiations have already generated years of technical work, draft text, legal options, coalition positions, scientific input and stakeholder engagement. A like-minded process could take the strongest elements from that work and use them as the basis for an agreed treaty text.

Participation could be open to all states, but on the basis of a minimum level of ambition: full lifecycle coverage; legally binding obligations; controls on problematic products and chemicals of concern; a necessary focus on supply chains; credible implementation financing; and reporting and review mechanisms.

The next stage should therefore be framed as a final test. INC-5.4 should be treated as the last credible opportunity for the UNEP process to produce a treaty that reflects the mandate adopted in 2022.

If that session produces only another procedural continuation, or a weak agreement stripped of lifecycle measures, production-related provisions, and meaningful controls on chemicals and products, then high-ambition countries should move immediately toward an Ottawa-style diplomatic track.

The plastics crisis is not waiting for the INC process to resolve its internal contradictions. Plastic production continues to grow, in accordance with targets set by like-minded countries. Waste continues to leak into rivers, oceans, soils and food systems. Communities continue to bear the health and environmental costs. The purpose of the negotiations was to respond to that reality, not to create an indefinite process for describing it.

Norway’s funding decision may therefore prove useful if it forces governments to confront the obvious. Either the UNEP negotiations now become serious, political and outcome-oriented, or the countries that are serious about ending plastic pollution should create a pathway of their own.

That would not be a failure of multilateralism. It may be the only way left to save it.

Craig Boljkovac is a Geneva-based Senior Advisor with a Regional Centre for the Basel and Stockholm Conventions, and an independent international environmental consultant with over 35 years of experience in relevant fields. His opinions are his own. He has participated in several INCs and related meetings for the global plastics agreement.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Jabiru Muhammed stands beside a tree planted as part of the Great Green Wall project in his village in Jigawa State. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

By Promise Eze
GARABADU VILLAGE, Nigeria, May 12 2026 (IPS)

In 2021, Gadeja Shehu and about a hundred farmers in Garbadu village, Zamfara State in northwestern Nigeria, were invited by officials of the National Agency for the Great Green Wall to plant trees across a large stretch of land in their community.

Shehu remembers how fierce, dust-laden winds from the Sahara Desert often tore off the roof of his home and damaged his farmland. For him, taking part in the tree-planting exercise was a way to confront this challenge, especially after seeing the impact of similar interventions in other northern states such as Kaduna, Bauchi, and Jigawa, where desertification has degraded once fertile land.

The Sahara is advancing relentlessly across the Sahel, expanding by nearly 10 per cent since the 1920s. In Nigeria, around 35,000 hectares of land are lost each year as the desert continues to encroach southwards.

Trees planted in Garbadu village, Zamfura State. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

Desertification is causing land degradation in the Sahel. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

In Garbadu, a community of roughly 6,000 people who rely on farming, many had abandoned their fields, resulting in falling incomes and growing food shortages. However, the tree-planting initiative is beginning to reverse this trend. It is part of the Great Green Wall Initiative, an ambitious plan to create an 8,000-kilometre-long and 15-kilometre-wide belt of vegetation across Africa.

Launched by the African Union in 2007, the initiative spans 11 countries in the Sahel, including Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti. It aims to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land, generate 10 million jobs, and capture 250 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030.

Nigeria’s section stretches roughly 1,500 kilometres, focusing on a 15-kilometre-wide belt of drought-resistant trees across vulnerable northern states.

Initially conceived as a plant barrier, the initiative has since expanded its goals. It now focuses on restoring degraded lands, halting desert expansion, improving soil and water conservation, supporting agriculture and livestock, creating green jobs, and helping communities adapt to climate change.

“The project has been really impactful here. Previously strong winds would rip off our roofs, but now it is no longer frequent. Before the plantation, the soil of the areas where the trees are now barely held water, but now it does have moisture and I’m happy the area is slowly turning green again,” said Shehu, who added that he continues to care for the trees.

Senegalese villagers working in a tree nursery forming part of the Great Green Wall. Photo: FAO/Benedicte Kurzen/NOOR

Family of Funds

The Great Green Wall has attracted significant funding over the years. The Global Environment Facility (GEF), a key partner, has provided more than $1 billion in grants. These funds have helped leverage an additional $6 billion from governments, development partners, and multilateral institutions. The investments have strengthened landscapes, improved livelihoods, reduced poverty, and enhanced food and water security.

Jonky Tenou, Africa Regional Coordinator at the GEF, said the GEF has supported the Great Green Wall Initiative through strategic, programmatic investments over successive replenishment cycles, leveraging its family of funds to build momentum and coherence.

These efforts include the GEF 4 Strategic Investment Program for Sustainable Land Management in Sub-Saharan Africa (SIP), the GEF 5 Sahel and West Africa Program (SAWAP), the GEF 6 Integrated Approach Pilot on Food Security (IAP Food Security), the GEF 7 Food, Land-Use and Restoration Impact Program (FOLUR), and, under GEF 8, the Transformational Approach to Large-Scale Investment in Support of the Implementation of the Great Green Wall Initiative (TALSISI GGWI).

Tela Jubrin, a farmer, planted trees for the Great Green Wall in Jigawa State, Nigeria. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

Shafi’u Ladan, one of the farmers who participated in the tree planting project in Garbadu, Zamfara state. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

Sustainable Impact

The TALSISI GGWI, Tenou explained, is designed as a truly programmatic, multi-country platform that builds on lessons learned over the past decade.

“Compared to earlier approaches, TALSISI places stronger emphasis on regional coordination, deeper integration across GEF focal areas, and a clear focus on scalability, learning, and adaptive management. Crucially, the programme also gives greater attention to the institutional, financial, and security constraints that have previously limited effectiveness, helping to create the conditions needed for sustained and transformative impact at scale,” he said.

Observers have noted that the Great Green Wall Initiative has often been criticised for being highly ambitious but slow in delivery — a concern acknowledged by the GEF and its partners. They stress, however, that the programme is not designed as a quick fix, but rather as a long-term intervention aimed at delivering sustained impact over time.

“Progress on the Great Green Wall is assessed through a transformational, system-level lens rather than through isolated output metrics. In Nigeria and across the Sahel, GEF investments have contributed to advancing land degradation neutrality objectives by strengthening sustainable land management practices, restoring ecosystem functionality, and improving livelihoods in highly vulnerable areas,” said Tenou.

Emmanuel Diagbouga, a natural resources planning and management expert based in Burkina Faso, said the effectiveness of the Great Green Wall Initiative depends on a clear and operational multi-level governance framework that connects regional coordination, national planning, and community-level implementation.

Community Ownership Drives Tree Protection

Murtala Bado, the village head of Garbadu, said one sign of the Great Green Wall Initiative’s progress is the behavioural change among community members in a region where deforestation is a serious problem.

He told IPS that people are now aware of the benefits of trees and no longer cut them in the Great Green Wall Initiative project sites. Defaulters who are caught are reported to village leaders and security agencies for disciplinary measures.

“The project has even provided employment opportunities for people here. Farmers who are part of it receive allowances from the government. This project cannot work if there are no people to take care of it. And for people to actually show up and take interest means that it is going to be sustainable in the long term,” he said.

Rising Above the Challenges

The Great Green Wall Initiative has achieved only 30 per cent of its planned execution in participating countries. In Nigeria, progress is higher, at about 50 per cent, but insecurity has slowed the project and remains one of its greatest challenges.

Insurgency in northern states such as Zamfara, Katsina, and Borno, where the project is implemented, has been a major obstacle. For decades, insurgents have imposed taxes, killed villagers, and kidnapped for ransom, targeting anything linked to the state, including environmental projects.

“Insecurity has emerged as one of the most critical risks to the long-term sustainability of the Great Green Wall, particularly in countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Direct operational constraints include armed conflict and the presence of non-state armed groups, which restrict access to restoration sites, force the suspension of field activities, and expose environmental staff and local partners to security threats. Several restored areas have been abandoned due to population displacement and the lack of institutional presence,” said Diagbouga, and the impact is that the budget is diverted toward defence spending.

Tenou said that despite the challenges, the GEF and its partners have responded by adopting flexible and adaptive implementation approaches, including working through local institutions, adjusting geographic focus when necessary, and integrating conflict-sensitive design.

“These approaches help sustain progress while safeguarding communities and ensure that investments remain aligned with GEF’s broader objectives on durability, inclusion, and risk-informed programming,” he said.

Addressing the Funding Gap

Another major challenge facing the initiative is financing. In 2021, $19 billion was pledged at the One Planet Summit to support the Great Green Wall. However, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification estimates that at least $33 billion is needed to meet its targets, leaving a significant funding gap. Experts say that even where funds exist, their impact has yet to be fully felt.

“The Great Green Wall project has been observed to be hindered by a massive gap between pledged and disbursed funds, with only a fraction of promised international funding, often less than 10% in some areas, reaching local implementers. It has also been observed that severe bureaucratic delays, lack of local capacity to manage funds, and high regional insecurity are some of the reasons stalling progress,” said Yusuf Maina-Bukar, a former Director-General/Chief Executive Officer of the National Agency for the Great Green Wall, which has been implementing the initiative in Nigeria since 2015.

The GEF acknowledged that coordination across diverse national contexts remains a central challenge of the Great Green Wall initiative but noted that this is addressed through regional frameworks, shared results architectures, and close collaboration with regional institutions such as the Pan-African Agency of the Great Green Wall, while maintaining flexibility to accommodate country-specific priorities.

Maina-Bukar told IPS that collaborating effectively to ensure that funding for the initiative translates into lasting impact requires shifting from a top-down, tree-planting approach to a community-driven, integrated landscape management model. This, he said, should be supported by harmonised, multi-level funding, such as that promoted by the UNCCD, which allows partners to measure, report, and verify implementation using a common framework.

He added that other measures include empowering local ownership, establishing transparent monitoring systems, fostering public-private partnerships, and using tools such as the Regreening Africa App to track and evaluate restoration efforts on the ground.

Despite the challenges, Diagbouga believes that “the Great Green Wall has the potential to become one of the most impactful climate resilience and land restoration initiatives globally.”

Great Green Wall: Achievements

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Burkina Faso

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Ethiopia

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Nigeria

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Niger

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Senegal

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Mali

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Chad

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Sudan

Credit: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Mauritania

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Eritrea

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Djibouti

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

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

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

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau

Transnational agribusinesses increasingly shape food policies worldwide. Claiming to best address recent food security concerns, they seek to profit more from innovations in food production, processing, and distribution.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The early post-WWII and post-colonial eras saw new emphases on food security, especially following severe food shortages before, during, and after the war.

Many starved as millions experienced acute malnutrition. The wartime Bengal famine in India claimed over three million lives as Churchill prioritised British imperial interests and military priorities.

After WWII, colonial powers weaponised food supplies for counterinsurgency and population control purposes, especially to overcome popular anti-imperialist resistance.

Many who died were not military casualties but victims of deliberate counter-insurgency food deprivation. Unsurprisingly, food security efforts became a popular policy priority after WWII.

Western-controlled research organisations, including the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), became highly influential, shaping and even developing post-colonial food security policies.

Felice Noelle Rodriguez

The Green Revolution initially focused on increasing yields of wheat, maize, and rice. These efforts increased cereal production unevenly during the 1960s and 1970s.

Malthusian logic held that rising life expectancies meant population growth outstripped the increase in food supply, constrained by limited agricultural land.

As government funding from wealthy nations declined, powerful corporate interests and philanthropies became even more influential. They often promoted their own interests at the expense of farmers, consumers, and the environment.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) was established in the 1970s, channelling a small share of windfall petroleum incomes into food and agricultural development.

Soon after, the US transformed its Public Law (PL) 480 program into the World Food Programme (WFP). Thus, some FAO functions were ceded to donor-controlled UN funds and programmes also set up in Rome.

Embarrassingly, an FAO report found WFP food supplies were withheld from Somalia to avoid being taken by the ‘Islamist’ As-Shabaab militia. Chatham House also estimated two to three hundred thousand deaths as a consequence.

Neoliberalism
The counter-revolution against national development efforts in the 1980s undermined government fiscal capacities, import-substituting industrialisation, and food security efforts.

Neoliberal structural adjustment policies involving economic liberalisation were imposed on heavily indebted developing countries, mainly in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Global North promoted trade liberalisation, undermining earlier protection of and support for food and industrial production.

Powerful food conglomerates sponsored and promoted import-friendly food security indicators, undermining FAO and other civil society research and advocacy efforts.

Countries hardly producing any food were highly ranked, as civil society organisations tried to counter with their own indicators, mainly focused on food sovereignty.

Trump 2.0
A new phase has begun with Donald Trump’s re-election as US president.

Trump 2.0’s weaponisation of economic policies and agreements, including food supplies, has ominous implications for countries trying to assert some independence.

Economic and military threats have been used for diverse ends, including economic, political, and other ‘strategic’ goals. Tariffs and sanctions are now part of a diverse arsenal of such weapons deployed for various purposes.

Governments have even been threatened with tariffs and sanctions for personal reasons. Trump has demanded Brazilian ex-President Jair Bolsonaro’s freedom following his failed coup after losing the last presidential election.

Deploying such economic weapons has worsened the deepening worldwide economic stagflation, as various Trump economic and military policy threats exacerbate contractionary and inflationary pressures.

The US-controlled WFP was long used to provide food aid selectively. But there is little sympathy left in Washington for other nations’ food security concerns.

To cut federal government spending, Trump has ended official development and humanitarian assistance, including food aid, while the US remains the world’s leading food exporter.

Nevertheless, Trump may take unexpected new steps to boost farmers’ earnings to recover electoral support before the November mid-term election.

Weaponisation of food aid took an ominous turn during the Israeli siege of Gaza, by calibrating food access to enable selective ethnic cleansing.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation attracted hungry residents to its food centres, causing hungry families desperately seeking food to be shot while seeking food.

Poverty is primarily defined by inadequate access to food, while the FAO considers income the main determinant of food insecurity.

Although World Bank poverty measures have generally continued to decline, FAO indicators suggest a reversal of earlier progress in food security over the last decade.

These contradictory trends not only reflect problems in estimating and understanding poverty and food security but also suggest that resulting policies are poorly informed, if not worse.

Professor Felice Noelle Rodriguez is Director of the Centre for Local History and Culture, Universidad de Zamboanga, Philippines.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

 
CIVICUS discusses Gen Z-led protests in the Philippines with Charles Zander, a 17-year-old climate justice activist from Bohol and youth campaigner for Greenpeace Philippines.

Charles Zander

What brought you to activism?

I grew up in Bohol, an island province in the Philippines where the climate crisis knocks on our doors every week. When I was younger, politics felt distant, but that changed in 2021, when Typhoon Odette hit our province. My home was severely damaged, but others suffered a lot more. I knew people who lost everything. Coastal communities were flattened and some villages were so cut off that it took weeks for supplies to reach them. In my case, it took two years before we had electricity again, and a year before we had water or I could access education.

My two childhood best friends died in the aftermath, and losing them changed me. At first, I didn’t think I was doing activism. It started with relief work: distributing food, organising community support, listening to people who had lost everything. I realised people needed to be heard. But the more you listen, the more questions appear. Why were some communities still waiting for aid?

Eventually, I realised if you grow up in a place where disasters are routine, silence feels like complicity. I joined local groups working on climate justice, community education and disaster response. And I saw protest as the moment when patience runs out.

What are young Filipinos demanding?

For many young Filipinos, the climate crisis is not a policy issue; it is the story of our lives. Climate injustice is therefore at the core of our struggle, but it connects to many other struggles. We live in a country hit by stronger typhoons every year, yet coal plants still get approved. We have coastal communities losing their homes to storm surges, yet development decisions rarely involve them. We have severe flooding everywhere in the country, and our government is pocketing climate adaptation funds.

When disaster hits, wealthy neighbourhoods rebuild quickly and sometimes are not damaged at all, while remote island communities wait for assistance for months, if not years. Disasters expose inequality, so climate protests are about fairness, about whose lives are considered worth protecting.

How were recent protests organised, and what role did social media play?

There are many active organisations, youth groups and community leaders, and when a major event such as a typhoon or a scandal creates urgency, conversations spread through networks and messaging groups. At some point someone proposes a date, which we often tie to a symbolic moment, such as the day of a national hero. The most recent one, in February, was on the 40th anniversary of the 1986 People Power Revolution. This has practical implications: on holidays, people don’t have school or work, so they can participate without worrying about their livelihoods. And because they’re home, people are paying more attention to social media, which increases our reach.

In this sense, nobody owns the protests. Movements grow because many people decide the moment has come. But organising involves logistics, including permits, safety planning, communication, outreach and coordination among groups with different priorities and strategies. That process can be messy, but it also reflects the democratic nature of grassroots movements. Eventually we all come together and get onto the streets.

Social media platforms, particularly Facebook and Instagram, allow young people to organise quickly across islands, cities and movements. Calls for protests can reach people within hours. Organisers can document events, share live updates and counter disinformation.

We use memes a lot. Older generations might respond to more technical explanations, but Gen Z and Gen Alpha are more reachable through humour and jokes. We also link issues to people’s actual lives so they feel compelled to act. But there needs to be more work on making sure people really know what they are fighting for when they join, not joining because it looks cool on social media.

Ultimately, technology is just a tool. A hashtag cannot replace a community. The underlying work is slower and happens when no one is watching. Protests are the visible tip of the iceberg, but below the surface there are community workshops, policy research meetings with local leaders, training of young volunteers and network-building across the country. A protest is just one day, but organising is the thousands of conversations that make that day possible. Without that groundwork, protests would fade quickly.

What risks have you faced?

For me personally, one of the most tangible dangers has been surveillance, online and offline. After participating in a major climate and social justice march, I noticed my online activity and messages being monitored more closely. It’s a subtle kind of pressure, but it makes you think twice about who you trust, how you communicate, what you post.

There’s also intimidation. At one protest, for instance, local authorities questioned volunteers about their involvement, contacts and affiliations. This is meant to create fear.

This has emotional and practical impacts. It can be exhausting and sometimes isolating. But it also shapes how you organise. You become strategic, deliberate, more protective of your peers. The fact that there are risks shows that those in power recognise the potential of youth movements to challenge the status quo. It is a reminder that our struggle matters.

What have the protests achieved, and where have they fallen short of ambition?

Change rarely arrives all at once. Sometimes protests produce policy progress, stronger commitments and greater attention to issues. Sometimes the impact is cultural. A protest can shift what people believe is possible, what people believe is right.

In the Philippines, the most visible achievement concerned the corruption around flood control projects. Although change is slow, we have seen some politicians arrested. A sitting senator is in hiding right now because of an arrest warrant. If we hadn’t spoken up, we would have lost so much more money from climate adaptation projects while our communities continued to suffer.

But movements also face setbacks. Governments delay action, hiding behind procedural issues, and public attention moves on quickly. This is discouraging. What failure teaches, though, is that we should communicate more effectively, build stronger alliances and sustain momentum beyond a single protest. A movement is not defined by the moment it wins, but by whether it continues after losing.

Is it right to call these Gen Z protests?

I have mixed feelings about it. I understand why the label appears. Many of the visible faces in recent movements are young people. The label captures something real: many young people feel the future they are inheriting was shaped by decisions made long before they had any political voice. The climate crisis is the clearest example. Policies that created the crisis were implemented decades ago, yet the consequences will unfold across the lifetimes of today’s young people. That creates a sense of urgency, and calling these protests Gen Z protests signals that a new generation is politically active and unwilling to remain passive.

But movements are rarely that simple. In almost every movement, people from many generations stand together, students marching alongside workers, community elders joining demonstrations, parents bringing their children, veteran organisers who have been fighting for decades showing up alongside people attending their first protest.

When protests are framed only as Gen Z movements, something important gets lost. It can unintentionally erase the contributions of older generations who built the foundation for these struggles. Every movement stands on ground that someone else cleared. Civil rights campaigns, climate movements and labour struggles didn’t start with Gen Z. These are long historical arcs that young people are entering and pushing forward.

The most powerful movements are intergenerational. Older organisers bring experience, historical memory and institutional knowledge. Younger generations bring new energy, new tools and new ways of communicating. One generation can ignite a movement, but lasting change requires many generations moving together.

It is also wrong to call us leaderless. We are not leaderless; we are leaderful. We just refuse to adopt some of the hierarchical ways of organising of previous generations, because sometimes leading collectively works much better than having someone dictate everything.

What keeps you going?

People, particularly young people, keep going because the problems are immediate and impossible to ignore. Protesting means refusing to accept the future we are being handed and making our voices matter.

Hope is not a passive feeling. It’s found in action, not in waiting. I see hope in the movement, because when young people, elders, students and communities stand together, there’s a shared strength, and the possibility of a world that values dignity, justice and sustainability becomes real. We keep moving because we are not alone. I also find hope in history, because it shows that while change is messy, people have always managed to push the boundaries of what is possible.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

GET IN TOUCH
Instagram

SEE ALSO
Gen Z protests: new resistance rises CIVICUS | State of Civil Society Report 2026
Bulgaria: ‘We protested against a whole system of corrupt governance and state capture’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Aleksandar Tanev 21.Apr.2026
Philippines: ‘We refuse to stay silent while those in power treat public office like private property’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Raoul Manuel 25.Nov.2025

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Residents in Phú Yên, Vietnam, relied on a small wooden boat during a flood. Climate change and El Niño disrupted the livelihood of millions of people in Asia and the Pacific. Credit: Pexels/Long Bà Mùi Source: ESCAP

By Kareff Rafisura
BANGKOK, Thailand, May 11 2026 (IPS)

Climate models are converging: El Niño is likely to return by mid-2026 and could be strong. According to the World Meteorological Organization, it could emerge as early as May–July 2026, with several national hydrometeorological agencies in Asia and the Pacific already issuing alerts.

El Niño makes headlines not because it is rare, but because it amplifies climate risks. Past events have triggered major humanitarian crises, driving drought, food insecurity and public health emergencies across Asia and the Pacific. While each Niño event differs, their impacts tend to follow recognizable regional patterns.

In countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Timor Leste, strong El Niño events have repeatedly brought drought, forest fires, agricultural losses and water stress, with patterns reinforced even during the weaker 2018–2019 El Niño. These impacts provide clear signals of risks concentrated across food, water, health and livelihood systems.

In practical terms, an El Niño event is only fully established when the atmosphere reinforces the warming of oceans. As not all warmings reach that stage, this is where uncertainty lies, including how strong the event will become. While forecasts will improve in the coming months, historical impacts already indicate where risks are likely to concentrate.

To understand the risks, it helps to look at how past events have unfolded in the region. Strong events in 1971–73, 1982–83 and 1997–98 triggered widespread droughts, forest fires and vector-borne diseases, such as dengue, across South and South-East Asia and the Pacific.

While impacts vary by location, the pattern is consistent: risk intensity is highest where exposure overlaps with underlying vulnerabilities caused by poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition, as well as heavy dependence on subsistence farming.

The 2015–2016 El Niño is the strongest of this century and can serve as a useful reference should current conditions develop into a comparable event, given similar early warming patterns. The joint ESCAP and ASEAN report, Ready for the Dry Years, states that during this event, more than 70% of South-East Asia’s land area experienced drought, exposing over 200 million people to severe drought at its peak.

While El Niño affects large areas, its impacts are most severe where climatic exposure overlaps with structural vulnerability. This year, these risks are unfolding in a more complex climate and socioeconomic context, with tighter fiscal space, higher debt levels and persistent global economic uncertainty, as highlighted in the ESCAP Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2026.

At the same time, remittances, an important source of income for countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka are being affected, weakening a key buffer that has historically helped households cope with shocks.

Together, these pressures leave governments and households less able to absorb climate shocks than during previous El Niño cycles.

Climate change is amplifying baseline risks. Higher temperatures increase evapotranspiration (process of heat making water evaporate faster), reduce soil moisture and intensify drought conditions. The Ready for the Dry Years report shows that droughts increasingly occur under warmer conditions, magnifying their impacts.

Climate variability is now interacting with long-term warming trends, increasing systemic risks.

The implication is clear: waiting for certainty can increase exposure to avoidable losses. Historical evidence and current signals already provide a sufficient basis for early, no-regret action.

Because the impacts of El Niño align with extremes expected to intensify under climate change, there is a strong case for investing in resilience across scenarios. Three priority areas stand out.

First, turn climate forecasts into actionable decisions on the ground. Seasonal forecasts provide valuable signals, but decisions require localized insight: where water stress will emerge, where crops are likely to fail and which communities are most at risk. Advances in satellite data and analytics now allow near-real-time monitoring of soil moisture, vegetation health and water availability, and should be used to guide targeted preparedness.

Second, early financing is a no-regret investment in resilience. The impacts of El Niño are cumulative and can outlast the event itself. Acting early through social protection, support to farmers and better water management reduces long-term costs and protects hard-won development gains. In a context of constrained fiscal space, anticipatory action limits downstream losses.

Third, strengthen coordination across sectors. El Niño affects multiple sectors simultaneously, including agriculture, water, energy and public health. Coordinated responses enable faster and more efficient actions with benefits that extend beyond a single event.

Even as uncertainty remains around the strength of the evolving event, historical experience makes a clear case for early action to strengthen long-term resilience.

Kareff Rafisura is Economic Affairs Officer, ESCAP

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Credit: UKBET (UK Bangladesh Education Trust)

By Mohammed A. Sayem
SYLHET, Bangladesh, May 8 2026 (IPS)

When catastrophic floods swept through the Haor wetlands of Sunamganj in 2022, they destroyed far more than homes and crops. They shattered childhoods.

Jannat was only nine years old when floodwater swallowed her family’s house, farmland, and livestock. Like thousands of displaced families in northeastern Bangladesh, they took shelter in a school building converted into an emergency flood centre. But when the water receded, there was nothing left to return to.

The family migrated to a slum in Sylhet city to survive. Her father, once a farmer in the fertile haor lands, began pulling a rented rickshaw. Her mother started working as a domestic worker. Jannat’s school life ended almost overnight. Instead of carrying books, she began washing dishes and cleaning clothes in another family’s home for food and a small income.

Her story reflects a growing reality across climate-vulnerable Bangladesh. The 2022 floods in Sylhet, Kanaighat, Companygonj and Sunamganj were among the worst in more than a century. United Nations agencies estimated that nearly 7.2 million people across northeastern Bangladesh were affected, including around 3.5 million children. Entire villages disappeared under water, electricity collapsed across districts, schools were turned into emergency shelters, and thousands of hectares of cropland were destroyed. UNICEF reported that 1.6 million children were stranded by the floods, while hundreds of educational institutions and community clinics were damaged or submerged.

Credit: UKBET (UK Bangladesh Education Trust)

The crisis did not end in 2022. In 2024, another devastating wave of flooding inundated nearly 75 per cent of Sylhet district, affecting more than two million people across northeastern Bangladesh and displacing thousands of families yet again. More than 800 schools were flooded and large areas of farmland went underwater, deepening poverty and food insecurity. This year again, heavy rainfall and upstream water flows submerged more than 46,000 hectares of standing Boro rice fields in the haor region during harvesting season, threatening livelihoods and increasing the risk of climate migration and child labour. Experts warn that repeated climate shocks are trapping vulnerable families in a cycle of disaster, displacement, and poverty.

Yet hope can still rise from disaster.

The Doorstep Learning Programme (DLP) of UKBET, a UK-based international NGO working in Bangladesh, was created to support children trapped in domestic labour and other vulnerable situations in urban slums. Rather than waiting for children to return to school on their own, the programme brings education, counselling, and rehabilitation support directly to their communities. Through flexible learning support and family livelihood assistance, it helps children return to education while reducing families’ dependence on child labour for survival.

Credit: UKBET (UK Bangladesh Education Trust)

DLP identified Jannat and supported her return to school alongside her younger brother. The programme also helped her father secure his own rickshaw, giving the family a more stable livelihood and a chance to rebuild their future.

As global leaders gather at the Eighth Assembly of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in Samarkand, Uzbekistan in May–June 2026 to discuss climate financing and resilience, stories like Jannat’s must remain at the centre of international attention. (Global Environment Facility) Climate change is no longer only about rising temperatures or environmental loss. It is about children losing education, dignity, and hope.

Credit: UKBET (UK Bangladesh Education Trust)

Local community-led initiatives that protect vulnerable children and strengthen climate resilience deserve far greater global investment and support through mechanisms such as the GEF Trust Fund and international adaptation financing.

Because children like Jannat are not victims to be pitied. They are futures worth protecting.

Mohammed A Sayem is Executive Director, UKBET
Sylhet, Bangladesh
msayem@ukbet-bd.org

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

LDC Future Forum Banner. Credit: OHRLLS

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

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

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

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

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

Opportunity is expanding—but unevenly

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

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

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

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

The DPOA: Investing in youth as a development imperative

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

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

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

Inclusion must be intentional

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

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

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

A shared responsibility

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

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

The choice before us

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

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

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

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Obsolete Pesticides

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

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

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

Farm Level Changes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Laos Sustainable Farming

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Integrated Pest Management

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so, the cycle continues.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Healthy soils teeming microbes are the foundations of resilient, sustainable and global food production ecosystems. Credit: Fabiola Ortiz/IPS

By Esther Ngumbi
URBANA, Illinois, US, May 6 2026 (IPS)

A newly published review in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment has revealed disturbing statistics on the growing environmental threats posed by global food production. The global food system, designed to feed and nourish humanity, is now a major contributor to climate change via greenhouse gas emissions, and the largest driver of freshwater depletion, biodiversity loss, and nutrient pollution.

Alarmingly, this new review brings attention to a concerning cruel twist and a deeper problem manifested through feedback loops between environmental change pressures including climate change and global food production.

In this vicious hard to break feedback loop, farmers are forced to use more inputs including fertilizers and toxic pesticides to sustain high yields, which in turn ruins and further compromises the environment while making food production harder in the long term.

In this vicious hard to break feedback loop, farmers are forced to use more inputs including fertilizers and toxic pesticides to sustain high yields, which in turn ruins and further compromises the environment while making food production harder in the long term

The central question then becomes: How do we break these vicious feedback loops that threaten to undermine our global food system in the longer term? What specific foundational strategies stand a chance of reducing environmental pressures and improving global food systems and agricultural production resillience?

First and foremost, the foundations for breaking this cruel cycle begin in the soil, by investing in revitalizing and improving the health of soils and agricultural lands that power global food production. Healthy soils teeming microbes are the foundations of resilient, sustainable and global food production ecosystems.

Healthy soils store and filter water and cycle nutrients, support the growth of nutritious food while simultaneously helping agricultural crop plants to cope with water stress, combat diseases and pests, and use nutrients more effectively, reducing the need for additional inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides.

Convincingly, smart investments channeled towards improving soil health and soil microbiome can help farmers and food producers to produce more and healthy crops with less, limit environmental damage and simultaneously break the emerging feedback loops between global food production and environmental damage.

The good news is that improving and building soil health and soil microbiomes is a top priority for many stakeholders involved in food production in the United States and around the world including farmers, researchers, governments, philanthropists, non-governmental  and non-profit organizations, research funding agencies, the African Union and the United Nations.

Excitingly, adoption of several sustainable regenerative  practices including cover cropping, crop rotation, conservation tillage, planting diverse crops, integrating livestock and agroforestry, alongside with inoculation of soils with microbes including arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi can improve soil health and quality, improving biodiversity, mitigate climate change, and extend soil longevity beyond 10,000 years. Moreover,  research is confirming that these strategies do indeed work.

Second, another intervention that can reduce environmental decline while improving global food production is investing in innovative  climate-smart agriculture and precision agriculture practices. Scientific evidence has shown that adopting these practices can sustain global food production while limiting environmental harm.

Complementing and accompanying these foundational strategies is the urgent need to prioritize breeding and developing  multi-stress and stress-resilient crops and integrating stress resilient traits from wild relatives of domesticated crops.

Additionally,  multi-stress and climate-resilient crops can be grown alongside other annual and perennial crop species while being integrated into broader sustainable and regenerative farming practices including agroforestry. Collectively, these practices can sustain food production while minimizing environmental harm, thereby breaking feedback loops.

Finally, these strategies must be paired with policies and incentives to ensure maximum adoption. Farmers who adopt regenerative and sustainable soil building, climate-smart, precision agriculture practices while planting stress resilient crops should be supported and rewarded.

Alongside policies and incentives, there is a need to ensure that farmers, who are central in global food production embrace and adopt these sustainable feedback loops breaking practices. Embracing these practices can improve agricultural productivity, resilience and efficiency.

Of course, it is critical to understand and be aware of the constraints that still hinder stakeholders in global food production including farmers from adopting these global food production and environmental pressures feedback loop breaking practices.

Feeding our growing world sustainably requires everyone to confront the vicious cycle of food production and environmental decline. Researchers, policymakers, governments, private businesses, civil society, and philanthropists must act with urgency.

We should view mitigation and adaptation as interconnected strategies to address the dual challenge of producing food while protecting the environmental systems that enable it. The most effective and sustainable solutions will strengthen agriculture and reduce environmental harm. Time is of the essence.

Esther Ngumbi, PhD is Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology, African American Studies Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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

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

Toril-Iren Pedersen

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

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

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

Michael Jarvis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Several Concrete Results

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

History in the Making

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

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

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learn more about the speakers:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

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

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

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

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

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

From Regional Averages to National realities

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

It goes deeper into country-specific realities.

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

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

Now, that gap is beginning to close.

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

Why This Science Matters Now

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

Yet one persistent challenge has been the lack of evidence.

This report begins to change that.

It provides:

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

In doing so, it transforms science into something actionable:

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

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

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

What the Science Reveals

The findings are sobering.

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

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

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

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

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

Across the Pacific, the risks are not evenly distributed.

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

The consequences are stark:

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

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

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

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

The report reinforces these approaches while introducing new strategies:

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

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

Science, Power, and the Politics of Survival

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

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

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

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

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

Beyond the Data: A Call to Act

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

It bridges worlds:

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

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

That the ocean is changing and so must we.

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

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau

Displaced mothers and children at a malnutrition treatment center in Chuil, Jonglei State, South Sudan. Credit: WFP/Gabriela Vivacqua

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, May 1 2026 (IPS)

In 2026, the humanitarian situation in South Sudan has taken a considerable turn for the worse, with widespread food shortages, ongoing disruptions to food production systems, and rising rates of malnutrition affecting over half of the population. Compounded by the vast scale of needs and an overwhelming lack of access to basic services, humanitarian experts warn that nationwide levels of hunger are projected to worsen to catastrophic levels if urgent intervention is not secured.

On April 28, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the World Food Programme (WFP) published a joint statement underscoring the escalation of the hunger crisis in South Sudan, noting that approximately 56 percent of the population, or roughly 7.8 million people, are projected to face acute food insecurity by July. They stress that the main drivers of food insecurity are climate shocks, flooding, mass displacement, and protracted armed conflict, all of which hinder effective agricultural yields and reduce food availability for hundreds of thousands of families.

“Hunger in South Sudan is intensifying, not stabilizing,” said Ross Smith, WFP Director of Emergencies and Preparedness. “Between April and July of this year, more than half of the population is projected to face crisis levels of hunger or worse, including people already in catastrophic conditions, where starvation and a collapse of livelihoods are a daily reality. This is among the highest proportions of any country’s population facing crisis levels of hunger today.”

The latest figures from the Integrated Food Security Classification Phase (IPC) show that over 280,000 additional civilians have been pushed into acute food insecurity since late 2025, including 73,000 civilians who are facing catastrophic (IPC Phase 5) levels of hunger. This marks a 160 percent increase from last year’s figures. An additional 2.5 million people face emergency (IPC Phase 4) levels of hunger, and 5.3 million have been reported to rely on unsustainable coping mechanisms to survive.

Children have been hit particularly hard, with UNICEF reporting that approximately 2.2 million children between the ages of six months and five years suffer from acute malnutrition, marking an increase of over 100,000 cases compared to last year. Over 700,000 children are projected to face the highest levels of hunger by July. Roughly 1.2 million pregnant and breastfeeding women are acutely malnourished, which has significantly dangerous, long-term implications for both mothers and children.

“Every day of delayed humanitarian access and supply delivery is a day a child’s life and future hangs in the balance,” said Lucia Elmi, UNICEF Director of Emergencies. “We are calling on all parties to grant timely, safe access to conflict-affected, including areas of displacement, and scale up nutrition interventions. We must act now if we are to save children’s lives.”

Widespread displacement continues to hinder South Sudan’s road to recovery, with rampant insecurity, overcrowding, and a shortage of critical supplies in displacement shelters complicating humanitarian relief efforts. The UN agencies note that nearly 300,000 people have been displaced this year in the Jonglei state alone, with many communities entirely cut off from humanitarian assistance. Numerous families report being unable to access food services due to rising prices, disrupted markets, and economic decline, which has significantly reduced household purchasing power.

Additionally, displaced communities face elevated risks of contracting infectious diseases due to persistent overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. The agencies have recorded a sharp rise in cholera, malaria, and measles infections, particularly among “vulnerable and already acutely malnourished children”. Furthermore, treatment for malnutrition has been severely compromised over the past several months, with a substantial portion of the nation’s healthcare and nutritional support facilities having been damaged or closed entirely due to conflict. Life-saving medical interventions are largely unavailable due to continued shortages of medical supplies.

In April, IPC conducted a detailed Risk of Famine Analysis, assessing hunger conditions across seven counties to determine which regions were at a high risk of developing famine. The analysis identified four counties that are projected to contract famine in the coming months, a significant increase from just one county identified last year. The Upper Nile and Jonglei regions are particularly vulnerable, as the renewed escalation of armed hostilities has driven further displacement and reduced humanitarian reach to the most at-risk communities.

Risks are especially pronounced in Akobo, where IPC projects the return of over 100,000 South Sudanese civilians currently displaced in Gambela and Ethiopia. This large-scale return could further exacerbate hunger conditions, as humanitarian and healthcare personnel face severe shortages of supplies, funding, and staffing in assisting already strained communities.

IPC also warns that hunger conditions could escalate to catastrophic levels (IPC Phase 5) in the coming months across multiple areas, including Doma and Yomding in Ulang County; Pulturuk, Waat, and Thol Lankien in Nyirol County; and Kuerenge Ke and Mading in southern Nasir County. All of these regions remain largely inaccessible due to ongoing conflict, which has limited humanitarian reach.

In response, the UN has called for an end to the isolation of these communities in relief efforts, stressing the urgent need for closer monitoring and a strengthened humanitarian response.

“Now, more than ever, we cannot afford to lose the hard-won gains made in recent years, especially as South Sudan works to strengthen its agrifood systems and build on encouraging signs of local agricultural production,” said Rein Paulsen, FAO Director, Office of Emergencies and Resilience. “These gains remain highly vulnerable to conflict, insecurity, and climate shocks—the very forces driving today’s food crisis. We must act urgently and collectively to protect livelihoods, sustain food production, and prevent millions more people from falling deeper into hunger.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Press freedom is on the retreat across much of the world.

As documented by recent global surveys authored by the UN and media institutes, the erosion of an independent, fearless and diversified press is a trend that has worsened for well over a decade.

Farhana Haque Rahman

Delivering the 2026 Reuters Memorial Lecture on March 9, Carlos Dada, Salvadoran editor of El Faro, now operating in exile, did not mince his words:

“A far-right, populist, autocratic wave is taking the world by storm and breaking all the rules, and journalists, as in every authoritarian regime or dictatorship, no matter its ideological foundations, are labelled as enemies. Journalism is being criminalized, and our colleagues are being imprisoned or killed.”

Just days earlier, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele was described by the Autonomous University of Barcelona as imposing one of the most restrictive environments for press freedom in Latin America through a “model of techno-populist authoritarianism”.

World Press Freedom Day, on May 3, has adopted as its declared theme: “Shaping a Future at Peace: Promoting Press Freedom for Human Rights, Development, and Security” – a challenging title given the wars, turmoil and economic crises currently besetting the world.

UNESCO, co-hosting the 2026 conference with the Zambian government in Lusaka on May 4-5, has itself charted a sharp decline in freedom of expression globally. Its 2022/2025 World Trends Report, Journalism: Shaping a World at Peace cites an increase in physical attacks, digital threats, and a surge in self-censorship among journalists.

This crisis is summed up by UNESCO as a “historically significant and unprecedented shift”, noting that for the first time in 20 years non-democratic regimes outnumber democracies. Some 72 percent of the world’s population lives under “non-democratic rule”, the highest proportion since 1978.

This decline in press freedom, plurality and diversity “mirrors broader patterns: weakened parliaments and judicial institutions, falling levels of public trust, and deepening polarization. It has also coincided with setbacks in equality, alongside rising hostility toward environmental journalists, scientists, and researchers”, UNESCO’s report says.

It also warns how “the growing dominance of major technology companies – and the consequences of their shifting policies and practices – have created fertile ground for hate speech and disinformation to spread online.”

In its World Press Freedom Index for 2025, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says physical attacks against journalists are the most visible violations of press freedom but “economic pressure is also a major, more insidious problem”.

“Much of this is due to ownership concentration, pressure from advertisers and financial backers, and public aid that is restricted, absent or allocated in an opaque manner,” RSF states. “Today’s news media are caught between preserving their editorial independence and ensuring their economic survival.”

“For the first time in the history of the Index, the conditions for practising journalism are ‘difficult’ or ‘very serious’ in over half of the world’s countries and satisfactory in fewer than one in four.”

World Press Freedom Day goes back to a 1993 decision by the UN General Assembly to commemorate the Declaration of Windhoek, a statement of free press principles produced by African journalists in 1991.

But as RSF notes, press freedom in Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing a worrying decline. The economic score of the index deteriorated in 80 percent of countries in the region.

Overall Eritrea (180th) remained the worst-ranking country. The Democratic Republic of the Congo fell 10 places to 133rd as its economic indicator plummeted. Conflict zones saw sharp declines in press freedom in Burkina Faso, Sudan and Mali with newsrooms forced to self-censor, shut down or go into exile.

“The hyper-concentration of media ownership in the hands of political figures or business elites without safeguards for editorial independence remains a recurring problem,” RSF says, citing issues in Cameroon, Nigeria and Rwanda.

Nonetheless higher-ranking countries, such as South Africa, Namibia, Cape Verde and Gabon “provide rays of hope”, RSF adds.

A clear casualty of the toxic combo of autocratic populists, media-owning cronies and dwindling budgets is coverage of climate change. Even normally heavy-hitting media groups are cutting back their reporting of the global climate crisis in another blow to the key SDG Target of promoting public access to information.

China remains the “world’s largest jail for journalists”, ranking 178th on RSF’s global press freedom index, one place above North Korea.

Bangladesh ranked 149th in the World Press Freedom Index. Following the parliamentary elections in February this year, RSF has urged the new Bangladeshi government to put an end to arbitrary detentions, the instrumentalization of the justice system and impunity for crimes against journalists. Such abuses have caused lasting damage to the country’s press.

Summing up the state of the press following Perugia’s annual International Journalism Festival in April, Carole Cadwalladr, investigative journalist for The Nerve — a “fearless, female-founded, truly independent [UK] media title” – commented: “There’s “not much light in these dark times” while referencing the killing by Israeli forces of over 200 Palestinian journalists and media workers since the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023.

But she did feel an “energy” at the festival held in the Italian hill-top city.

“All across the world, there are journalists doing the hard yards of trying to hold power to account,” she wrote. “And increasingly, this is being done by small, insurgent new outlets that are sprouting up because there is a gap that needs to be filled.”

Or as Dada, editor of El Salvador’s exiled El Faro, declared in his lecture:

“We are journalists in resistance. In resistance to the violation of our rights, the shuttering of public information… resistance to limitless power. We practised journalism in democracy for a quarter century. That era is gone. Today, we are a newsroom in resistance.”

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service and Executive Director IPS Noram; she served as the elected Director General of IPS from 2015-2019. A journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cases of Birth Defects, Miscarriages, and Chronic Illnesses

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

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

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

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

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

Who Benefits and Who Pays?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Strategic Policy Needed

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

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

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

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau

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

Yohana Coñuecar Llancapani

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

On 25 March 2026 in Somalia, Nasra and Muslimo, both in Grade 8, attend class at Kabasa Primary School in Dollow. The school serves children from displaced and host communities. Through education, safe spaces and life-skills programmes, UNICEF supports girls to stay in school, build confidence and pursue their aspirations despite the challenges of drought and displacement. Credit: UNICEF/Nahom Tesfaye

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 29 2026 (IPS)

The escalating global climate crisis has led to an increase in the frequency of climate-induced natural disasters, affecting millions worldwide. As governments struggle to keep up due to persistent funding shortfalls and inadequate preparedness and response mechanisms, education systems in Eastern and Southern Africa continue to deteriorate, pushing millions of children into displacement and poverty, further deepening long-term inequalities.

These are detailed out in a April 20 policy brief from UNICEF and global consulting firm Dalberg, titled Protecting Children’s Learning Futures: Quantifying Climate-Related Loss and Damage in Eastern and Southern Africa. The report analyses data from Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Mozambique, and Zambia, examining how increasingly destructive climate shocks are destroying educational infrastructure and limiting growth opportunities for the most vulnerable populations, including girls, children with disabilities, and other marginalised communities.

Through this report, UNICEF and Dalberg stress the urgency of building climate-resilient educational systems that promote human development, economic growth, and long-term self-sufficiency. Without immediate humanitarian intervention, it is projected that hundreds of millions of children are at risk of falling behind in their education by 2050, resulting in billions of dollars lost in development and poorer life outcomes.

“Children are paying the highest price for a crisis they did not create. For the first time, this report shows the scale of climate-related loss and damage to education, yet the impact on children remains largely invisible in financing decisions,” said Etleva Kadilli, UNICEF Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa.

“Without stronger prioritization in climate finance, education will continue to bear the brunt of climate impacts, driving repeated disruption,” Kadilli continued. “We must design education systems that anticipate shocks, protect early and foundational learning, and keep schools open. Otherwise, the true cost of climate loss and damage will be measured in lost human potential.”

Eastern and Southern Africa are among the most climate-sensitive regions in the world, home to roughly one-third of the world’s most vulnerable countries. According to UNICEF, since 2005 the region has experienced over 700 extreme weather events, roughly 75 percent of which are attributed to climate change, affecting over 330 million people and causing over 40,000 deaths.

As of 2024, climate-induced natural disasters have caused approximately USD 1.3 billion in damages, largely driven by widespread damage to school infrastructure and expenses related to establishing temporary learning facilities. Since 2005, extreme weather patterns have disrupted the education of over 130 million children, resulting in a total estimated loss of USD 120–140 billion in future earnings.

Without urgent intervention, UNICEF projects that these losses could rise to between USD 3.3 and 3.8 billion by 2050, nearly tripling in the most vulnerable contexts. This is equivalent to approximately 440 to 520 million students being stripped of their education, with projected losses in future earnings reaching between USD 260 to 380 billion.

Additionally, persistent climate shocks in Eastern and Southern Africa have been linked to declining school performance, compromised safety, and reduced well-being among school-aged children. According to the report, widespread heatwaves are associated with reduced cognitive performance, lower test scores, and diminished teaching performances among educators.

UNICEF has also reported rising rates of absenteeism and increasing psychosocial challenges, driven by the destruction of schools and the loss of supportive social networks. Schools themselves have become increasingly dangerous for both students and teachers, as damaged infrastructure and heat stress further limit access to safe, equitable, and quality education.

“Many people in the climate movement assume that people who are impacted by climate change are more worried about it, but that is not the case, including in frontline communities,” said Jennifer Carman, Director of Survey Strategy at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) at the Yale School of Environment. “Instead, people in frontline communities are more worried about hazards that directly affect their day-to-day lives, like extreme heat and power outages — and these hazards are made worse by climate change.”

Such daily struggles faced by children as a result of climate-driven disruptions to schooling manifest in heightened protection risks. A significant portion of school-aged children in these regions have been forced to relocate multiple times, essentially eliminating their access to structures of supervision, stability, and peer support. Additionally, the climate crisis continues to erode livelihoods, intensifying economic instability across many communities, and elevating children’s vulnerability to exploitation, including rising rates of child marriage, child labour, gender-based violence, and recruitment by armed coalitions.

These risks disproportionately affect girls, children with disabilities, and displaced communities. Despite this, as of 2023 estimates, less than 2.4 percent of funding from critical multilateral funds was allocated toward “child-responsive interventions”, while support for education-specific programs has remained minimal. This is relatively low when compared to national spending for other sectors, such as healthcare. UNICEF estimates that if education programs received adequate support, it could close the USD 97 billion funding gap that is needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 targets in low- and middle-income countries.

“Without systematically integrating education into climate finance and policy frameworks – including efforts to avert, minimize and address loss and damage – countries risk remaining trapped in repeated cycles of disaster recovery spending rather than sustained resilience building, allowing climate shocks to compound disruptions to learning and generate significant non-economic losses for children and their future opportunities,” the report states.

Figures from UNICEF show that investing in education can yield substantial returns, with every USD 1 invested generating $2 to $13 in avoided losses. With the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) Board meeting in Livingstone, Zambia, from April 22 to 24, humanitarian organizations and world leaders are aiming to broaden global conversations that are essential in shaping recovery and resilience efforts that could build a brighter future for children in these regions.

Through such dialogues, UNICEF urges governments, stakeholders, and donors to strengthen the integration of education within national climate frameworks, which can be done by explicitly referencing education in National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to unlock access to “climate and loss-and-damage financing”.

UNICEF also advocates applying a climate-risk lens to domestic education financing, which could help ensure that budget allocations to education sectors are climate-informed and adequately support children’s foundational education and the continuation of their education in the long term.

Furthermore, UNICEF stresses the importance of scaling and better targeting international climate finance for education by encouraging major funding mechanisms to allocate resources for education. FRLD is one such example, financially supporting “unavoidable losses” when education systems are not adequately structured to withstand climate shocks.

“These frameworks should therefore clearly articulate how countries will protect education systems from climate-related loss and damage and strengthen learning continuity, enabling governments to align financing from multiple sources – including climate funds and private sector investment – toward sustained and risk-informed education investments that strengthen education systems and reduce future climate-related impacts,” the report states. “Such investments today can help break this cycle by safeguarding learning, reducing future fiscal pressures and protecting children’s development on which long-term human development depends.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau

Seychelles’ pioneering blue bond offers a compelling lesson in practical ocean finance. Credit: Michaela Rimakova/Unsplash

By James Alix Michel
VICTORIA, Seychelles, Apr 29 2026 (IPS)

As the world prepares for the Global Environment Facility (GEF) meeting in Samarkand next month, Seychelles’ pioneering blue bond offers a compelling lesson in practical ocean finance.

For small island states, the ocean is not merely a natural resource; it is the foundation of national life, economic opportunity, and long-term resilience against climate threats.

As President of Seychelles, I introduced the blue economy as a national vision as early as 2008. I did so because I believed then—as I do now—that for an island nation spanning 1.4 million square kilometers of ocean, sustainable development must begin with responsible stewardship of our marine resources. Our future depended on learning how to protect biodiversity, manage fisheries sustainably, and build economic models that serve both present needs and future generations. This vision positioned Seychelles as an early advocate for integrating ocean health with national prosperity.

That vision was not developed in isolation. It was strengthened through deliberate steps and high-level conversations that bridged policy ambition with financial innovation. A key milestone came with the debt-for-nature swap, finalized with the Paris Club creditors and The Nature Conservancy in 2014. This landmark agreement restructured approximately US$21.6 million in debt, freeing resources for marine conservation and climate adaptation. It directly led to the creation of SeyCCAT, the Seychelles Conservation and Climate Adaptation Trust, which has since become a vital mechanism for channeling funds into ocean protection, sustainable fisheries, and resilience projects.

As President, I also discussed the blue bond concept directly with the then Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka in November 2013.

Meeting with the Prince of Wales in Sri Lanka in 2013 at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). Credit: James Alix Michel

His International Sustainability Unit was already promoting innovative ocean finance mechanisms, and our conversation highlighted the urgent need for small island states to access capital markets tailored to blue economy priorities.

This exchange, combined with early engagement from the World Bank and Commonwealth partners, helped refine the idea into a viable sovereign instrument. It underscored a growing global recognition that traditional financing was inadequate for the unique challenges of climate-vulnerable, ocean-dependent nations.

The blue bond represented the culmination of this journey. Structured with technical support from the World Bank, a US$5 million guarantee from the multilateral lender, and a US$5 million concessional grant from the GEF, it raised US$15 million from private investors including Calvert Impact Capital, Nuveen, and Prudential Financial.

On 29 October 2018, Seychelles launched the world’s first sovereign blue bond at the Our Ocean Conference in Bali — an event I had the privilege of attending. This was not just a financial milestone for Seychelles; it was a global proof of concept for ocean-positive investment.

Launch of the Seychelles Blue Bond in Bali at the Ocean Conference in 2018. Credit: James Alix Michel

The bond’s structure was as innovative as its purpose. Proceeds were allocated to expand marine protected areas to 30% of Seychelles’ exclusive economic zone, improve fisheries governance, and develop sustainable blue economy sectors like eco-tourism and seafood value chains. Managed through SeyCCAT and the Development Bank of Seychelles, the funds supported grants and loans for projects that delivered measurable environmental and economic returns. Investors benefited from blended finance that de-risked the instrument, while Seychelles gained long-term capital for priorities that traditional aid could not address.

For small island developing states (SIDS), this model holds profound significance. Nations like Seychelles grapple with high public debt (often exceeding 60% of GDP), acute climate exposure, a heavy reliance on marine resources for 20-30% of GDP, and limited fiscal space. Conventional loans and grants are frequently too rigid, too short-term, or misaligned with ocean realities.

The blue bond demonstrated that sovereign debt instruments can be repurposed for sustainability, attracting private capital while advancing public goods like biodiversity protection and community livelihoods.

Its broader impact extends beyond the US$15 million raised. The Seychelles blue bond lent credibility to the blue economy as a bankable asset class, inspiring subsequent issuances by Gabon (2022), Ecuador (2024), and others. It proved that nature-based solutions and financial innovation are complementary, not competitive. By linking debt restructuring, conservation trusts, and market-based finance, Seychelles created a replicable blueprint that has influenced global discussions at forums like the UN Ocean Conference and G20 sustainable finance tracks.

Yet this success should not be romanticized. Innovative finance alone cannot resolve systemic inequities in the international financial architecture. Blue bonds require robust institutions, transparent governance, technical capacity, and a pipeline of investable projects—foundations that not all SIDS possess. Seychelles benefited from strong political commitment, capable partners like the World Bank and GEF, and a pre-existing conservation framework. Without these, such instruments risk becoming symbolic rather than substantive.

This is precisely why the GEF assembly in Samarkand is so timely. Oceans face escalating crises: overfishing depletes 35% of stocks, plastic pollution chokes marine life, warming waters trigger coral bleaching, and habitat loss threatens 40% of global biodiversity. Yet ocean finance remains woefully inadequate—less than 1% of climate finance targets marine ecosystems, despite the ocean’s role in absorbing 25% of CO₂ emissions and producing 50% of planetary oxygen.

Samarkand offers a platform to scale solutions like Seychelles’ model.

The GEF, as a catalytic funder, should prioritize blue finance architecture for SIDS and coastal states. This means expanding blended finance facilities, providing first-loss guarantees, offering concessional capital, and building capacity for project pipelines. It also requires policy reforms to integrate blue bonds into debt sustainability frameworks, ensuring they complement—rather than compete with—multilateral debt relief initiatives.

Seychelles took a calculated risk in 2008 by centering the blue economy in national strategy. We persisted through debt swaps, presidential diplomacy, and patient institution-building. The blue bond was the reward: a tool that converted vulnerability into opportunity.

As delegates converge on Samarkand, let Seychelles’ story serve as both inspiration and imperative. The blue economy will not thrive on declarations or pilot projects. It demands instruments that harness private capital for public purposes, turning ocean ambition into enduring action. Seychelles opened the door.

The GEF and global community must now widen it—for islands, for coasts, and for the shared blue planet we all depend on.

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

James Alix Michel is the former President of Seychelles (2004–2016) and a global advocate for the blue economy, ocean conservation and climate resilience.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

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

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

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

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

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

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

What GEF-9 Is Trying to Change

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

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

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

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

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

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

From Projects to Systems Transformation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Shift in How Environmental Finance Works

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

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

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

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

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

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

What It Looks Like on the Ground

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

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

The impact goes beyond emissions reductions.

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

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

GEF-9 approach. Graphic: IPS

Integration Replaces Silos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Focus On Vulnerable Countries and Communities

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

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

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

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

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

What Success Will Look Like

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

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

Boltz said the benchmark is long-term transformation.

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

Why It Matters Now

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

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

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

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

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

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau

Excerpt:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the risks are mounting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

International role

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

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

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

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

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

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Indigenous Leaders Warn of “Unjust Transition”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Science Points to Sharp Cuts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Policy Momentum Builds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amazon at a Crossroads

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beyond COP: Complement, Not Replacement

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

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

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

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

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

A Test of Political Will

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

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

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

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

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

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tensions Rose

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But another question followed: could conservation pay?

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

From Idle Land to Natural Economy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not Just Beekeeping, It’s the Business of Beekeeping

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Welcome Income

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Innovation, inclusion and cooperation must guide our collective efforts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mahmoud Ali Youssouf is Chairperson of the African Union Commission.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Establishment of Turtle Hatchery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EARTH Project, More Than Turtle Conservation

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

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

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

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

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

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

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That constraint is rapidly diminishing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Credit: UNDP Jamaica

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PPIN is designed to dismantle these barriers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In a region on the frontline of climate change, the future may not lie in choosing between tradition and science but in weaving them together.

Because in the Pacific, resilience has never been built on one system alone. It is carried across generations, across knowledge systems, and now, increasingly, across policy and practice.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

A crew member with The Greater Cape Town Water Fund looks out over the landscape where the team is working to remove invasive alien plants for improved water security. Credit: Roshni Lodhia/ The Nature Conservancy

By Louise Stafford
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Apr 16 2026 (IPS)

In 2018, Cape Town came perilously close to becoming the first major city in the world to run out of water. Known as “Day Zero”, it was more than just a crisis, it marked a pivotal moment. It made clear that water insecurity is not a distant threat, but an immediate reality.

It also revealed something equally important, water security depends not only on built infrastructure, such as dams, desalination plants and groundwater extraction, but on the health of the natural systems that sustain them. Ecological infrastructure – our catchments, rivers and wetlands – is as essential as the roads we travel and the grids that power our homes.

South Africa is in a period of structural water scarcity. According to the National Water and Sanitation Master Plan, the country could face a water deficit of up to 17% by 2030. Much of the focus has rightly been on failing built infrastructure, such as non-revenue water, ageing infrastructure, and wastewater discharge into rivers. But an equally critical, and often overlooked, part of the problem lies upstream.

Degraded catchments, driven by poor land management, erosion, invasive alien plants, river diversion, and the loss of wetlands and riparian areas, are undermining the very systems that produce and regulate water.

The Hidden Drain on South Africa’s Water

The impact of alien tree invasions on our water resources is not unknown in South Africa. Multiple scientific studies emphasized the scale of the problem. The invasion of catchment areas by alien tree species, such as pine and Australian acacias, has a significant effect on streamflow. They reduce South Africa’s water availability by an estimated 1.4 billion cubic metres every year, enough to irrigate between 140,000 and 280,000 hectares of farmland according to WWF-SA, drawing on research by the CSIR and partners.

That is water that could otherwise sustain crops, support rural economies, households and strengthen national food security. In the greater Cape Town region, these species consume around 55 million cubic metres annually, roughly equivalent to two months of the City of Cape Town’s water supply.

South Africa has taken important steps to address alien plant invasions through programmes like Working for Water and through the efforts of landowners. However, these initiatives face persistent challenges such as limited funding, uneven prioritisation, and interruptions in implementation that reduce long-term effectiveness.

Restoring catchments requires continuity and scale. Traditional public budgets cannot keep up. Short-term grants and project‑based funding cycles are mismatched with the long‑term reality of managing and restoring South Africa’s catchments. Catchments do not operate on three-year budget cycles. They require decades of commitment. To secure our water future, we must rethink how we value and finance the ecological infrastructure that underpins our economy.

Science Meets Implementation: A Proven Model

The Water Fund model has added a valuable new option to address catchment restoration. South Africa’s first, the Greater Cape Town Water Fund (GCTWF), provides compelling proof that investing in ecological infrastructure and prioritizing headwaters deliver measurable results. Over the past seven years, with support of the private sector and City of Cape Town, over 40,000 hectares have been cleared of invasive alien plants priority catchments. Importantly, the cleared areas have been followed up multiple times to prevent regrowth.

This work increases water flows into dams of the Western Cape Water Supply System by 36 million cubic meters per year. The benefits extend far beyond water. The programme creates job opportunities, reduces wildfire risk, and supports the recovery of native fynbos and freshwater ecosystems — while building resilience to climate change.

The Greater Cape Town Water Fund demonstrates that ecological infrastructure can deliver reliable, measurable returns. Yet scaling this model has been constrained by one persistent challenge namely predictable funding to plan and reach the set target of clearing 54,300 hectares to replenish the water losses.

Rethinking How We Fund Water Security

What about a new funding approach? One that can crowd in private capital while ensuring accountability for results and bridging the gap between short term and sustainable funding. This is the foundation of the FRB Cape water performance-based bond, developed through a partnership between Rand Merchant Bank and The Nature Conservancy.

The Cape Water Performance-based Bond, a first of its kind financial instrument designed to unlock non‑traditional funding sources and secure a consistent five‑year funding stream to accelerate invasive plant control in priority catchments of the Greater Cape Town region. This marks an important milestone not only for Cape Town but for South Africa as a whole, a shift toward mobilizing capital markets to invest in nature at scale.

Accountability is built in. Rigorous monitoring and data collection tracks delivery and ensures a positive return on investment. “Clearly demonstrating what an investment has achieved is the backbone of impact finance. Investment returns in the FRB Cape water performance-based bond rely on performance and so we require systems to independently verify results. This independence and transparency are critical to ensure trust in these results, and to scale nature-based impact finance products.” Chris Barichievy, Director of Science, Conservation Alpha

Taking Impact To Scale

Water security underpins economic stability. From farms to factories, every sector depends on a reliable flow of water. When systems fail, the costs are staggering. When they succeed, they quietly power equity and prosperity.

The Cape Water Performance-based Bond matters because it can be replicated. Cities across Africa face similar challenges, degraded landscapes, limited public funds, rising demand. This model offers a science-based, practical path forward that can be adapted to different contexts.

From Vision to Delivery

This is where vision meets action. Governments and other roleplayers need to recognize that healthy catchments are as essential as pipes, treatment plants and pumps. Healthy catchments enable water to reach our dams, which is the first step in securing our water supply.

The capital markets are the world’s largest funding pools. Yet the opportunity for capital markets to play a role in the water supply system has been limited – until now. Martin Potgieter from RMB said: “This Cape Water Performance-based Bond gives financial institutions and investors the opportunity to participate in the security of the water supply system. It gives investors a low-risk entry to the funding of a water catchment, while at the same time enabling a project that delivers lasting, systemic impact.”

Large and critical interventions need long-term planning and commitment, with the Cape Water Performance-based Bond providing five years of predictable funding.

Without this change, the risks to our water security will only grow. In 2018, Cape Town has shown the world what it means to be pushed to the edge. Now, it is showing the world what it means to lead. By building financing systems that match the scale of the challenge, we can secure a future where both nature and people thrive.

Louise Stafford is the South Africa Country Director at The Nature Conservancy

The GEF actively supports climate resilience and sustainable livelihoods in Zanzibar, with a specific focus on the seaweed farming sector, which is crucial for over 20,000 farmers—mostly women—in the region. Here a woman identified as Jazaa is pictured working as a seaweed farmer. She carefully attaches little seaweed seedlings to the rope that she will harvest after two months. Credit: Natalija Gormalova/Climate Visuals Countdown

By Umar Manzoor Shah
SRINAGAR, India, Apr 16 2026 (IPS)

The Global Environment Facility, widely known as the GEF, plays a central role in financing environmental protection across the world. It supports developing countries in tackling climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, pollution, and threats to ecosystems.

Since its establishment in the early 1990s, the GEF has grown as a multilateral environmental fund, supporting projects in more than 170 countries.

Over time, the GEF has evolved into what it calls a “family of funds”, each targeting a specific global environmental challenge while operating under a shared strategic framework.

This explainer looks at how the GEF funding works, the origins of its financing model, and the role of six major funds that channel resources toward global environmental goals.

While the GEF predates the 1992 Rio ‘Earth’ Summit, its importance as a financial mechanism grew after the summit. Here UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali opens the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, which aimed to develop a global blueprint for balancing economic development with environmental protection. Credit: Michos Tzavaras/UN Photo

Origins of the GEF Funding Model

The GEF was created in 1991, before the Rio ‘Earth’ Summit in 1992, which aimed to develop a global blueprint for balancing economic development with environmental protection; however, its importance grew after the summit.

The Rio Summit produced three major environmental conventions. These were the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity, and, later in 1994, the Convention to Combat Desertification. The GEF became the financial mechanism for these agreements, meaning it mobilises and distributes funds to help countries implement them.

Over the past 35 years, the GEF has expanded its mandate. Today it supports multiple conventions and environmental initiatives through a structured set of trust funds. This architecture allows the facility to coordinate funding across different environmental priorities while maintaining specialised programs for each global commitment.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is now focusing on solving environmental problems together instead of separately. It looks at climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution as connected issues and works with governments, international groups, civil society, and businesses to address them.

The GEF Trust Fund was initially created to support multiple environmental agreements simultaneously. Over time, countries preferred more specific funding for their particular needs.

Because of these changes, the GEF now has different funds, each designed for different purposes and methods of giving money.

Some funds – like the Trust Fund, the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), and part of the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF) – use a system that helps countries know in advance how much funding they can expect.

The GEF Trust Fund

The Global Environment Facility Trust Fund is the main source of funds for the GEF. It provides grants to support environmental projects in developing countries.

The Trust Fund finances activities across several environmental areas.

These include

• Biodiversity conservation,
• Climate change mitigation,
• Land degradation control,
• International waters management, and
• Chemicals and waste reduction.

Countries receive funding through a system known as the System for Transparent Allocation of Resources, or STAR, which distributes funds based on their environmental needs and eligibility.

Projects funded by the Trust Fund often focus on creating global environmental benefits. These may include:

• Protecting endangered species,
• Restoring ecosystems,
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and
• Improving pollution management systems.

The Trust Fund operates through periodic “replenishment” cycles. Donor countries pledge new contributions every four years, which allows the GEF to finance programs during the next funding period. For example, the GEF-9 cycle will cover the period from July 2026 to June 2030 and focus on scaling up environmental investments while mobilising private capital and strengthening country ownership of environmental policies.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has created Integrated Programs. These are special programs designed to address multiple environmental goals at the same time in a more coordinated and efficient way.

For example, the Food Systems Integrated Program does not fund separate projects for climate change, biodiversity, and land degradation. Instead, it combines them into one unified project, which helps achieve stronger and longer-lasting results while making better use of funding.

The GEF helps fund biodiversity across the globe, helping to create conditions to prevent the further endangerment of species like the Sumatran Orangutan (Pongo abelii). Credit: Thomas Gabernig/Unsplash

Global Biodiversity Framework Fund

The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund is a relatively new component of the GEF family of funds. It was created to help countries implement the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which was adopted in 2022 under the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The biodiversity framework sets ambitious targets for protecting nature by 2030. Its most prominent targets include the “30 by 30” target, which calls for protecting at least 30 percent of the world’s land and ocean areas by the end of the decade.  The Framework also sets a 30 percent target for the restoration of ecosystems and a target of mobilising 30 billion dollars in international financial flows to developing countries for biodiversity action.

The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund supports actions that help countries meet these targets.

Actions that are supported include the following:

• Expanding protected areas,
• Restoring degraded ecosystems,
• Protecting endangered species, and
• Strengthening biodiversity monitoring.

Another important focus is the integration of biodiversity into economic planning. Many projects supported by this fund work with governments and businesses to match financial flows with biodiversity goals. This means reducing financial support for activities that damage the environment and encouraging more sustainable farming, forestry, and fishing practices.

By providing targeted financing for biodiversity commitments, the fund helps translate global agreements into practical actions at the national and local levels.

It is also important to highlight that the fund sets a target of providing at least 20% of its resources to support actions by Indigenous Peoples and local communities. This form of direct financing is unique for a multilateral environmental fund.  To date, this target has been exceeded and mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund and the Tropical Forest Forever Facility are considering replicating this approach.

GEF-9 biodiversity investments will bring together four interconnected pathways:

• Scaling up financial flows to close the nature financing gap,
• Embedding environmental priorities in national development strategies,
• Mobilising private capital through blended finance, and
• Empowering Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and civil society as active conservation partners.

“A renewed emphasis on the Forest Biomes Integrated Program will continue directing investment into the landscapes most critical for achieving 30×30 – ensuring that GEF financing remains focused where the stakes are highest,” said Chizuru Aoki, the head of the GEF Conventions and Funds Division.

Medicinal and aromatic plant species, such as the baobab, are often exploited; however, the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing aims to ensure fair use of the planet’s genetic resources and secure benefits for Indigenous knowledge holders. Credit Noah Grossenbacher/Unsplash

Nagoya Protocol Implementation Fund

The Nagoya Protocol Implementation Fund supports countries in implementing the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing. This international agreement, part of the Convention on Biological Diversity, aims to make sure that the genetic resources of the planet are used fairly and equitably, with benefits shared with those who provide them.

Genetic resources include plants, animals, and microorganisms that are used in research and commercial products such as medicines, cosmetics, and agricultural technologies. Historically, many developing countries have expressed concerns that companies and researchers benefit from these resources without sharing profits or knowledge.

The Nagoya Protocol fixes these issues by requiring users to do the following:

• Get permission from the country providing the resources, and
• Agree on how benefits (like money or knowledge) will be shared.

The fund supports countries by helping them:

• Create laws and rules for using genetic resources,
• Improve monitoring systems, and
• Build skills among researchers and policymakers.

Projects funded also support Indigenous peoples and local communities, who often hold traditional knowledge associated with biological resources. Protecting this knowledge and ensuring fair compensation is a key objective of the Nagoya framework.

Least Developed Countries Fund

The Least Developed Countries Fund focuses on supporting climate adaptation in the world’s most vulnerable nations. These countries often face severe environmental risks but lack the finances and systems to respond efficiently.

The fund supports the preparation and implementation of National Adaptation Programs of Action and National Adaptation Plans. These are country-specific strategies that identify the most urgent climate risks facing each country and outline measures to reduce vulnerability.

Typical projects include the following:

• Strengthening climate-resilient agriculture,
• Improving water management systems,
• Protecting coastal zones, and
• Building early warning systems for extreme weather events.

Because many least developed countries face multiple environmental issues at once, the fund often supports integrated projects that address climate change alongside biodiversity conservation and land management.

This funding system makes sure that the poorest and most vulnerable countries get the help they need to deal with climate change, even though they did very little to cause it.

Villagers in Nyamisati, Rufiji District, wade through muddy tidal flats to plant mangrove seedlings—part of a grassroots effort to curb saline intrusion that has begun to poison nearby rice paddies as saltwater seeps underground. The initiative reflects growing local responses to environmental degradation driven by human activity along Tanzania’s coast. The GEF supports projects like these that help mitigate the impacts of climate change. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

Special Climate Change Fund

The Special Climate Change Fund supports climate action in developing countries and works alongside the Least Developed Countries Fund.

While the Least Developed Countries Fund focuses on the poorest nations, this fund helps other developing countries that are also affected by climate change.

It supports projects that:

• Help countries prepare for climate impacts,
• Include climate planning in development and infrastructure,
• Improve water management and agriculture.
• Reduce disaster risks, and
• Promote environmentally friendly technologies.

The SCCF also, in some cases, supports mitigation efforts, particularly when they involve innovative technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By financing both adaptation and mitigation initiatives, the fund contributes to global efforts to stabilise the climate system.

Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency Trust Fund

The Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency Trust Fund supports countries in implementing transparency requirements under the Paris Agreement.

Under this agreement, countries must regularly report their greenhouse gas emissions and track their progress on climate goals. However, many developing countries do not have the tools or skills to do this properly.

This fund helps by supporting:

• Training for government officials,
• Creation of national emissions data systems, and
• Better monitoring and reporting methods.

Strong reporting systems are important because they:

• Help track climate progress,
• Build trust between countries, and
• Ensure countries meet their commitments.

The fund helps developing countries improve their climate reporting so they can fully take part in global climate efforts.

How the “family of funds” works together

One of the defining features of the GEF funding model is that each part speaks to the others.

Think of it like a team of funds working together, rather than separate, isolated programs.

These funds are coordinated so they can:

• Support the same project from different angles,
• Avoid duplication (no overlapping funding for the same purpose), and
• Align with global environmental agreements.

For example:

• A biodiversity project might use:
  • The main GEF Trust Fund
  • Plus the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund
• A climate adaptation project could combine:
  • Least Developed Countries Fund
  • Special Climate Change Fund

This ‘family’ structure improves:

• Coordination, so different funds work in sync,
• Efficiency, so funds work with less waste and duplication, and
• Flexibility, so projects can tap into multiple funding sources.

Environmental problems are interconnected. A single project (like forest conservation) can:

• Reduce carbon emissions,
• Protect biodiversity,
• Improve water systems, and
• Avoid land degradation.

Because of the integrated funding system, the GEF can support all these goals at once, rather than funding them separately.

The “family of funds” is a coordinated funding system that allows the GEF to:

• Combine resources;
• Support complex, multi-sector projects; and
• Maximise environmental impact

The Future of GEF Financing

As global environmental crises grow, so does the demand for money and resources to meet climate and biodiversity needs. International assessments suggest that hundreds of billions of dollars are needed each year.

The GEF aims to play a “catalytic” role in closing this gap – in short, the GEF acts as a “catalyst” or tool for using limited public funds to unlock much larger investments.

Its funding model mobilises additional resources from

• Governments,
• Development banks, and
• Private investors.

“In practical terms, the mechanisms being supported in GEF-9 include debt-for-nature and debt-for-climate swaps, green bonds, pooled investment vehicles, and outcome-based financing structures. Each of these can serve a different purpose depending on the context – but the common thread is that they allow the GEF to use its resources strategically to unlock much larger pools of capital from the private sector, multiplying the environmental impact that public funding alone could achieve,” Aoki said.

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

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau