Before anyone called her an innovator, before artificial intelligence entered the conversation, before solar-powered cold rooms, before the language of sustainable development, Shifra Ainomugisha knew food loss in its painful form.
It is barely noon, and a group of women sit near the beach on the outskirts of Djégbadji village, in West Africa’s Benin, sifting through mounds of salt harvested from the Gulf of Guinea’s ocean.
June 27-28 is the 16th Social Business Day, observed in Savar (Dhaka) Bangladesh. In June 2024 at the Western Sydney University’s graduation ceremony where I was conferred Emeritus Professor status, I
urged the new business graduates to:
• purge the world of the… obnoxious Friedmanite idea that is destroying our planet and tearing our communities apart;
• look instead to the “Social Business Model” of Bangladesh’s Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus; and
• work on the right side of history; stand up for justice and liberation; spread the “moral violence” for peace; and put people and the planet before profit.
At dawn, when the waters of Dumboor Lake lie still under a pale grey sky, Santo Chakma, 63, nudges his narrow wooden boat into a reservoir that swallowed his childhood.
CIVICUS speaks about the climate impacts of the 2026 World Cup with Frank Huisingh, founder of Fossil Free Football, a fan-led group that campaigns to end fossil fuel sponsorship in football and make the game more sustainable.
Armed conflict, economic shocks, and climate pressures are driving worsening food insecurity across many of the world's most vulnerable regions, according to the latest
Hunger Hotspots report outlook for June-November 2026, jointly released by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
« James Alix Michel warns that without real finance and precaution, ocean pledges risk remaining only on paper. »
Now that the lights have dimmed in Mombasa and the delegations have gone home, a simple but necessary question remains: did the first Our Ocean Conference on African soil truly move the world from promises to protection? The conference was indeed the first held in Africa, under the theme “Our Ocean, Our Heritage, Our Future,” with a stated focus on culture, communities, livelihoods, marine protection, climate resilience and sustainable blue economies.
The United Nations June Climate Meetings (SB64) ended in Bonn with sharp disagreements between developed and developing countries over climate finance, adaptation support and emissions reductions, leaving negotiators with significant unresolved issues ahead of the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Türkiye.
Long burdened by the labour-intensive nature of agriculture, Zimbabwe's female farmers are finding relief in new agritechnologies that significantly reduce the time they spend in the field.
As the campaign for a new UN secretary-general gathers momentum, will the US exercise the decisive vote -- or the veto-- in the final selection?
The tea arrives before the conversation starts. Jayanta Mukhia sets two cups on the wooden table and pulls up a chair across from the couple who arrived that afternoon with trekking poles and rucksacks. They have come to walk the Goechala trail into the heart of Khangchendzonga National Park in India. They will leave in two days. Before they go, she has something to tell them.
CIVICUS discusses a proposed United Nations (UN) tax treaty with Jenny Ricks, General Secretary of Fight Inequality Alliance, a global movement that organises to counter the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a small elite.
A new report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) highlights the vast, overlapping climate threats affecting children worldwide, which is leaving them increasingly vulnerable to escalating risks across health, security, and education.
Tomorrow, Africa hosts the Our Ocean Conference on its own shores for the first time, in Mombasa.
This is more than a diplomatic milestone. It is a test of whether we, as Africans, are prepared to safeguard our ocean as a shared heritage and a pillar of our future prosperity.
The construction of
an elevated pedestrian bridge connecting central and southern Mexico City –one of roughly 2,000 urban works tied to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, began last October, and, with only days to go before the tournament's kickoff, remains unfinished.
Africa contributes the least to global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it faces some of the world's most severe climate-related health impacts. Several realities define the continent's climate and health landscape – increased infectious diseases, air pollution, death, disruption and pressure on health systems through heatwaves, floods, droughts and storms.
The global ocean economy continues its expansion, with ocean-related trade
reaching USD 2.5 trillion as of 2025. Ocean services now make up the majority of the ocean trade, accounting for 58.9 percent of the composition, up from 47.8 percent in 2020.
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has approved USD 6.4 million for a new conservation initiative in Papua New Guinea that seeks to protect 700,000 hectares of critical highland ecosystems by placing Indigenous Peoples and local communities at the centre of conserving and managing their ancestral lands.
As ministers, diplomats and development officials assembled in Samarkand Congress Centre for a ceremonial family photograph, the mood carried unusual symbolism. Behind the smiles and formalities stood a region confronting a harder reality: rivers are shrinking, soils are tiring, temperatures are rising, and the old ways of managing land and water are no longer working.
Over the past few years, the humanitarian crisis in Africa’s Sahel region has expanded considerably, largely driven by a surge of violence—particularly in the Central Sahel. Although the crisis has been described by the United Nations (UN) as having “largely faded from the headlines” since its wake in 2012, millions of people across the region are in dire need of humanitarian assistance as civilian displacement, climate shocks, and widespread hunger rapidly spill across borders.
For a few days in May, Francesca Albanese could live more easily. On 13 May, a US federal judge ruled that sanctions the Trump administration imposed on her violated her right to free expression. The government was forced to
remove the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories from its sanctions list. But the reprieve lasted barely a week. On 27 May, after an appeals court suspended the ruling, the US Treasury
restored sanctions.