If you are reading commodity price movements as evidence that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has been absorbed without consequence, you are reading the right data for the wrong time horizon. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

By Máximo Torero
ROME, Apr 17 2026 (IPS)

The headlines are wrong about food prices — but right to be afraid, very afraid. Walk into a supermarket in Chicago, Berlin, or Mumbai today, and you will not find the shelves stripped bare or the prices dramatically higher than last month. Despite weeks of alarming headlines about commodity markets, food inflation in most major economies has risen only marginally — a tenth or two-tenths of a percentage point between February and March of this year. In the United States, food inflation moved from roughly 2.9 percent to 3.1 percent. In Germany, from 0.8 to 0.9. In India, from 7.8 to 8.0.

This is not a crisis at the checkout counter. Not yet.

But here is what the headlines are getting wrong, and what they are getting terrifyingly right at the same time: the stability you see today is real, and it is also beside the point. What is coming — if the world does not act quickly and the cease fire does not continue— is a food price shock of a different order, arriving not in March but in the harvests of late 2026 and the markets of 2027.

To understand why, you first have to understand what commodity price indexes actually measure, and what they do not. The FAO Food Price Index — which did rise slightly in March, driven largely by vegetable oils and sugar amid higher crude oil costs — tracks the international price of raw agricultural commodities: wheat, maize, rice, oilseeds, dairy.

It does not track what you pay for a baguette or a box of pasta. By the time wheat becomes bread, the grain itself represents only 10 to 15 percent of the final retail price. The rest is energy, labor, processing, packaging, logistics, and retail margins.

This cost structure is precisely why grocery bills do not lurch upward the moment commodity markets move. It is also why the current calm is not a reliable indicator of future stability specially because of the significant share of energy costs.

Short-term stability is not medium or long-term security. The time between a fertilizer shock and a harvest failure is measured in months. The time between a harvest failure and a food price surge is measured in months more. We are already inside that window

The markets for major cereals are, for now, sending reassuring signals. Wheat and maize prices have held steady. Rice prices actually declined. Global cereal stocks remain high, and the market is correctly reflecting sufficient near-term availability. If you are reading commodity price movements as evidence that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has been absorbed without consequence, you are reading the right data for the wrong time horizon.

The Strait carries roughly 35% of crude oil exports — but its disruption reaches agrifood systems through a less obvious channel, logistics and energy costs for food processing. In addition, the Strait carries 20% of natural gas which can’t be replaced by any other source, and which is essential for nitrogen fertilizer ( specifically urea), 20-30% of fertilizers export depending on the specific type and about 50% of Sulfur exports a key input to produce phosphate fertilizer. All this is still  not showing up in this month’s price indexes. 

According to FAO analysis, the Strait of Hormuz closure has choked off 30 to 35 percent of global urea trade. Urea prices have already jumped between 40 and 60 percent. The feedstock that makes nitrogen fertilizer possible — natural gas — has risen 70 to 90 percent in price. Brent crude is up 60 percent just before the cease of fire.

These are not abstract figures. They are the inputs that farmers in the United States, Europe, South Asia, and across the Northern Hemisphere are confronting right now, as planting season either begins or approaches.

The decision they face is not a comfortable one: pay double for fertilizer when commodity prices are already low, and hope prices recover, or cut application rates and accept lower yields. Some will shift toward nitrogen-fixing crops like soybeans. Others will pivot toward crops destined for biofuel production, reducing the food supply further still.

The consequences of those decisions will not appear on store shelves until the harvest comes in, or the markets decides to incorporate them in future prices. When they do, the combination of constrained yields, elevated energy costs running through every link of the supply chain, and ongoing trade disruptions will drive commodity prices higher, and food prices even higher because of the additional energy cost increases — not by a tenth of a point per month, but meaningfully, in ways that will be felt most acutely by the households that can least afford it.

Short-term stability is not medium or long-term security. The time between a fertilizer shock and a harvest failure is measured in months. The time between a harvest failure and a food price surge is measured in months more. We are already inside that window.

The world’s response cannot wait for the price indexes to confirm what the agronomic and economic data already make clear.

Governments, development institutions, and the private sector must act now on three fronts: ensuring fertilizer access for smallholder farmers and input and food import-dependent nations before their planting decisions become irreversible; protecting and diversifying trade routes so that disruption in one chokepoint does not become a global supply crisis; avoid export restrictions of fertilizers and energy products and pursuing with urgency the diplomatic solutions that remain, for now, within reach.

The supermarket and retail store shelves are stocked. The silos are full. And the window to keep them that way is closing. 

Keeping the Strait of Hormuz open is therefore not just about preventing food inflation — it is about averting a broader surge in overall inflation that would directly undermine economic growth, while also shielding every other sector dependent on the energy and input prices that flow through this strategic chokepoint.

Excerpt:

By Katsuhiro Asagiri
TOKYO, Japan, Apr 7 2026 (IPS)

As tensions surrounding Iran deepen and uncertainty spreads across global energy markets, Japan is once again confronting a structural weakness: its heavy dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

For decades, Japan has relied on crude imports from a region repeatedly shaken by war, confrontation and instability. With the stability of the Strait of Hormuz and surrounding waters once again under threat, Tokyo is accelerating efforts to diversify both supply sources and transport routes. In that process, Kazakhstan has emerged as an increasingly important partner.

Yet the strengthening relationship between Japan and Kazakhstan is not limited to oil, uranium or logistics. It also has a deeper historical and ethical dimension. Both countries carry the memory of nuclear suffering and have sought to transform that memory into a foundation for dialogue, cooperation and advocacy for peace.

Central Asia plus Japan Dialogue” (CA+JAD) Credit: Primi Minister’s Office of Japan

That framework has since taken on even greater urgency.

One important element is the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, the so-called Middle Corridor. Connecting Central Asia and Europe without passing through Russia, this route has drawn attention as a new transport channel for energy and strategic goods. In an era shaped by war, sanctions, shipping disruptions and intensifying rivalry among major powers, such corridors have become increasingly important for Japan.

Kazakhstan stands at the center of this calculation.

Middle Corridor. Credit: TITR

Japanese energy interests are already present in the Caspian region. INPEX, a Japanese company, holds stakes in major oil projects including Kazakhstan’s Kashagan field and Azerbaijan’s ACG field. Crude from these fields could serve as an alternative supply source to Middle Eastern oil for Japan. In addition, routes through the Caspian and Mediterranean can avoid the Strait of Hormuz, although that means longer transport times and higher shipping costs.

Karipbek Kuyukov(2nd from left) and Dmitriy Vesselov(2nd from right). Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri

Even so, energy alone cannot fully explain the distinctiveness of Japan-Kazakhstan ties.

What gives this relationship unusual depth is their shared historical experience of nuclear suffering. Kazakhstan endured the grave consequences of 456 nuclear tests conducted at the Semipalatinsk test site during the Soviet era. Japan remains the only country ever attacked with atomic bombs in wartime, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki continue to stand as enduring symbols of the catastrophic human cost of nuclear weapons.

The two histories are different. But the ethical language that emerged from them has much in common.

The remains of the Prefectural Industry Promotion Building, after the dropping of the atomic bomb, in Hiroshima, Japan. This site was later preserved as a monument. Credit: UN Photo/DB

What matters here is the “dialogue” dimension of Kazakhstan’s diplomacy.

A Group photo of participants of the regional conference on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and nuclear-free-zone in Central Asia held on August 29, 2023. Credit: Jibek Joly TV Channel

Through the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, held in Astana since 2003, Kazakhstan has sought to position itself not merely as a supplier of resources or a transit country, but as a hub for dialogue across political, religious and civilizational divides. This initiative has become part of the country’s diplomatic identity, grounded in denuclearization, mediation and coexistence.

For Japan, this adds another layer to Kazakhstan’s significance. Kazakhstan is not only a country with oil, uranium and transport routes. It is also a state that has sought to transform its own history of suffering into diplomacy centered on peace, trust and human security.

7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions Group Photo by Secretariate of the 7th Congress

This approach resonates with the realities of today’s world, where multiple crises overlap.

Credit: akorda.kz

In this context, the relationship between Japan and Kazakhstan carries a broader lesson.

Cooperation between states does not have to be shaped only by economic and strategic interests. It can also incorporate shared memory, moral purpose and a commitment to dialogue. In practical terms, that means cooperation on energy and transport. Politically, it means contributing to a more stable and diversified regional order. Humanitarianly, it means sustaining the argument that security must not be separated from its human consequences.

Of course, this relationship is not free from limits or contradictions. Alternative routes are costly. State behavior is still heavily shaped by strategic calculation. Dialogue alone cannot neutralize the pressures of war.

Even so, in an international environment marked by fragmentation, coercion and renewed nuclear anxiety, the growing closeness between Japan and Kazakhstan means more than a tactical adjustment. It is also an attempt to connect realism with responsibility.

That is why this relationship deserves attention.

At a time when many countries are retreating into narrower and more inward-looking definitions of national interest, Japan and Kazakhstan are seeking to build a partnership that links resource security and diplomacy, memory and strategy, and national resilience with the search for peace.

Credit: UN photo

This article is brought to you by INPS Japan in collaboration with Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with UN ECOSOC.

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Excerpt:

An artisan puts final touches to the monument of Magawa, a Tanzanian-born bomb-sniffing rat. Credit: APOPO

By Kizito Makoye
MOROGORO, Tanzania , Apr 7 2026 (IPS)

At Mazimbu village, not far from Tanzania’s Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), Stephano Jaka still remembers the night he trapped and killed a rat that had been feasting on his maize cobs – stored in a meticulously woven basket designed to protect grains from rodents.
“I felt a big sense of relief when I finally killed it. It had been causing huge losses to my family,” he tells IPS.

Thousands of kilometres away in Siem Reap, Cambodia, farmers were among the dignitaries invited on Saturday to honour a Tanzanian-born rat for detecting hundreds of landmines, helping to clear swathes of land for farming.

Where farmers in Tanzania’s Morogoro region still perceive rats as destructive creatures threatening their livelihoods, communities in Cambodia embrace one of the species as a life-saving hero – underscoring how a despised animal has come to embody entirely different meanings across continents.

Cambodia remains one of the world’s most landmine-infested countries, with millions of explosives still buried underground, making large areas unsafe for farming, settlement and development.

On the eve of the International Day for Mine Awareness, a 2.2-metre statue – the world’s first public monument dedicated to a life-saving rat – was unveiled. The monument honours Magawa, whose bomb-sniffing career began after a yearlong stint at Sokoine University. He was hailed not as a crop-raiding pest but as an unlikely hero whose extraordinary sense of smell helped uncover hidden dangers.

For years, Magawa worked across some of Cambodia’s most dangerous terrain, detecting more than 100 landmines and helping to make large areas safe before his death in 2022. He remains the only rat ever awarded the PDSA Gold Medal for bravery.

Carved from local stone by Cambodian artisans, the statue shows Magawa wearing his medal and operational harness. Its base incorporates fragments of decommissioned explosives, symbolising the threat he helped eliminate. Erected in central Siem Reap, the monument also directs visitors to APOPO’s centre, where they can learn about the rats’ work and the ongoing impact of landmines.

“Magawa became a global symbol of hope for Cambodia’s mine-affected communities. This statue honours his extraordinary service and the work of all APOPO HeroRATs who continue to save lives in Cambodia and around the world — step by step, life by life,” said Christophe Cox, founder of APOPO.

The tribute also serves as a reminder that millions of landmines remain buried, and efforts to clear them continue despite limited resources.

Magawa was trained by APOPO, a non-governmental organisation that deploys African giant pouched rats to detect explosives. Because they are too light to trigger landmines, the animals can safely search contaminated areas far more quickly than conventional methods.

Born at Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro, Magawa showed early promise before being deployed to Cambodia in 2016, where he became one of the most successful detection animals in the programme.

In heavily affected regions such as Battambang, land once considered too dangerous has been cleared and returned to productive use, allowing communities to rebuild livelihoods and restore a sense of normalcy.

Magawa’s work also highlights a broader story of African innovation contributing to global solutions, with a programme developed in Tanzania now supporting mine clearance efforts in several countries.

Although Magawa died in 2022, other trained rats continue the work, helping to reduce the threat posed by unexploded landmines.

Residents of Morogoro spoke with a mix of pride, curiosity and quiet awe when reflecting on the global recognition of Magawa, the giant African pouched rat whose work in Cambodia has saved countless lives.

“Who would have thought a rat from our region could become a global hero?” said Jaka. “Here, rats are something we chase away. But Magawa has changed that story completely. He has shown us that even the smallest creatures can carry the biggest responsibilities.”

At the Morogoro main market, trader Rehema Msuya said Magawa’s story had sparked new conversations among residents about science and innovation.

“People now talk about rats differently,” she said. “We used to see them only as destructive. But this one saved lives and detected danger where machines sometimes fail. It makes you proud, knowing such intelligence can come from a rat.”

For some, Magawa’s legacy goes beyond admiration, emphasising the possibilities often overlooked.

“Magawa represents Africa in a very powerful way,” said Dar es Salaam-based secondary school teacher Godfrey Lwambano. “We often underestimate what we have – our environment, our knowledge, even our animals. Yet here is a creature trained with patience and care, going on to clear deadly landmines and protect communities far away.”

Young people in Morogoro, too, say the story touched them.

“When I first heard about him, I thought it was a joke,” said 22-year-old university student Neema Kibwana. “But when I learnt he worked for years detecting mines and even received awards, I was inspired. It shows that impact doesn’t depend on size or status.”

As the story of Magawa circulates in Tanzania and beyond, it continues to challenge long-held perceptions – transforming an animal once seen only as a pest into a symbol of ingenuity, resilience and hope.

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ECA Deputy Executive Secretary for Programme Support, Mama Keita.

By Busani Bafana
TANGIER, Morocco, Apr 1 2026 (IPS)

Africa must move swiftly to harness data and frontier technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) to drive its economic growth and make the continent globally competitive in the digital economy, a senior official at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has told policymakers.

Opening the Committee of Experts segment of the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development meeting in Tangier, ECA Deputy Executive Secretary for Programme Support Mama Keita emphasised that technological innovation is the key to unlocking Africa’s development potential. Africa has been slow to harness technological innovation to drive industrialisation and economic growth.

“Frontier technologies and innovation are not only useful to unlock Africa’s growth potential and enhance the competitiveness of African economies through productivity growth and diversification,” Keita said. She emphasised that technological innovations can be used to accelerate structural transformation, allowing the much-needed reallocation of resources from low- to high-productivity sectors.

Frontier technologies, including AI, the Internet of Things, and biotechnology, are boosting productivity, enhancing competitiveness, and enabling global economic diversification, but Africa is taking its time to join the party.

Keita, in remarks on behalf of ECA Executive Secretary Claver Gatete, questioned why Africa was not harnessing frontier technologies to utilise its natural resources and tap its youthful population and sizeable markets to boost productivity.

The conference, themed ‘Growth through innovation: harnessing data and frontier technologies for the economic transformation of Africa’, is being held at a critical moment for Africa, which is fast gaining global attention as the next frontier for investment, human capital, and mineral resource development. Despite trade uncertainty, Africa’s economic growth is on the rise.

Keita noted that the conference was an opportunity for policymakers to examine how technology-driven solutions can accelerate structural transformation and deliver more sustainable economic growth in Africa.

Despite averaging 3.5 percent GDP growth between 2000 and 2023, Africa has struggled to convert this expansion into productivity gains. Keita observed that growth has largely been driven by capital and labour accumulation, with little contribution from productivity improvements—an imbalance that innovation and advanced technologies could help correct.

Effective Regulation, Financing and Data Systems Needed

Frontier technologies and data can enable Africa to shift resources from low-productivity sectors to higher-value activities while also improving living standards with effective regulation and financing robust data systems  in place.

Africa suffers from poor data, which constrains effective planning and decision-making for development projects. The ECA’s flagship Economic Report on Africa 2026, to be launched during the conference, argues that harnessing data and technologies like AI, machine learning and robotics is now an imperative for Africa.

Technology Delivers

“There is no doubt that digital platforms, underpinned by frontier technologies such as AI, the Internet of Things, and blockchain, hold significant potential to reduce poverty, generate employment opportunities, promote economic integration, and drive economic growth,” Keita said.

Across the continent, signs are there of how technology innovation is driving development. Digital payment systems and mobile-money platforms are transforming Africa’s economies by lowering transaction costs, boosting efficiency, enhancing access to finance and markets, and advancing financial inclusion.

Nearly 30 per cent of the world’s critical minerals that are essential for clean-energy technologies are in Africa, which gives  the continent a comparative advantage over other continents.

Strategic industries such as digital technologies and telecommunications also depend on the critical minerals, making Africa an indispensable actor in this vital and fast-growing space, she said.

Frontier technologies have boosted crop productivity, enhanced water and land-use efficiency, and promoted climate resilience and adaptation in agriculture.

But Not all is Rosy

Keita said Africa risks falling behind global peers in harnessing the benefits of frontier technologies. AI, for example, is projected to contribute about 5.6 percent to GDP across Africa, Oceania and parts of developing Asia by 2030—lagging behind contributions expected in more advanced economies.

“The adoption of frontier technologies is not all roses, as this is associated with several risks that cannot be ignored,”  Keita warned. “The storage of most of Africa’s data in data centres outside the continent is a big problem, particularly for sensitive data such as medical, financial, and security data, given the sensitivity of such data. It is also costly and results in delays in data transmission.”

Africa currently accounts for less than one percent of global data centre capacity, limiting the deployment of data-intensive technologies like AI, according to the ECA.

“The disruptive effects of new technologies on the African labour market cannot be ignored,” Keita stated, adding that technology tends to cause job losses quickly, while job creation often occurs slowly.

But Africa’s demographic profile of having more young people presents a competitive advantage if it is aligned with the demands of a digital economy.

Globally, AI and automation are expected to create 170 million jobs while displacing 92 million jobs by 2030, resulting in a net gain of 78 million jobs.  Africa can only benefit from these new jobs if it prioritises providing enhanced digital skills training to its population.

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At a time when the traditional transatlantic relationship is more strained than ever—largely due to the almost compulsive stance of the current occupant of the White House and his circle—it is imperative for Europe to establish or strengthen strategic alliances in all domains, including in trade. Credit: EEAS

By Manuel Manonelles
BARCELONA, Spain, Mar 20 2026 (IPS)

“Europe can no longer be a custodian for the old-world order, for a world that has gone and will not return (…) we need a more realistic and interest-driven foreign policy.” These were some of the words pronounced one week ago by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, at the EU Ambassadors’ Conference in Brussels. A speech that sparked considerable controversy: an almost immediate rebuttal from the President of the Council, Antonio Costa; rumours of a motion of censure against Von der Leyen in the European Parliament; more or less public reproaches from several European leaders; and a swift and complete retraction by the President herself.

The question, however, remains: was this a miscalculation by a President known for always trying to swim with the current? Or do her words reflect a deeper alignment with the mindset of a new (dis)order defined by Trumpian chaos and the authoritarian impulses emanating from Beijing and Moscow, among others?

Multilateralism is not only a matter of principles; it is also a matter of responsibility, and indeed of efficiency and effectiveness. Or does Europe truly believe it can tackle the major challenges it faces—from climate change and migration flows to global public health and the impact of AI—on its own?

In the former case, despite its seriousness, the mistake would still be forgivable. In the latter, we would be facing a far more significant—and particularly dangerous—problem.

In Brussels, some interpret it as a clearly failed attempt by Von der Leyen to steer the Union’s position towards the theses defended at that time by the German Chancellor Merz—her compatriot and party colleague—on the need to adopt policies more aligned with Trump.

Position that Merz himself has changed in the last few years, taking into account his particularly weak position, with approval ratings plummeting to just 26% less than a year after taking office—figures as low as Trump’s.

Returning to the President of the Commission, it was indeed troubling to observe that -in a Europe already deeply divided over the major geopolitical challenges of our time (the war in Iran and across the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, the situation in Venezuela)- it was precisely the individual recognised globally as the face of the European Union who delivered a speech so starkly at odds with the Union’s founding principles.

For the European project, with all its strengths—and its shortcomings—was built precisely on the ashes of the Second World War, on the traumatic experience of the totalitarian regimes of the 1920s and 1930s, and in opposition to the Stalinist totalitarianism that developed beyond the Iron Curtain.

It was founded on the principles of humanism, on respect for and the promotion of human rights, and on the idea of shared social rights and values. It was also grounded in the need for a rules-based international order which, despite its many imperfections, remains the only real mechanism capable of steering us away from the chaos and the law of the jungle to which some of the world’s major powers seek to drag us.

Are the United Nations in crisis? Undoubtedly, and no one seriously disputes it. Is multilateralism in retreat, and is respect for international law at a low point? Another undeniable tragedy. However, does this mean that the response to such a bleak context should be—as I have suggested—to adopt the very mindset of those responsible for this deterioration? Put differently: have we lost all sense of reason?

We are living in turbulent times. Europe must indeed strive for greater strategic autonomy—but this autonomy cannot be confined solely to defence. It must also—and urgently—extend to genuine autonomy in the realm of technological goods and services, where dependence on the United States places Europe in a position bordering on vassalage.

Moreover, at a time when the traditional transatlantic relationship is more strained than ever—largely due to the almost compulsive stance of the current occupant of the White House and his circle—it is imperative for Europe to establish or strengthen strategic alliances in all domains, including in trade. This is already happening with India, and should be finalised as soon as possible with Mercosur.

However, to suggest that Europe’s future—or, in other words, the future of the Europe that truly matters—could lie in a further weakening of the international order and the system of international organisations is, I say this unequivocally, simply irresponsible.

For multilateralism is not only a matter of principles; it is also a matter of responsibility, and indeed of efficiency and effectiveness. Or does Europe truly believe it can tackle the major challenges it faces—from climate change and migration flows to global public health and the impact of AI—on its own?

Europe needs multilateralism, among other reasons, to remain being Europe. And for that reason, it must commit to it now more than ever—without naïveté, with realism, but fully aware of the interdependence between the future of the European project and the existence of a minimum level of order and cooperation among nations, including the major powers.

This requires defending and promoting—against the alternative of chaos—the very spaces and institutions that make such cooperation possible, rather than ignoring or sidelining them.

Manuel Manonelles is Associate Professor of International Relations at Blanquerna-Ramon Llull University in Spain

Iranian protesters demonstrate in the centre of Manchester. Backed by Israel, Reza Pahlavi, the son of the king overthrown in Iran in 1979, has become the most visible face of the fragmented Iranian opposition. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
MANCHESTER, United Kingdom, Mar 17 2026 (IPS)

Iranian and Israeli flags fill the centre of Manchester, in northern England. There are also portraits of a king overthrown almost half a century ago and of his son, now a claimant to the throne from exile. It is yet another march of Iranians calling for Reza Pahlavi as an alternative to the regime of the ayatollahs.

“The regime will not last much longer and Reza Pahlavi is the only one who can steer a transition and keep the country united,” Nazanin, a young woman who prefers not to give her full name or be photographed for fear of reprisals against her family in Iran, tells IPS.

The regime will die killing; then we will face a Libyan-style scenario in which everyone tries to extend as much control as possible over the territory. Civil war will be inevitable - Mehrab Sarjov
In fact, she does not know them either. Born in England, she has never visited the country her parents fled in 1982. It was three years after a revolution hijacked by clerics brought an end to almost four decades of an autocracy backed by the West.

Since then, Iran has been ruled by a Shiite Islamic theocracy that harshly punishes dissent. At the beginning of January, a wave of repression left a death toll that varies widely: about 3,000 according to government sources, but tens of thousands according to internal reports cited by doctors and journalists.

From the centre of Manchester, Nazanin says she has placed all her hopes in the bombing campaign launched by Israel and the United States against Iran on February 28.

So far, the bombs have claimed the lives of more than a thousand Iranians, including the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. The fact that his son is taking over the role reflects the regime’s determination to resist. Military targets and key infrastructure on which a population of more than 90 million people depends have also been struck.

“The clerics have always responded to peaceful protests and legitimate demands with violence. It is sad, but there is probably no other way to end the regime,” the young woman says.

Remains of a bombed residence in Tehran, allegedly belonging to a nuclear scientist. The joint bombing campaign by Washington and Tel Aviv has resulted in over a thousand deaths, the vast majority of them civilians. Credit: Mirza Reza/IPS

Fragmentation

In a report published on February 24 titled “Tsunami of arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances,” Human Rights Watch denounced tens of thousands of arrests following what it described as massacres across the country on January 8 and 9.

Opposition to the clerical regime has in fact been growing for almost a decade. In 2017 and 2019, massive protests erupted over the country’s precarious economic situation, eventually turning into calls for the government’s downfall.

Between 2022 and 2023, the Woman, Life, Freedom movement shook the country for months after the killing of a young Kurdish woman by security forces for not wearing the Islamic veil.

Although portraits of Reza Pahlavi have become a recurring feature of protests both inside and outside Iran, fragmentation remains the word that best describes the Iranian opposition.

Monarchists, republicans, federalists and reformists all share a common enemy, yet they have been unable to coordinate among themselves.

“Yemen is a hero,” reads this mural in central Tehran. Despite the ongoing conflict in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has yet to activate its Houthi allies. Credit: Mirza Reza/IPS

“There are several self-proclaimed leaders in exile, but they have no real roots in the country. Pahlavi is Israel’s preferred option, and it is true that he has attracted some well-known reformists who have abandoned the regime, but it is not enough,” Mehrab Sarjov, an analyst originally from Iran’s Baluch southeast, tells IPS from his residence in London.

Sarjov also points to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK), an organization founded in 1965 that helped bring down Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979.

“They are highly organized inside the country, run intelligence networks and have the capacity to carry out sabotage operations, but Washington and Tel Aviv appear to have ruled them out,” the analyst says.

The situation is far more complex. Although the Persian majority makes up roughly half the population, Iran is a mosaic of peoples that includes Azerbaijani Turks, Kurds, Baloch and Arabs, among other ethnic groups.

Sarjov points to what he calls the “diversity of the periphery versus the Persian centre,” noting that many advocate decentralization toward a kind of federal model. Neither the ayatollahs, nor Pahlavi, nor the MEK, nor most of the Persian political core are willing to consider such an option.

How would the borders of those new federal entities be drawn? Along ethnic lines, historical ones or geographic ones? The lack of consensus leads the analyst to outline a scenario in which violence drags on over time.

“The regime will die killing; then we will face a Libyan-style scenario in which everyone tries to extend as much control as possible over the territory. Civil war will be inevitable.”

A daily scene in Iranshar, in southeastern Baluchistan, Iran. Sistan and Baluchestan is the most underdeveloped province, as well as the most affected by violence in the entire country. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

Uncertainty

At the moment, Washington and Tel Aviv seem focused on the short term, with their strategy revolving around toppling the regime through a bombing campaign. Analysts worldwide have noted that this approach has never succeeded in achieving such a goal.

The US-Israeli offensive is now concentrating on clearing the Strait of Hormuz to restore the flow of oil from the Arabian Peninsula. Washington is keen to mitigate the impact on energy prices caused by the conflict in this crucial oil transit route.

American outlets such as CNN and The New York Times have reported that the CIA may be working to arm Kurdish guerrillas with a view to taking part in a possible ground offensive.

Recently formed amid growing instability in the country, the Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan brings together five clandestine political parties with military capabilities.

So far, they have not explicitly endorsed Washington’s alleged plan. However, they have reiterated their goal of overthrowing the regime and fighting for democratic rights that include the right to self-determination.

They have also expressed willingness to cooperate with other actors inside the country, including Azerbaijani Turks, with whom they maintain historical territorial disputes in places such as Urmia and Tabriz, in the northwest of Iran.

Dünya Başol is a researcher who holds a PhD in Middle Eastern Studies from Bar-Ilan University in Israel with a dissertation on Iran’s Kurds. He admits he finds it difficult to feel optimistic.

“Turkish nationalism in Iran feeds not only on the aggression of Persian nationalism but also on ethnic ties with neighbouring Azerbaijan and Turkey, as well as on the complex Kurdish-Turkish dynamics in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region,” the Turkish analyst tells IPS by phone from Ankara.

“Both Azerbaijani Turks and Kurds are beginning to draw their internal borders in maximalist terms, so all those calls for dialogue and coexistence will not prevent conflict from erupting between them,” he adds.

Başol warns that ethnic conflict could spread across the rest of the country and recalls that it already flared up after the revolution that brought the clerics to power in 1979. That episode, he says, was only contained by the war with Iraq between 1980 and 1988.

“There will be ethnic borders within the country, but what will happen in the large cities where the population is mixed?” the expert asks.

He points to an “unpredictable scenario.”

“If the regime collapses, only a strong government in Tehran will be able to avoid chaos. For now, nothing suggests that either Pahlavi or any of the other options will be capable of achieving that.”

Discussion circles at the Dalton Junior High School, Japan. Credit: Miko Nakano

By Miko Nakano
TOKYO, Japan, Mar 6 2026 (IPS)

Around the world, conflicts often begin not with violence, but with assumptions. When people judge others before understanding them, labels replace dialogue—and division replaces trust. For young people growing up in an increasingly polarized world, learning to listen may be one of the most powerful tools for peace.

“We unilaterally assume that people we have never met are demons—and repeat the same mistakes.”

This line from the anime Attack on Titan made me stop and think. In the story, enemies who were taught to hate each other finally meet and realize they are human beings with fears, families, and dreams.

But this pattern is not fiction. Throughout history, societies have judged others before understanding them. During the Crusades, opposing sides saw each other only as threats. In modern times, media narratives and online discussions sometimes simplify complex issues into “good” versus “evil.” Once labels are applied, empathy becomes difficult.

Conversation time with children who live in the slum areas in Ghaziabad, India. Credit: Miko Nakano

Even justice systems are not immune to bias. The Hakamata case in Japan, widely reported by BBC News, raised serious concerns about how media pressure and unreliable evidence can influence judicial decisions. The case showed how justice can be compromised when assumptions take priority over careful examination of facts and individual voices. Around the world, wrongful convictions and discrimination continue to demonstrate how easily fairness can be undermined when judgment replaces understanding.

This is why SDG 16—peace, justice, and strong institutions—matters. Peace is not only about ending wars. It is about building societies where people are heard before they are judged.

Conversation about education with Yoshimasa Hayashi, Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan, at the National High School Future Conference, House of Councilors Members’ Office Building, Tokyo, Japan. Credit: Miko Nakano

My awareness of this issue began in elementary school. A classmate was widely labeled as “strange,” and many students avoided her. One day, she spoke openly about the pain of being ignored. Listening to her changed my perspective. I realized how easily we can judge someone without ever asking why.

Instead of keeping this reflection to myself, I decided to take action.

In junior high school, I helped organize small discussion circles during class activities where students could share experiences of being misunderstood or judged. We created simple rules: listen without interrupting, ask questions before assuming, and respect differences. At first, conversations were awkward. But over time, students began speaking more openly. Some admitted they had judged others too quickly. Others shared experiences of feeling excluded.

These small conversations changed the atmosphere in our classroom. They did not solve every problem, but they created space for listening.

I later learned that young people around the world are doing similar work. Programs like Seeds of Peace and Generation Global bring together youth from different backgrounds to engage in dialogue across conflict lines. Their work shows that listening is not passive—it is an active form of peacebuilding.

As young people, we may not control institutions or governments yet. But we shape the culture around us every day—in classrooms, online spaces, and communities. If we normalize quick labeling and division, conflict grows. If we normalize listening, trust grows.

Building peaceful societies begins long before political negotiations. It begins when we ask “why” instead of assuming. It begins when we recognize that every person has a story that deserves to be heard.

In a world facing rising polarization and mistrust, choosing to listen may seem small. But it is not weak. It is foundational.

Peace does not start in courtrooms or parliaments alone.
It starts in conversations.

And young people are ready to lead them.

Edited by Dr Hanna Yoon

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Excerpt:

Image: Hiroshi-Mori-Stock / shutterstock.com and 内閣広報室 / Cabinet Public Affairs Office / Wiki Commons

By Ria Shibata
Mar 3 2026 (IPS)

 
Sanae Takaichi’s electoral victory in February marks a historic turning point in Japanese politics. As Japan’s first female prime minister and the leader of a commanding parliamentary majority, she represents change in both symbolic and strategic terms. Conventional wisdom long held that younger Japanese voters leaned progressive, were sceptical of assertive security policies, and disengaged from ideological nationalism. Yet a segment of digitally active youth rallied behind a politician associated with constitutional revision, expanded defence capabilities, and a more unapologetic articulation of national identity. This shift cannot be reduced to a simple conservative swing. Rather, Takaichi’s rise reflects a deeper transformation in how democratic politics is constructed in the digital age: the growing power of imagery, digital mobilisation, and algorithm-driven branding in shaping political choice—particularly among younger voters.

Takaichi’s approval ratings among voters aged 18–29 approached 90 per cent in some surveys, far surpassing those of her predecessors. Youth turnout also rose, suggesting that Japanese youth are not politically apathetic. On the contrary, they are paying attention—but the nature of that engagement has changed. Viral images, short video clips, hashtags, and aesthetic cues travelled faster and farther than policy briefings. For many younger voters, engagement began—and sometimes ended—with the visual and emotional appeal of the candidate. This pattern is not uniquely Japanese. However, the scale of its impact in this election suggests that political communication has entered a new phase in which digital imagery can shape electoral outcomes as much as—or more than—substantive debate.

A New Phase of Digital Politics in Japan

In the months leading up to the election, Takaichi’s image proliferated across social media platforms. Supporters circulated clips highlighting her confident demeanour and historic candidacy. A cultural trend sometimes described as ‘sanakatsu’ or ‘sanae-mania’ framed political support as a form of fandom participation. Hashtags multiplied. ‘Mic-drop’ moments went viral. Even personal accessories—her handbags and ballpoint pens—became symbolic conversation pieces.

Political enthusiasm has always contained emotional and symbolic elements. What is new is the speed and scale at which digital platforms amplify them. Algorithms reward content that provokes reaction—admiration, anger, excitement. A charismatic clip often outperforms a detailed explanation of fiscal reform. For younger voters raised in scroll-based media environments, political information increasingly arrives as curated snippets. Policy complexity competes with—and often loses to—aesthetic immediacy.

Post-election surveys and interviews suggested that many first-time voters struggled to articulate specific policy distinctions between parties. Instead, they cited impressions—strength, change, decisiveness, novelty—suggesting that digital engagement does not automatically translate into policy literacy. Political identity can form through repeated exposure to imagery and narrative rather than sustained examination of legislative proposals. When campaigns are optimized for shareability, they are incentivized to simplify. Nuance compresses poorly into short-form video.

The Politics of Strength in an Age of Uncertainty

Japan’s younger generation has grown up amid prolonged economic stagnation, regional insecurity, and global volatility. China’s rise, tensions over Taiwan, North Korean missile launches, and persistent wage stagnation form the backdrop of their political participation. For many, the future feels uncertain and structurally constrained.

In such an environment, Takaichi’s assertive rhetoric carried emotional resonance. Her emphasis on strengthening national defence, revisiting aspects of the postwar settlement, and making Japan “strong and rich” projected clarity rather than ambiguity. Where institutional politics can appear technocratic or slow, decisive messaging offered the voters psychological reassurance.

At the core of her appeal is a narrative of restoring a ‘strong’ Japan. Calls for constitutional revision and expanded defence capabilities are framed as steps toward recovering national self-confidence. For younger Japanese fatigued by protracted historical disputes and what some perceive as externally imposed guilt, language emphasising pride and sovereignty resonates more readily than complex historical debates. This may not signal a rejection of peace. Rather, it may reflect a generational reframing of peace itself—understood not solely as pacifism, but as deterrence, defence capability, and strategic autonomy. Messages stressing ‘sovereignty’, ‘strength’, and ‘normal country’ can circulate more effectively in shareable digital formats than nuanced and complex historical analysis.

A Global Pattern: Virtual Branding, a Democratic Crossroads

Japan’s experience mirrors a broader transformation in democratic politics: the rise of virtual branding as the central organizing principle of electoral strategy. In earlier eras, campaigns revolved around party platforms and televised debates. Today, strategy increasingly begins with platform optimization. Campaigns are designed not only to persuade, but to perform within algorithmic systems. The guiding question is no longer only “What policies do we stand for?” but “What content travels?”

The election of Donald Trump in the United States illustrated how virtual media strategy can reshape political competition. Memorable slogans and emotionally charged posts dominated attention cycles, often eclipsing policy detail. Scholars have described this as “attention economics in action”: the candidate who captures digital attention shapes political reality before formal debate even begins. More recently, figures such as Zohran Mamdani have demonstrated how youth-centered digital branding can mobilize support with remarkable speed. Campaigns became participatory; supporters did not merely consume messaging but actively distributed political identity.

Takaichi’s recent victory reflects the evolving mechanics of digital democracy. Her leadership will ultimately be judged not by imagery but by governance — by whether her policies deliver economic stability, regional security, and social cohesion. The broader question, however, transcends any single administration. It means political decisions have migrated into digital environments optimised for speed and visual communication. In an age where images travel faster than ideas, democratic choice risks being guided more by what is seen than by what is discussed. In such an environment, political campaigns will be forced to adapt, and produce content that performs well within these algorithmic constraints. Over time, this may reshape voter expectations and politics will begin to resemble influencer culture. Campaigns that fail to master digital branding risk will appear outdated. Those that succeed can mobilize youth at scale.

Democracy has always balanced emotion and reason. The challenge today is ensuring that emotion does not eclipse reason entirely. The future of informed citizenship may depend on restoring that balance. This does not suggest that previous eras were immune to personality politics. What has changed is the proportion. The digital environment magnifies symbolic cues and compresses policy discussion. If democracies wish to maintain robust deliberation, they must consciously rebalance image and substance. This requires civic education focused on media literacy, virtual platform incentives that elevate substantive debate and political leadership willing to engage in depth, not just virality. And the responsibility is collective—voters, educators, media institutions, and candidates alike. The question facing democracies is whether this transformation can coexist with substantive deliberation or whether branding will increasingly overtake it.

Related articles:
Japan Stumbles: The Taiwan Fiasco
The New Takaichi Administration: Confronting Harsh Realities on the International Stage
Middle Powers After Davos

Ria Shibata is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the New Zealand Centre for Global Studies, and the Toda Peace Institute in Japan. She also serves as a Visiting Scholar at the University of Auckland. Her research focuses on identity-driven conflicts, reconciliation, nationalism and the role of historical memory in shaping interstate relations and regional stability in Northeast Asia.

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished from the original with their permission.

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Secretary-General António Guterres attends the Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe.

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 2 2026 (IPS)

The United States and Israel launched a joint military strike on Iran on February 28. Iran followed with military strikes on Israeli bases and on Arab Gulf states, including Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. The realized threat of a new war has caused alarm for the security situation in the Middle East and its impact on civilian populations.

While the latest outbreak of fighting unfolded in the Middle East, the UN Security Council in New York convened an emergency meeting to deliberate over the military attacks in Iran. The session was convened at the request of Iran and members of the Security Council.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres briefed the Council on the situation up to that point and condemned the escalating hostilities. “We are witnessing a grave threat to international peace and security. Military action carries the risk of igniting a chain of events that no one can control in the most volatile region of the world,” he warned.

Under Article 2 of the UN Charter, all member states shall “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state,” Guterres reminded the Council. He reiterated that there would be no “viable alternative to the peaceful settlement of international disputes” and that “lasting peace” could only be accomplished through diplomatic negotiations.

Guterres also noted that the U.S.-Israeli strikes took place following the latest round of indirect negotiations between the U.S. and Iran mediated by Oman, which were expected to lead into further political talks. “I deeply regret that this opportunity of diplomacy has been squandered.”

According to Iran, the U.S.-Israeli strikes constituted a clear violation of the UN Charter and a threat to international peace and security. Sayed Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s Foreign Minister, said in a letter addressed to Guterres that in response to the aggression, Iran was invoking its right to self-defense under Article 51 of the Charter. This outlines that the Charter shall not “impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense,” and that any actions taken by member states to exercise their right to self-defense must be “immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and the responsibility” of the Council to take actions as it “deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

“The United States and the Israeli regime shall bear full and direct responsibility for all ensuing consequences, including any escalation arising from their unlawful actions,” Aragchi said. Noting the “grave and far-reaching consequences” of a regional conflict, Aragchi wrote of the collective responsibility of the UN and the Security Council to take immediate action and to “discharge their duties without delay.”

Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani of Iran reiterated the point before the Security Council, remarking on the threat to the country’s sovereignty and that actions taken by the U.S. and Israel were in violation of the UN Charter. There is also the added context that the first round of U.S.-Israeli strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Some members of the Council spoke against Iran’s military actions on Saturday and against the regime under Khanmenei as it related to its nuclear program and its “appalling violence and repression against its own people.” The U.K., France and Germany jointly condemned the regime and its attacks on countries in the region.

Acting Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom James Kariuki remarked that the present was a “fragile moment for the Middle East.” As the president of the Security Council for the month of February, Kariuki noted that Iran “repeatedly ignored calls” for a solution to its nuclear program and the seeming lack of cooperation with the IAEA. He stated that Iran “must refrain from further strikes, and its appalling behavior, to allow a path back to diplomacy. ”

“My country, which is a champion of peace and coexistence, never expected to be targeted by wanton aggressions without any justification,” said Bahrain Ambassador Jamal Al Rowaiei. Bahrain was one of the Gulf states targeted by Iranian military forces and currently sits on the Security Council as an elected member. Al Rowaiei condemned Iran for its attacks on residential areas and vital facilities—including a U.S. Navy base—and called for all in “containing this crisis” to protect the stability of the region.

Other member states remarked on the threats to international peace and security. In condemning the military attacks on Iran and the Arab Gulf states, Pakistan Ambassador Asim Ahmad regretted that “diplomacy has once again been derailed,” referring to the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. “These military actions undermine dialogue and further erode trust that was already in short supply,” said Ahmad.

Echoing Guterres’ sentiments, other UN entities and leaders reiterated calls to continue negotiations and to respect international law. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), said that he was “deeply troubled” by the situation in the Middle East and expressed that world leaders should choose the “challenging path of dialogue” over the “senseless route of destruction.”

“My heart goes out to the civilians trapped in the crossfire. Regardless of borders, everyone deserves to live without the threat of violence around them,” he said.

Across Iran, civilian infrastructures have been destroyed, leading to scores of casualties. Of note, schools have been bombed by Israeli airstrikes, including a girls’ elementary school in Minab in Hormozgan province in southern Iran. As of March 1, the death toll from this strike has risen to 165, according to state sources.

UNICEF issued a statement shortly after the school bombings, warning that the “weekend’s military escalation in the Middle East marks a dangerous moment for millions of children in the region.” They called for an immediate end to the hostilities and for all parties to uphold their obligations to international humanitarian and human rights law, including the protection of children. “Targeting civilians and civilian objects, including schools, is a violation of international law.”

“Bombs and missiles are not the way to resolve differences but only result in death, destruction and human misery,” said Volker Türk, the UN Human Rights Chief. He added that all parties must de-escalate and return to the negotiating table and warned that failing to do so would only lead to further “senseless civilian deaths” and “destruction on a potentially unimaginable scale.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that they were “closely monitoring” developments, urging restraint to “avoid any nuclear safety risks.”

The U.S. will take over as president of the Security Council in March. It will be a matter of waiting to see the role that this institution will play in protecting the principles of international law and preventing further loss of civilian lives.

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Participants observe a visual montage linking Abu Dhabi’s Zayed Award ceremony, the Sant’Egidio interfaith forum in Rome and the Astana Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions — symbolizing the emerging “rehearsal space” where religion, civil society and state diplomacy converge. (Credit: INPS / Illustrative image)

By Katsuhiro Asagiri
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, Feb 24 2026 (IPS)

As wars drag on and the international order grows increasingly unstable, Abu Dhabi has been offering a different kind of narrative. It sought to recognize early efforts at reconciliation, bring religious leaders into the same space, and place former adversaries under the same spotlight. At the heart of the February 4, 2026 Zayed Award for Human Fraternity ceremony was an attempt to make visible, in a public setting, the choice of moving in the direction of easing conflict.

Pope Francis and Ahmed el-Tayeb sign the Document on Human Fraternity。Credit: Vatican News

Seven years on, the international landscape has become even more fragmented. Even so, the organizers have framed the ceremony not merely as an awards event, but as a symbolic platform intended to encourage a minimum measure of restraint when politics turns turbulent.

Shoring Up a Fragile Peace

The moment that drew the most attention this year was the recognition of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for their peace agreement. After decades of confrontation, the award functioned as a form of international endorsement for a still-fragile peace process in the South Caucasus.

Zayed Prize 2026 to Armenia and Azerbaijan Credit: Vatican News

The award, however, extended beyond state leadership. The 2026 laureates also included Afghan girls’ education advocate Zarqa Yaftali and the Palestinian nonprofit Taawon, honoring efforts to continue humanitarian and development work under conditions of conflict and political instability. It also underscores the award’s intention to bridge “top-down politics,” such as peace agreements, with “bottom-up peacebuilding” that supports communities on the ground. The underlying message is clear: even with treaties and agreements in place, peace cannot take root if the schools, healthcare, and local support systems needed to sustain society remain fragile.

A Dialogue Circuit Linking Rome and Astana

The closing ceremony held against the backdrop of the ancient Roman ruins, the Colosseum. Credit: Community of Sant’Egidio

Further east, Kazakhstan has institutionalized interfaith engagement through the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in Astana. Both the Holy See and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar have consistently participated, helping to sustain the congress as a venue for structured interreligious dialogue.

Seen in this light, Rome, Astana, and Abu Dhabi are not merely separate events; they emerge as nodal points in a broader space of dialogue that links religion and diplomacy. Put differently, they function like a regular service designed to keep the lines of communication open—ensuring that the ability to meet and talk does not fall silent.

Religious Actors Across Borders

On Feb. 4, a Soka Gakkai delegation led by Vice President Hirotsugu Terasaki attended the 2026 Zayed Award for Human Fraternity ceremony in Abu Dhabi, UAE. At the invitation of @ZayedAward, the delegation joined global religious leaders. On Feb. 3, the delegation met with Judge Mohamed Abdelsalam, Secretary-General of the Zayed Award for Human Fraternity and they delivered a letter from Soka Gakkai President Minoru Harada to the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar His Eminence Ahmed Al-Tayeb. Credit: SGI

Ahead of the Abu Dhabi ceremony, Terasaki met with Judge Mohamed Abdelsalam, Secretary-General of the award, and delivered a letter from Minoru Harada, President of Soka Gakkai, addressed to Grand Imam Ahmed Al-Tayeb. The two exchanged views on the need to further strengthen “heart-to-heart dialogue” that transcends religious differences.

The stages created by the United Arab Emirates and Kazakhstan—both of which place emphasis on “spiritual diplomacy”—are more than mere events. What gives these settings moral authority and lends them ethical weight as arenas for peacebuilding is a sustained architecture of dialogue, underpinned by relationships that religious and civil-society leaders have cultivated over many years. Put differently, it is a system for meeting regularly and ensuring that lines of communication do not fall silent. Even when interstate relations grow tense, religious and civil-society networks can keep channels of dialogue open, serving as a buffer against rupture.

The fact that Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev engaged with this year’s award ceremony through a video address, and that Director-General Terasaki has moved across dialogue venues such as Abu Dhabi, Rome, and Astana, quietly suggests the presence of such networks where religion and diplomacy intersect. Likewise, the Holy See has also been one of the actors continuously involved in all three of these settings.

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev extended his congratulations to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on being given the Sheikh Zayed Award for Human Fraternity in a video address. Credit: Akorda

Shared Words, Different Realities

The vocabulary repeatedly invoked in these forums is strikingly consistent: fraternity, coexistence, dialogue, and human dignity. At a time when multilateralism is faltering and traditional channels of mediation are weakening, this language also serves a political purpose—allowing states to signal, at home and abroad, a preference for dialogue over force and to project the image that they are not stoking confrontation, but providing a venue in which tensions can be managed.

Yet the distance between ceremony and reality does not disappear. Celebrating a peace agreement does not necessarily guarantee its implementation. Honoring efforts in girls’ education does not automatically reopen classrooms. Proclaiming coexistence does not stop violence overnight. Awards can encourage compromise and bless dialogue, but they are not mechanisms that can compel outcomes.

Even so, governments and religious and civil-society networks continue to engage in these venues—through attendance, public statements, and sustained involvement—because they remain among the few public settings where opposing parties can appear side by side. There are not many spaces where actors in tense relationships can stand in the same room, where restraint is openly affirmed, and where interfaith ties can function as informal diplomatic channels.

A Place to “Rehearse” Peace

A woman crafts a mosaic depicting a peace dove in the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan. Credit: UN Women/Christopher Herwig

They also point toward the emergence of a new diplomatic domain where religion, civil society and state interests converge.

In today’s international environment, it is precisely these small points of contact that can carry real significance. Before peace is institutionalized as policy, there are only limited spaces where its shape can be publicly “rehearsed.”

The Abu Dhabi ceremony is one of those rare stages. It did not resolve a conflict, nor did it erase suspicion. Even so, choosing dialogue—and continuing to make that choice visible in the open—constitutes an act in itself: a clear signal, in an age of polarization, of a commitment to restraint over enmity.

This article is brought to you by INPS Japan in collaboration with Soka Gakkai International, in consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

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Ukrainian Red Cross teams have delivered over 3,300 hot meals to Kyiv residents at support points around the city. Credit: Red Cross

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Feb 24 2026 (IPS)

“We have a saying here in Ukraine now – ‘young people meet at their friends’ funerals rather than at weddings.’ It’s sad, but very true.”

As Russia’s full-scale invasion of her country moves into its fifth year, Iryna Yakova, 29, is looking back at how her life has changed over the past four years.

Speaking from Lviv, the western Ukrainian city where she lives, she tells IPS that her “values and attitude towards life” have changed. “Material things become unimportant when your loved ones or friends are in danger,” she says. She has also developed a keen sense of her national identity and an empathy for the suffering of her fellow Ukrainians.

“During the full-scale invasion, I realised that all of Ukraine is my home. I cry for people who were killed by a missile in Kyiv while they were sleeping at night. Even though I didn’t know them, it hurts me because they are Ukrainians. It also pains me to see children growing up without their parents because their parents are at the front. The war has intensified my sense of empathy and belonging.”

Her mental health has suffered. She says anxiety is ever-present in her life.

But what she returns to often as she answers questions about how her life is today compared to before the war is the loss she, and others, have experienced.

“What I miss most [from my life before the full-scale invasion] are the people who have been killed in the war. I have lost friends, acquaintances, and relatives. Nothing compares to human loss. The hardest thing I have had to deal with during this war is going to the funerals of friends — people you used to go to parties with, travel with, study with,” she says.

The human cost of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has been enormous – Ukraine’s government does not officially give figures for military casualties, but it has been estimated they could be up to 600,000 (Russian military casualties are thought to be more than twice that amount).

But the scale of civilian casualties has been huge, too. According to UN bodies, more than 15,000 civilians have been killed and over 41,000 injured in Ukraine since the start of the invasion on February 24, 2022.

Worryingly, as Ukraine marks the fourth anniversary of the start of the war, research suggests there has been a sharp increase in civilian casualties over the last year.

Data from Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), released earlier this month, showed civilian casualties in Ukraine increased by 26 percent in 2025 compared with 2024, despite there being a 6 percent drop in the number of injurious explosive weapon incidents recorded nationwide.

In Kyiv, response efforts continue amid attacks on energy infrastructure and severe cold. The Ukrainian Red Cross is supporting warming centres around the clock, providing people with a safe place to warm up, receive assistance, and feel cared for during difficult conditions. Credit: Red Cross

The group said its data showed a worrying shift in the character of the conflict – the average number of civilians killed or injured per incident in Ukraine rose 33 percent over the year, with a total of 2,248 civilians reported killed (an 11 percent rise) and 12,493 injured (a 28 percent rise) by explosive violence.

This suggests that explosive weapons are being used by Russia in Ukraine in ways that generate greater civilian impact, whether through more drone strikes, heavier munitions, specific targeting choices of populated areas, or repeated strikes on urban infrastructure, the group said.

Nearly seven in ten civilian casualties recorded in AOAV data occurred in residential neighbourhoods, up from just over four in ten in 2024.

Niamh Gillen, a researcher at AOAV, told IPS it was impossible to definitively say that Russian forces were deliberately targeting Ukrainian civilians, but that “the data speaks for itself.”

“It shows that civilian areas are being attacked, that the attacks are occurring within civilian areas like hospitals, schools, cities, towns. In general, in areas where civilians are heavily concentrated, like cities and towns, villages, anywhere like that, if you’re using an explosive weapon with wide area impacts, then you’re likely to harm more civilians,” she said.

On top of the deaths and destruction Russian attacks have caused, they have also led to massive displacement. It is thought that at least 3.4 million people are internally displaced in the country. This has put massive pressure not just on the displaced themselves, but also on host communities and services.

People’s physical health has deteriorated in such conditions – the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that more than two-thirds of the population have reported a worsening of their health since the start of the invasion.

But the harm caused by these attacks is far from just physical. Mental health professionals in the country, as well as international bodies including the WHO, have warned of a mental health crisis in Ukraine, with possibly up to 10 million people suffering with mental health problems.

IPS spoke to scores of people in cities and towns across Ukraine about how the war had affected their mental health. Many spoke of experiencing anxiety, sometimes permanently to some level, which could be intensified at any moment by the frequent sound of air raid sirens warning of an attack, or for those closer to frontlines, the sounds of explosions and bombings.

“What affects my mental health on a daily basis are the constant nighttime drone and missile attacks. Because of them, it is impossible to relax or get proper rest, as reaching a shelter for safety is essential, even at night,” Mihail*, a teenager who lives in the Kyiv region, told IPS.

The situation for many Ukrainians has acutely worsened this winter. In what has been one of the coldest winters the country has seen for many years, Russian forces have repeatedly attacked Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, resulting in massive, widespread power outages. Thermal heating facilities have also been destroyed in targeted attacks.

As temperatures have plunged to as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius on some occasions, millions of people have been left freezing in their homes.

Jaime Wah, Deputy Head of Delegation with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Ukraine, said people were suffering desperately in the cold.

“Some nights have been very unbearable. There is no escape from the cold. When you leave your apartment, it’s cold. Sometimes people have been joking that it’s warmer inside a fridge than inside their apartment. I’ve been here for over four years now, and it’s been the worst winter,” she told IPS.

Humanitarian organisations, including the Ukrainian Red Cross, and state emergency services have set up emergency heating points in cities and towns where people can keep warm, recharge devices and get food.

But Wah said while this has become a humanitarian crisis, it is one of just many crises Ukrainians are battling.

“In frontline regions, there are communities that are under evacuation orders, and some communities have essentially had most of their resources cut off. Family ties are quite strained – mental health needs are also immense, not only in the frontline regions but across Ukraine,” she said.

“There are lots of repairs to homes that are needed, not to mention the energy crisis, which is a humanitarian crisis… with no heating and no electricity, just the day-to-day things – just even heating your food becomes a problem. A lot of families are having to spend more time outside their homes, having to spend more money. On top of that, the cost of living has increased. These are some of the real, tangible situations that people in Ukraine are facing now,” she added.

Amid these problems, many Ukrainians admit that they are exhausted after four years of war.

But among the many people IPS spoke to on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the war, there was a widespread, although certainly not universal, determination to not give up.

“I feel a sense of responsibility. I do not have the right to give up, because many people have died so that I could have the chance to live. Of course, there is exhaustion, but, unlike those in the military, a civilian like me has time to rest and reset,” said Iryna.

For many, such resilience is born out of a desire not just for them and their country to survive what they see as Russia’s attempt to destroy them as an independent state and nation, but also a hope that, ultimately, there will be some justice served for what has been done to them.

The Russian military and authorities have repeatedly been accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, breaches of international humanitarian law, as well as genocide, during the invasion of Ukraine.

The sheer volume of alleged crimes – at least 180,000 war crimes have been registered by Ukraine’s Prosecutor General – and the constraints of documenting, investigating and prosecuting during an ongoing conflict mean that bringing those behind them to justice was never expected to be easy. Only over 100 people have been prosecuted in Ukraine so far for crimes during the invasion.

But there are fears that international bodies such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has issued an arrest warrant for, among others, Russian President Vladimir Putin over alleged war crimes, could be rendered increasingly toothless in their ability to ever prosecute major figures who ordered such crimes because world leaders, such as US President Donald Trump, are no longer interested in upholding international justice for war crimes.

“I truly hope that the war will end very soon and that all war criminals will be brought to justice. However, what I see happening right now is the opposite: while institutions like the UN are unable to punish Russia, people are starting to forget about its war crimes. Countries are gradually lifting sanctions,” said Mihail.

“For example, Russian athletes are going to be able to take part in the Paralympics this year. As a result, people who committed war crimes just months or years ago can now take part in one of the world’s biggest sporting events. So we need to act – by refusing to normalise aggression, keeping sanctions firm and, most importantly, remembering about war.”

Others, though, are more hopeful.

“There is no doubt among Ukrainians that war criminals can be brought to justice,” Oleh Martynenko, an expert at the Ukrainian NGO Center for Civil Liberties, which documents war crimes, told IPS.

“This is evidenced by the participation of Ukrainians in international missions and courts where war criminals have been convicted. Also, thanks to the European Union, Ukrainians are building their own criminal prosecution systems, which provide for the arrest and imprisonment of Russian war criminals in accordance with UN international standards,” he said.

Regardless of these concerns and the other problems Ukrainians are facing as the full-scale invasion goes into its fifth year, some are looking to the future with a degree of hope.

“I feel a mix of determination, resilience, anger, and hope of victory,” Tetiana, a nurse in the Dnipropetrovsk region, who asked not to be identified for security reasons, told IPS. “Glory to Ukraine!” she added.

*Name changed to protect identity.

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Credit: Denis Balibouse/Reuters via Gallo Images

By Samuel King
BRUSSELS, Belgium, Feb 6 2026 (IPS)

In early January, an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Venezuela followed a familiar path of paralysis. Members clashed over the US government’s abduction of Nicolás Maduro, with many warning it set a dangerous precedent, but no resolution came.

This wasn’t exceptional. In 2024, permanent members cast eight vetoes, the highest since 1986. In 2025, the Council adopted only 44 resolutions, the lowest since 1991. Deep divisions prevented meaningful responses to Gaza and to conflicts in Myanmar, Sudan and Ukraine.

Designed in 1945, the Security Council is the UN’s most powerful body, tasked with maintaining international peace and security, but also crucially protecting the privileged position of the most powerful states following the Second World War. Of its 15 members, 10 are elected for two-year terms, but five – China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA – are permanent and have veto powers. A single veto can block any resolution, regardless of global support. The Council’s anachronistic structure reflects and reproduces outdated power dynamics.

Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has continually used its veto despite breaching the UN Charter. On Gaza, the USA vetoed four ceasefire proposals before the Council passed Resolution 2728 in March 2024, 171 days into Israel’s assault. By then over 10,000 people had been killed.

When the Council is gridlocked, it means more suffering on the ground. Civilian protection fails, peace processes stall and human rights crimes go unpunished.

The case for reform

Since the UN was established, the number of member states has quadrupled and the global population has grown from 2.5 to 8 billion. But former colonial powers that represent a minority of the world’s population still hold permanent seats while entire continents remain unrepresented.

Calls for reform have been made for decades, but they face a formidable challenge: reform requires amendment of the UN Charter, a process that needs a favourable two-thirds General Assembly vote, ratification by two-thirds of member states and approval from all five permanent Council members.

The African Union has advanced the clearest demand. Emphasising historical justice and equal power for the global south, it calls for the Council to be expanded to 26 members, with Africa holding two permanent seats with full veto rights and five non-permanent seats.

India has been particularly vocal in demanding a greater role on a reformed Council. The G4 – Brazil, Germany, India and Japan – has proposed expansion to 25 or 26 members with six new permanent seats: two for Africa, two for Asia and the Pacific, one for Latin America and the Caribbean and one for Western Europe. New permanent members would gain veto powers after a 10-to-15-year review period.

Uniting for Consensus, a group led by Italy that includes Argentina, Mexico, Pakistan and South Korea, opposes the creation of new permanent seats, arguing this would simply expand an existing oligarchy. Instead, they propose longer rotating terms and greater representation for underrepresented regions.

The five permanent members show varying degrees of openness to reform. France and the UK support expansion with veto powers, while the USA supports adding permanent African seats but without a veto. China backs new African seats, but virulently opposes Japan’s permanent membership, while Russia supports reform in principle but warns against making the Council ‘too broad’.

These positions reflect competition and a desire to prevent rivals gaining power. Current permanent members fear diluted influence, while states that see themselves as rising powers want the status and sway that comes with Council membership.

Adding new members could help redress the imbalance against the global south, but wouldn’t necessarily make the Council more effective, accountable and committed to protecting human lives and human rights, particularly if more states get veto powers.

A French-Mexican initiative from 2015 offers a more modest path: voluntary veto restraint in mass atrocity situations. The proposal asks permanent members to refrain from vetoes in cases of crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes. This complements efforts to increase the political costs of vetoes, including the Code of Conduct signed by 121 states and General Assembly Resolution 76/262, which requires debate whenever a veto is cast.

New challenges

Now a new challenge has emerged from the Trump administration, which recently launched the Board of Peace at the World Economic Forum in Davos. This has mutated from a temporary institution set up by a Security Council resolution to govern over Gaza into a seemingly permanent one that envisages a broader global role under Trump’s personal control. Its membership skews toward authoritarian regimes, and human rights don’t get a mention in its draft charter.

Instead of legitimising the Board of Peace, efforts should focus on Security Council reform to address the two fundamental flaws of representation and veto power. Accountability and transparency must also be enhanced. Civil society must have space to engage with the Council and urge states to prioritise the UN Charter over self-interest.

Some momentum exists. The September 2024 Pact for the Future committed leaders to developing a consolidated reform model. Since 2008, formal intergovernmental negotiations have addressed membership expansion, regional representation, veto reform and working methods. These became more transparent in 2023, with sessions recorded online, allowing civil society to track proceedings and challenge blocking states.

However, reform efforts faced entrenched interests, geopolitical rivalries and institutional inertia even before Trump started causing chaos. The UN faces a demanding 2026, forced to make funding cuts amid a liquidity crisis while choosing the next secretary-general. In such circumstances, it’s tempting to defer difficult decisions.

But the reform case is clear, as is the choice: act to make the Council fit for purpose or accept continuing paralysis and irrelevance, allowing it to be supplanted by Trump’s Board of Peace.

Samuel King is a researcher with the Horizon Europe-funded research project ENSURED: Shaping Cooperation for a World in Transition at CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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Joyce Msuya (right at table), United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefs the Security Council meeting on the maintenance of peace and security of Ukraine. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 18 2025 (IPS)

In recent weeks, the Russo-Ukrainian War has taken a considerable turn for the worse, with armed hostilities escalating in both frequency and intensity, causing extensive damage to civilian infrastructure and a significant loss of life across Ukraine. Attacks on energy infrastructures and the resulting power outages are forcing the most vulnerable civilians to deal with a “cold, frightening ordeal” in the winter season, warned the United Nations (UN) human rights chief.

“Nearly four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the plight of civilians has become even more unbearable,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk. “As peace negotiations continue, our monitoring and reporting show that the war is intensifying, causing more death, damage, and destruction…No part of the country is safe.”

According to figures from the United Nations (UN) Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), between January and November 2025, approximately 2,311 Ukrainians were killed as a direct result of war—a 26 percent increase compared to the same period in 2024 and a 70 percent increase from 2023. Turk noted that between December 2024 and November 2025, there was a significant increase in the average daily number of long-range drones used by the Russian Federation, particularly in densely-populated frontline and urban areas.

November was especially volatile, with at least 226 civilians killed and 952 injured—51 percent of which being caused by long-range missile strikes and loitering munitions from Russian armed forces. The vast majority of civilian casualties occurred in areas that were controlled by Ukraine, while roughly 60 percent were near the frontlines of the conflict. On November 18, a large-scale combined missile and drone attack killed at least 38 people in Ternopil, marking the deadliest strike in western Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Short-range drones, aerial bombardments, and other munitions used in frontline regions have caused extensive damage to residential districts, rendering entire neighborhoods uninhabitable and triggering significant new displacement. Hospitals and clinics in frontline regions have sustained significant damage, forcing some facilities to shut down entirely and severely straining the operations of those that remain. Persisting insecurity prevents ambulances from reaching injured persons, while aid workers risk their lives to assist.

Additionally, attacks on water and energy infrastructure continue across Ukraine, disrupting access to water, heating, and electricity for millions—often for extended periods of time. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) noted that new attacks in Ukraine over the weekend alone have left more than 1 million people without access to water, heating, and electricity, particularly across the country’s southern region.

The Odessa, Kherson, and Chernihiv regions have reported district-wide disruptions to electricity, water, and heating services, severely straining lifesaving operations. Meanwhile, the majority of food shops and pharmacies in frontline areas—particularly in the Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Sumy regions—have shut down. Some communities in these areas have also reported having no access to electricity for more than two years.

Residents in areas of Donetsk have also reported receiving poor-quality running water only once every few days, raising alarm among humanitarian groups given the close proximity of numerous abandoned mines and chemical plants, as well as the rapidly approaching winter season which is projected to exacerbate already dire living conditions.

According to World Vision (WV), Ukrainian children and families are expected to face the harshest winter since the wake of hostilities in 2022. Temperatures this season are projected to drop below –10°C, and repeated strikes on critical energy infrastructure have left children facing an average of 16-17 hours of power cuts each day. These prolonged outages deprive families of heat, electricity, water, and essential services at the coldest time of the year—exactly when they are needed most.

“In some areas, families go up to 36 hours without heating, electricity or water. This prolonged lack of basic services puts children’s health at serious risk, disrupts their education, and threatens their overall well-being,” said Arman Grigoryan, World Vision’s Ukraine Crisis Response Director. “Humanitarian support, including winter supplies, safe spaces, and psychosocial assistance, is urgently needed to protect them.”

World Vision noted that the harshest living conditions have been recorded in northern and eastern Ukraine, such as Chernihiv, Dnipro, Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Sumy. Additionally, education for children has been severely impacted, with roughly 40 percent of children studying through remote or blended learning due to power cuts making it increasingly difficult for schools and kindergartens to operate safely.

Living conditions are also especially dire for older persons and people with disabilities, many of whom are unable to leave their homes and lack access to appropriate transit services and suitable housing. Roughly 60 percent of civilian deaths in frontline areas have been individuals over the age of 60.

The UN and its partners have been working on the frontlines to assist in winterization efforts by providing emergency shelter and protection services. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has also been distributing cash assistance to vulnerable communities for winter-specific needs such as fuel and insulation.

UNHCR estimates that approximately 12.7 million people in Ukraine are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and protection in 2025. However, due to repeated funding cuts, the 2025 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan for Ukraine has been forced to prioritize support for only 4.8 million people— a notable decrease from the originally targeted 8 million. As conditions continue to deteriorate, the UN is urging for increased donor contributions and broader international support to meet growing humanitarian needs.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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A global crackdown on civic freedoms is intensifying – and women are on the frontlines of the attack. CIVICUS’s 2025 People Power Under Attack report analyses the extent to which freedoms of association, expression and peaceful assembly are being respected or violated. The report reveals that people in 83 countries now live in conditions where their freedoms are routinely denied, compared to 67 in 2020. In 2020, 13 per cent of the world’s population lived in countries where civic freedoms were broadly respected; now it’s more like 7 per cent. Among the most documented violations in 2025 were detention of human rights defenders, journalists and protesters, and women human rights defenders (WHRDs) were among the most affected.

Reylynne Dela Paz

WHRDs are women and girls, in all their diversity, working on any human rights issue, and those who promote women’s and girls’ rights and gender justice. They include people in civil society who might not self-identify as human rights defenders and those who work in fields such as environmental activism, humanitarian response, journalism and peacebuilding.

WHRDs are at a higher risk of being discriminated against and abused not only for what they do, but also because of who they are. By virtue of their gender identity, they challenge societal norms and patriarchal structures. The 2025 People Power Under Attack report, for example, documents numerous examples of online intimidation and threats against women journalists, both because of their journalistic work and because they’re women.

Attacks against women and girls in general and WHRDs in particular are increasingly being fuelled by rising authoritarian rule, fundamentalism and populism. Governments, politicians and non-state groups are taking more confident and strident anti-rights actions, fuelling an environment where repression and violence against WHRDs is not only possible but celebrated.

Anti-rights networks, led by populist politicians and fundamentalist religious groups, are engaging in coordinated, sustained and increasingly influential work to stigmatise campaigns for women’s rights and gender justice and those involved in them. They spread the idea that gender justice and those who strive for it threaten children’s welfare, families, religious beliefs, national security and traditional and cultural norms. They’re manipulating public narratives and weaponising disinformation to gain public support.

This has given rise to decreased support for HIV prevention projects, queer movements, sexual, reproductive health and rights initiatives, women’s and girls’ participation in decision-making spaces and any human rights effort led by women, including those on climate and environmental justice, disability, Indigenous rights and peace and security.

CIVICUS’s Stand As My Witness Campaign, which calls for the release of unjustly detained human rights defenders, shows how brutal the current context is for WHRDs. It documents stories of violent arrests, inhumane treatment and other cruel actions against women who have dedicated their lives to pursuing justice and resisting repressive governments. WHRDs Pakhshan Azizi, Sharifeh Mohammadi and Verisheh Moradi are facing death sentences in Iran. Narges Mohammadi, an Iranian human rights activist and journalist who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023, has also been imprisoned repeatedly for her work.

Other WHRDs who have been arbitrarily arrested include Chow Hang-Tung from Hong Kong, who advocated for the protection and promotion of labour rights and the rights of persecuted human rights defenders in mainland China, Marfa Rabkova, coordinator of Viasna Center for Human Rights’ network of volunteers in Belarus, Kenia Hernandez, coordinator of Zapata Vive, a peasant movement that defends land rights in Mexico, and Hoda Abdel Moneim, a human rights lawyer from Egypt.

I know a mother who helped farmers learn about their rights but was falsely accused of illegally possessing firearms. She was dragged from her house carrying her newborn child. I recall an old woman who has spent her days helping empower Indigenous people but who was harshly arrested and denied medical treatment while in jail, a trans woman who joined a protest and was arrested for no other reason than being a trans protester, and a girl activist who was harassed online for sharing her thoughts against child marriage.

Beyond commemoration

These few painful stories represent only a fraction of reality. The problem is systemic. The world is dominated by cowardly rulers who draw confidence and power from dominant systems of patriarchy and support from anti-rights networks. The restriction of freedoms online and offline make it more difficult and dangerous to hold those in power accountable.

The intensifying repression of civic space, as documented in People Power Under Attack, demands coordinated and sustained action to defend and support the work of activists, human rights defenders and journalists. Increasing threats against WHRDs demand a proactive response to dismantle the gender discriminatory norms and patriarchal rules that underpin and enable human rights violations.

There’s a great need for intersectional protection mechanisms and gender transformative responses from national, regional and international human rights institutions. It’s time for policies that protect human rights defenders but also recognise the distinct needs and lived experiences of WHRDs in all their diversity.

Multilateral institutions should hold member states to account for the international commitments they have made. Regional and global intergovernmental institutions should invest in closely monitoring the situation of WHRDs and in protecting them, and hold perpetrators accountable for abuses. There should be increased investment and coordinated efforts to promote gender justice as part of human rights and respond to the disinformation and false narratives being spread online by governments and the private sector.

The Sustainable Development Goals, backed by all states when they were agreed in 2015, recognise gender equality as a fundamental part of achieving sustainable development, yet little effort has gone into ensuring the people who strive for this are safe and able to work. Women and girls play a vital role in the pursuit of peace and justice, but they increasingly suffer. They don’t need to be merely recognised and remembered: they need to be protected and supported in the face of growing attacks.

Reylynne Dela Paz is Advocacy Lead at CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation.

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By Jordan Ryan
Dec 8 2025 (IPS)

 
Established democracies are exhibiting governance stresses that were once associated primarily with fragile and conflict-affected states. Polarisation is weakening institutional trust, fragmenting civic norms, and reducing societies’ ability to solve problems collectively. This is the new fragility. At the same time, governments and civil society organisations are adopting digital tools to support public participation. These deliberative technologies hold real promise, but in polarised environments they also carry risks. Their success depends on the same principles that have guided peacebuilding efforts for decades.

Across regions, the political landscape has shifted in ways that mirror dynamics familiar from post-conflict settings. Deepening identity rifts, distrust of institutions, and competing factual narratives are reshaping public life in countries long regarded as stable. Polarisation is no longer a peripheral concern; it has become a structural condition of governance. When institutions lose legitimacy and fear becomes a central organising force, formal capacity alone is insufficient to maintain stability.

In this environment, deliberative technologies are being introduced with the expectation that they can expand participation and strengthen decision-making. These systems are designed for structured listening and collaborative problem-solving. Yet many are deployed in contexts marked by distrust, grievance, and political contestation. Digital participation cannot succeed if it is layered onto institutions already viewed as partisan or unresponsive. Without the operating disciplines of peacebuilding, these tools risk amplifying the very divisions they aim to mitigate.

The dynamics of polarisation shape this new fragility in three interconnected ways. First, political allegiance is increasingly tied to perceived identity threat. Affective polarisation has become a defining feature of public life, narrowing the space for compromise. Second, fragmented information ecosystems reward outrage and accelerate the spread of misinformation, leaving citizens with incompatible understandings of basic facts. Third, institutions responsible for moderating conflict—courts, election bodies, public administrators, and independent media—are being reframed as partisan actors. When these bodies lose legitimacy, societies fall into conflict-habituated patterns in which escalation becomes predictable and attempts at compromise appear suspect.

Recent developments in the United States illustrate how these pressures unfold in a consolidated democracy. Executive actions that centralised administrative power, weakened professional civil service structures, and transformed technical governance issues into cultural battlegrounds created conditions more familiar from fragile states than from established democracies. Large-scale civil service layoffs reduced institutional memory and policy capacity. Oversight mechanisms were politicised. Rules governing public sector technology, including artificial intelligence, became instruments of ideological conflict rather than public stewardship. Similar patterns are emerging elsewhere, revealing how fragile the foundations of democratic governance can become when institutions are systematically undermined.

To address this new fragility, deliberative technology must be regarded as a governance challenge, not a technical solution. A peacebuilding-informed framework offers practical guidance built on three essential foundations. First, governance must take precedence over gadgets. Deliberative platforms are never neutral; their design, oversight, and data management all structure power and influence. Democratic systems require transparent decision rules and independent oversight. Mechanisms such as multi-stakeholder oversight bodies or community data trusts can institutionalise accountability and ensure that deliberation remains a civic rather than commercial function.

Second, impact measurement must replace engagement metrics. Participation numbers do not reflect democratic value. What matters is whether public input shapes institutional decisions in clear and traceable ways. Demonstrating this link is essential for rebuilding trust. Without it, digital participation becomes symbolic and can deepen cynicism.

Third, the peacebuilding lens must serve as an essential safeguard. Peacebuilding offers practical disciplines vital in polarised environments. Conflict sensitivity demands careful assessment of power dynamics before platform deployment. Trauma awareness helps ensure emotional safety. Inclusion requires active, not passive, measures to bring marginalised voices into decision-making. Sequencing recognises that facilitated dialogue may be needed before deliberation in highly polarised contexts.

Translating these principles into practice requires several concrete priorities. Public agencies should adopt procurement standards that require open-source platforms, transparent algorithms, and independent oversight of deliberation data. Funders should assess deliberative initiatives based on democratic impact rather than uptake or engagement metrics, using accountability scorecards to track the link between public input and institutional action. Professionalising the role of digital facilitators—through training in conflict sensitivity, power analysis, and trauma-aware engagement—would strengthen the quality and safety of online deliberation.

The boundary between “fragile” and “stable” democracies is no longer clear. Polarisation acts as a form of systemic fragility that erodes institutions from within. If this is the defining governance challenge of the current moment, then peacebuilding must become a central democratic skillset. The question isn’t whether to embrace digital participation tools, but how to ground them in governance practices that enable societies to manage conflict constructively.

Looking ahead, the test cases are already emerging. From citizen assemblies addressing climate policy to AI-powered platforms promising to revolutionise public consultation, each new deployment offers an opportunity to apply these lessons. The Toda Peace Institute’s forthcoming Barcelona workshop on deliberative technology and democratic governance exemplifies how practitioners are beginning to integrate these approaches. By focusing on governance rather than gadgets, on impact rather than engagement, and on peacebuilding principles as essential safeguards, digital participation can contribute to a more resilient democratic future. The alternative—continued techno-solutionism without the wisdom of conflict management—risks accelerating the very fragmentation these tools promise to heal.

Other articles by this author:
The Empire Has No Clothes: America’s Democratic Sermons and the Authoritarian Boomerang
Weaponisation of Law: Assault on Democracy
A Vicious Spiral: Political Violence in Fragile Democracies
Reluctant Truth-Tellers and Institutional Fragility

Jordan Ryan is a member of the Toda International Research Advisory Council (TIRAC) at the Toda Peace Institute, a Senior Consultant at the Folke Bernadotte Academy and former UN Assistant Secretary-General with extensive experience in international peacebuilding, human rights, and development policy. His work focuses on strengthening democratic institutions and international cooperation for peace and security. Ryan has led numerous initiatives to support civil society organisations and promote sustainable development across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. He regularly advises international organisations and governments on crisis prevention and democratic governance.

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished from the original with their permission.

IPS UN Bureau

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CIVICUS discusses US civil society action under the second Trump administration with Bridget Moix, General Secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the oldest faith-based lobbying organisation in the USA, advocating for peace, justice and environmental stewardship. Bridget has participated in the No Kings movement, a nationwide grassroots response to democratic backsliding and attacks on rights.

Bridget Moix

What drives the No Kings movement?

We are experiencing a rapid and devastating rise of authoritarianism. Since coming into office for his second term, Trump has embarked on a relentless campaign to undo generations of democratic institution building and international law while pursuing his own interests and the interests of billionaires. He has launched a militarised mass deportation campaign against immigrants that is ripping families apart and disappearing people from our streets. At the same time, he is dismantling core government agencies and firing hundreds of thousands of federal employees, punishing political opponents and rewarding those who are willing to serve him and his so-called ‘America First’ agenda.

Many people across the political spectrum are deeply troubled by what he’s doing and see it as a major attack on core principles of democracy, which have been at the heart of the struggle for freedom and equality since the country’s founding. The USA was founded on the rejection of rule by monarchy, a declaration against kings doing what they want at the expense of the public. The No Kings movement recalls that history and speaks out against Trump’s authoritarian actions today.

What have the protests been like, and what role is civil society playing beyond the streets?

The first protests brought about five million people in 1,500 cities and towns across the USA onto the streets to stand up for democracy. More recent protests in October brought seven million people out in 2,600 towns and cities.

What’s impressive about these protests is they bring a wide diversity of people together, across traditional social and political boundaries, who all believe our democracy is at real risk and we need to resist Trump’s authoritarianism. Even in very small towns, large groups gather, including people who have never protested before but feel they must do something now. That gives me hope.

Beyond the protests, US civil society has been very active and is learning and taking inspiration from movements elsewhere, as well as from our history of democratic struggle. Civil society groups have been quick to take legal action to sue the Trump administration for its overreach and continue to do so. They provide training every week on non-violent resistance and monitor immigration enforcement activity. Faith leaders have been speaking out and holding vigils and taking part in civil disobedience. Many groups are advocating with Congress to uphold its constitutional powers and provide a check on the Trump administration. Mutual aid groups are providing support for migrants and others at risk across the country. People are also working to build long-term resilience individually and in solidarity with others because we know this could be a long struggle.

How are immigration policies affecting communities?

Immigration raids and detentions are happening across the USA. I live in Washington DC, where Trump has deployed the national guard to further militarise our communities. The White House has given Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) free rein to terrorise people, detaining them from their homes, schools and workplaces as well as off the street, in front of their families. ICE officers drive unmarked vehicles, wear masks and do not follow due process as they should under US law.

Here in DC we’ve had at least 1,200 people detained in two months, probably many more. They are often taken without any warning and transported hundreds of miles to detention centres. Their families struggle to find out what happened to them and get legal help. Many people who are here legally have been swept up in these detentions, including US citizens. Many families are too afraid to send their children to school or leave their house. All of us know families who have been affected. The economy is also being affected.

However, the good news is that communities are standing up and working around the clock to support and protect one another, document and interrupt abuses and urge our leaders to push back against this mass cruelty campaign. Neighbourhood groups in Chicago, DC, Los Angeles and elsewhere are organising rapid response teams and sharing learning with each other to build resistance and solidarity.

How has the government responded to the protests?

The Trump administration doesn’t care about protests and just tries to ignore them or spread lies about them. We are used to that. What is important though is that we’re beginning to see more movement among members of Congress, whose constituents are protesting and advocating with them, and the protests are building the awareness and broader engagement of the public we need to push back.

Research shows that it takes 3.5 per cent of the population engaged in civil resistance to overcome authoritarian regimes. We have 330 million people in this country, and with each major protest we’re getting closer to that threshold.

What needs to happen to protect democracy?

We need to continue building an engaged and active movement of people who speak up, push back and advocate to rein in the Trump administration’s authoritarian takeover. We need to draw on the lessons from our history of struggles for freedom such as the Civil Rights movement, as well as lessons from grassroots movements around the world, as we grow non-violent civil resistance. We need more people protesting and protecting their neighbours, and we also need to turn that protest into policy action.

We need more people lobbying their members of Congress to stand up as an independent branch of government that responds to people and to do the right thing. Also critical is Congress standing up to protect its constitutional power of the purse and its authority over war. These are critical guardrails we need exercised against the militarised campaigns of the Trump administration at home and abroad.

We need to continue the legal pushback through the courts to uphold the rule of law and prevent the White House from further militarising our streets and corrupting government and elections. Solidarity across impacted communities in the USA and with civil society movements around the world will be very important to help us maintain and grow momentum here. We need to remember that our struggles for peace, justice and freedom are connected to people’s struggles all around the world.

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By Ambika Vishwanath and Treesa Shaju
Nov 17 2025 (IPS)

 
Emerging research on the nexus between climate, peace and security (CPS) supports the integration of climate adaptation and mitigation methods to advance sustainable peace. While climate change itself may not be the direct cause of conflict, its cascading effects such as resource scarcity, displacement, and economic stress could become focal points of tension. Although these links remain debated, meaningful responses could have delayed stabilizing effects. Locally driven responses become essential in addressing climate change as a security concern, to mitigate future cycles of conflict. A nuanced CPS framing can support smarter climate action while enhancing security at multiple levels. India’s scalable local models, Germany’s technical expertise, and Australia’s Pacific engagement pose an opportunity for the three countries to collaborate on advancing integrated CPS approaches.

How is this playing out in the Indo-Pacific?

The Indo-Pacific, one of the fastest growing regions from an economic, trade and development standpoint, is facing some of the most complex challenges arising from climate change and geopolitical developments. These are compounded by non-traditional security issues such as rising food, water and health insecurities, the intensity of which often eclipses traditional security concerns for regional policy makers. The COP27 Presidency initiative “Climate Responses for Sustaining Peace” (CRSP), spearheaded a pivot from a climate security nexus towards a climate and peacebuilding nexus that becomes useful to adapt for the Indo-Pacific region. The dichotomy of need, approach and security response provides countries a new potential for innovative engagement across the region.

Innovative approaches require acknowledging that current development models and business as usual will no longer be sustainable. As risks and challenges intensify with global repercussions, new partners must step-up with skills, knowledge and resources for ground up, contextual transformation. Germany, India and Australia have very different historical contexts and regional approaches, yet these growing global powers must respond proactively and in a coordinated manner.

Beyond solely relying on existing multilateral institutions, it is pragmatic to explore new configurations that address gaps left by larger organizations. Smaller groupings working with local actors can deliver ground-up solutions that states can sustain beyond donor cycles/political changes. They are also better equipped to pursue integrated approaches while working towards larger strategic balance and security concerns.

As one of the oldest and largest partners in the region, Australia has committed to being a principled and reliable partner to countries in the Pacific as well as the wider Indian Ocean region. Its 2024 National Defence Strategy, International Development Policy and remarks by senior leadership over the last few years suggest a strong commitment to relationships, with a global security agenda that is (debatably) climate-forward, ranging from disaster response to renewable energy. As a founding member of the India Ocean Rim Association (IORA) and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), it remains the largest donor with deep ties and networks despite a chequered legacy.

India positions itself as the primary security provider for the Indian Ocean region, evolving from a regionally focused Neighbourhood First Policy to a more comprehensive Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR) initiative. It is a founding member of the International Solar Alliance which focuses on climate positive solutions especially for LDCs and SIDS. While India has had a longer history in the Indian Ocean, its engagement with the Pacific Island Countries (PICs) has steadily increased through grants, lines of credit, concessional loans, humanitarian assistance, capacity building, and technical assistance in areas like Health, IT, education, and community development. India’s development cooperation is guided by the principles of South-South cooperation, anchored on low-cost development solutions and non-conditional aid.

While Germany’s engagement in the region has been more recent in comparison, it brings technical knowledge and capacity in climate adaptation, ecosystem-based solutions, and capacity-building initiatives. German universities and research organizations are engaged in developing cutting edge climate tech solutions, which can be contextualised with regional partner countries. For example, the ‘Ensuring climate-resilient access to water and sanitation’ project strengthened rural water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) systems by integrating modern climate-resilient technologies.

Unlikely partners make for innovative engagement

Though minilateral cooperation has tended to proceed ad hoc or with a strict focus on blue economy or marine pollution issues, it offers a nuanced approach to balance traditional security concerns and emerging climate related risks and challenges. While many trilateral and quadrilateral efforts exist, a more efficient streamlining of projects, knowledge and resources can benefit small island countries in the Indian and Pacific Ocean that are often overwhelmed by attention. Many current efforts consume valuable resources while primarily functioning as discussion forums with limited tangible impact on ground. While Germany, India and Australia might seem like unlikely partners, their unique and complementary skills and resources can implement a more nuanced CPS agenda with partners across the Indo-Pacific. Their potential lies in addressing overlooked areas such as smaller projects, research, financing options and capacity building.

One way to begin collaboration is by establishing a trilateral technical cooperation track with the Pacific Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Hub, a coordinated regional support mechanism for PICs to implement and finance their climate commitments. While Germany and Australia are already among the key financiers, this track could leverage Australia’s regional presence and expertise while Germany and India could offer institutional support on low grade technology, low-cost project design merging modern technology with traditional knowledge. The track could commence with scaled down water security related projects, a key area of concern for many Pacific nations.

Another possibility is expanding the India–Australia Centre of Excellence for Disaster Management to include Germany-based Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) that specializes in technology such as AI for Pandemics and Disaster Risk Reduction. Together, they could jointly develop, and pilot dual-use disaster risk resilience technologies and capacity-building programs tailored for the Indo-Pacific region.

While both India and Germany have ongoing capacity constraints, their technical knowledge can complement Australia’s operations in the Pacific. Ignoring these opportunities risks leaving the region trapped in reactive cycles of crisis management, without solutions that are locally owned and sustainable. Innovative approaches that focus on filling the gaps can address the complex ways in which CPS linkages play out. Moving forward, strategic coordination among partners will be essential to translating these approaches into sustained regional impact.

Related articles:
Reconstructing the China–India Climate Diplomacy
The Case for a Climate-First Maritime Reframing of the Indian Ocean Region
The Indus Water Treaty Suspension: A Wake-Up Call for Asia–Pacific Unity?
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Ambika Vishwanath is the Founder Director of Kubernein Initiative and a Principal Research Fellow at La Trobe Asia. She is a geopolitical expert and works at the intersection of emerging security challenges, climate security, and foreign policy.

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished from the original with their permission

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Titan II ICBM - decommissioned nuclear missile - at the Titan Missile Museum, Green Valley, Sahuarita, Arizona. Credit: Stephen Cobb/Unsplash

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 6 2025 (IPS)

In recent days, nuclear state leaders have flouted the regulations and norms around nuclear non-proliferation and are flirting more openly with nuclear might in the name of projecting strength.

In the last week, the United States and the Russian Federation have made public shows of their nuclear messaging. On the 27th of October, President Vladimir Putin revealed a new nuclear-powered missile capable of staying airborne far longer than conventional missiles and even evading missile defense systems. Some experts have suggested that this is meant to reinforce Russia’s nuclear might, which Putin has leaned on since the start of the Ukraine invasion in February 2022.

More recently, on 29 October, President Donald Trump announced via social media that he wanted to resume nuclear testing for the first time in thirty years. In his post he wrote, “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.”

As he made this announcement just before his meeting with President Xi Jinping, some experts have considered that China’s expanding nuclear arsenal has prompted some calls in Washington D.C. to quickly modernize the U.S.’s own nuclear forces. Nuclear testing by major powers like China, Russia or the U.S. has not been conducted in decades. Yet analyses have warned that such an act would only further complicate relations between this triad.

All these developments should not come as a surprise. Even as countries have been aware of the dangers of nuclear weapons since 1945, this has not completely stopped them from expanding their forces. As of June 2025, there are over 12,400 nuclear warheads in the world in only a small percentage of countries. The U.S. and Russia account for 90 percent of those warheads, both possessing more than 5,000 nuclear warheads. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), nearly all nine of the nuclear states moved to modernize their existing nuclear arsenals and acquire new missiles in 2024.

Increasing geopolitical tensions have increased feelings of uncertainty and instability, which seems to have led countries to prioritize national security. The nuclear-armed states have made moves to expand the capabilities of their arsenals. SIPRI estimates that China now owns 600 nuclear warheads. Both the United Kingdom and France have ongoing programs to develop strategic weapons, including missiles and submarines. North Korea continues to expand its military nuclear program, accelerating the production of fissile material to make more nuclear warheads.

Concerns about nuclear testing have been reflected in headlines. Credit: IPS

The threat of nuclear weapons seemed to loom over major events this year, even as their efficacy as a deterrent was thrown into question. As India and Pakistan engaged in aerial battles and strategic strikes in May, the conflict demonstrated to the world how close two nuclear powers could come to war.

Meanwhile, in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine and the perceived threat from Russia, European nations, including France and the U.K., are moving to prioritize investments in defense, including deterrence. Germany, Denmark and Lithuania are among some of the countries that have also expressed interest in hosting nuclear weapons for the nuclear states.

William Potter, Director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, expressed concern over the dangers posed by nuclear weapons due to miscalculations and misperceptions at a time when “there is a total lack of trust, respect, and empathy among the nuclear weapons possessors.”

“The more nuclear weapons, the greater the risk of their inadvertent use, but even more dangerous is the absence of a political climate in which serious arms control and disarmament measures can be pursued,” Potter told IPS.

The safeguards for nuclear arms control are also being challenged. The NEW-Start treaty, the last remaining arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia, is set to expire in February 2026, though both countries have considered voluntarily maintaining the limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons for one year. Yet in this past week, that promise has been undercut by both parties.

At the same time, there are the continuous calls for nonproliferation and disarmament. Advocates from all over have raised awareness on the impacts of radiation on communities, on public safety and on the environment. The United Nations has platformed and rallied these advocates and has raised the alarm for disarmament since its official beginning on 24 October, 1945.

Amidst this, there is the fear of a new nuclear arms race. During the high-level meeting on the elimination of nuclear weapons in September this year, the UN’s Chef de Cabinet Courtenay Rattray, who delivered remarks on behalf of Secretary-General António Guterres, said that the world was “sleepwalking” into this new arms race, now defined by new technologies and new domains for conflict such as cyberspace. Rattney warned that “the risks of escalation and miscalculation are multiplying.”

So if the nuclear states are modernizing their arsenals, how do modern technologies fit in? Artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest frontier that countries are navigating and investing significant resources in to achieve progress. Given that, national and global regulations on the safe governance of AI are still nascent as countries still work to agree on universal agreements for the frameworks for the ethical applications of AI.

As it becomes increasingly sophisticated and more accessible, member states have been investing resources into incorporating AI in the military domain. Given that it does not fit neatly into pre-existing deterrence frameworks, this has also raised concerns over AI’s possible “destabilizing effects,” according to Wilfred Wan, Director of the SIPRI Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme.

It has prompted stakeholders to engage in serious negotiations on AI governance in the military domain, including guardrails to reduce the risk of escalation, Wan told IPS. At the multilateral level, he cites the example of the Blueprint for Action that came out of the second summit on Responsible AI in the Military Domain (REAIM) in 2024. It is a non-binding agreement among 61 countries, including nuclear powers like the U.S., the U.K., France and Pakistan, that provides a framework for the responsibility that parties need to take in integrating AI, and recognizing gaps that policymakers must take into account. There is also the UN General Assembly Resolution 79/239 on “[AI] in the military domain and its implications for international peace and security.”

“This is certainly not a substitute for disarmament progress, but in the current strategic context, it can help rebuild some of the trust and confidence necessary for revitalizing those efforts,” Wan said.

Researchers from SIPRI have found there are no governance frameworks specifically for the nuclear-AI nexus compared to those for conventional military systems. “In the nuclear context, discussions have largely centered on retaining human control in nuclear decision-making. This is an essential principle but does not address other ways in which AI integration can affect the environment in which nuclear decisions are made, directly or indirectly,” Wan explained.

“Absent a framework that addresses these aspects, including through regulatory and technical measures, there remains the risk of accelerated integration of AI among nuclear-armed states in a manner that destabilizes the security environment, threatens strategic stability, and impacts the risk of nuclear use.”

When assessing the existing approaches to the governance of military AI, it shows common areas of concern, such as raising awareness through multi-stakeholder engagement and preserving the capacity for human intervention, along with applying safety and security measures to mitigate escalation risks.

At this time, nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation are critical and may even provide insight into negotiating the governance of AI in nuclear forces. The approaches to fostering multi-stakeholder dialogue that include policymakers, non-nuclear states, experts and the private sector could similarly apply to discussions around AI in nuclear forces. Though it should be noted that their limited knowledge of nuclear force structures may constrain meaningful contributions to the debate. Nevertheless, their participation must be facilitated if nuclear parties truly value human control in this factor.

Nuclear and non-nuclear states must recommit to the anti-nuclear agreements, including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Potter stressed the importance of disarmament and nonproliferation education, particularly to empower future generations to “pursue creative ways to reduce pressing nuclear dangers.”

The UN can employ its influence in advancing disarmament efforts through dialogue and awareness efforts from the General Assembly and the Office of Disarmament Affairs (UN-ODA). The UN has also confirmed it will convene an independent scientific panel to assess the effects of nuclear warfare and an Expert Group on Nuclear-Free War Zones.

“Nuclear disarmament is more important today than ever before, but it is not simply a question of securing lower numbers of nuclear weapons,” Potter said. “At a time when the “nuclear taboo” has been eroded and discussions about the use of nuclear weapons have been normalized, it is vital that policymakers act boldly in a fashion commensurate with the threat.”

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

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The closing ceremony held against the backdrop of the ancient Roman ruins, the Colosseum Credit: Community of Sant'Egidio

By Katsuhiro Asagiri
ROME / TOKYO, Nov 4 2025 (IPS)

In the shadow of Rome’s Colosseum — once a monument to imperial violence — religious leaders from across the world gathered this week to deliver a message that felt both ancient and urgent: peace must once again become humanity’s sacred duty.

Colosseo Credit: Kevin Lin, INPS Japan

The meeting concluded Tuesday evening with Pope Leo XIV presiding over a ceremony that was equal parts prayer service and political statement.

 

“War is never holy,” the pope said. “Only peace is holy — because it is willed by God.”

 
A Call for Moral Courage

Speaking beneath the Arch of Constantine, Pope Leo urged governments and believers alike to resist what he called “the arrogance of power.”

“The world thirsts for peace,” he said. “We cannot allow people to grow accustomed to war as a normal part of human history. Enough — this is the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth.”

Hirotsugu Terasaki, vice president of Soka Gakkai with Pope Leo XIV. Credit: Vatican News

They stood together in silence as candles were lit around the ancient amphitheater — small lights flickering against the stone, symbolic of a shared prayer for reconciliation.

Faith and Accountability

The pope’s speech drew a clear line between faith and political responsibility.

“Peace must be the priority of every policy,” he said. “God will hold accountable those who failed to seek peace — for every day, month and year of war.”

Those words, delivered as fighting continues in Ukraine and Gaza, carried a deliberate edge. The Vatican under Leo XIV has increasingly positioned itself as a moral counterweight to political paralysis on global crises — speaking of peace not as abstraction but as obligation.

Pope John Paul II Credit: Gregorini Demetrio, CC BY-SA 3.0

Lessons From Assisi

This year’s meeting marked nearly four decades since John Paul II convened the first interreligious gathering for peace in Assisi in 1986. Since then, the Sant’Egidio Community has maintained that dialogue among faiths can temper political divides.

“We have dared to speak of peace in a world that speaks the language of war,” said Marco Impagliazzo, the group’s president. “To close the paths of dialogue is madness. As Pope Francis said, the world suffocates without dialogue.”

Session on the Dignity of Life

Earlier Tuesday, Soka Gakkai delegation took part in Session 22 titled “Justice Does Not Kill: Abolishing the Death Penalty,” held at the Austrian Cultural Forum.

Professor Enza Pellecchia of the University of Pisa, representing Soka Gakkai, took the stage and spoke about the movement’s efforts to abolish the death penalty, referring to the words of its founder, President Daisaku Ikeda, from his dialogue with the British historian Dr. Arnold Toynbee.

“The sanctity of life cannot be judged by guilt or merit — all lives are equal. Therefore, no one has the right to take a life, even in the name of justice. Accepting the death penalty is a form of institutionalized violence that assigns different values to human life, and President Ikeda has described it as ‘a manifestation of the prevailing tendency in modern times to devalue life”.

Professor Enza Pellecchia of the University of Pisa, representing Soka Gakkai, delivering her speech during the Forum titled “Justice Does Not Kill: Abolishing the Death Penalty,” held at the Austrian Cultural Forum. Credit: Seikyo Shimbun

Professor Pellecchia said that President Ikeda’s humanistic philosophy deeply resonates with Pope Leo XIV’s recent statement that “one cannot claim to be pro-life while accepting the death penalty or any form of violence.” Both, she noted, confront the same moral error — the belief that some lives are expendable.

When Religion Refuses Silence

For decades, the Colosseum has hosted symbolic gatherings for peace. Yet this year’s ceremony, participants said, carried a sharper urgency. The wars in Europe and the Middle East, the displacement of millions, and rising authoritarianism have all given moral language new weight.

“Peace begins with the transformation of the human heart,” said Terasaki of SGI. “Interfaith cooperation is not symbolic — it’s a method for changing history.”

A Plea That Still Echoes

As night fell, the trumpeter Paolo Fresu performed a mournful solo. Children stepped forward to deliver a Peace Appeal to diplomats and officials — a reminder that the next generation will inherit the choices made now.

The pope’s final words were brief, almost whispered:

“God wants a world without war. He will free us from this evil.”

The candles continued to burn as the crowd dispersed — a fragile constellation of light against the ruins of Roman empire, and a quiet act of defiance in a world still learning to dare peace.

This article is brought to you by INPS Japan in collaboration with Soka Gakkai International, in consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

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Rajagopal P.V. at the International Civil Society Week (ICSW2025) in Bangkok. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
BANGKOK, Nov 4 2025 (IPS)

“If nations can have defense ministries, why not peace ministries?” asks Rajagopal PV, the soft-spoken yet formidable founder of Ekta Parishad. “We are told to see issues through a gender lens—why not a peace lens? Why can’t we imagine a business model rooted in non-violence or an education system that teaches peace?”

Founded in 1989, Ekta Parishad—literally Forum for Unity—is a vast people’s movement of more than 250,000 landless poor, now recognized as one of India’s largest and most disciplined grassroots forces for justice.

To Rajagopal, these aren’t utopian dreams—they’re blueprints for a possible world.

Over the decades, Ekta Parishad has secured land rights for nearly half a million families, trained over 10,000 grassroots leaders, protected forests and water bodies, and helped shape key land reform laws and policies in India.

All this has been achieved not through anger, but through disciplined, nonviolent marches that stretch across hundreds of kilometers. Along the way, many leaders have walked beside him—among them, the current Prime Minister of Armenia.

In an age marked by deep disorder—where wealth concentrates in few hands, poverty spreads, and the planet itself trembles under human greed—the 77-year-old Gandhian remains unshaken in his belief that peace alone can redeem humanity.

“We must rescue peace from the clutches of poverty and all its evils,” he told IPS on the sidelines of the International Civil Society Week, standing on the football ground of Bangkok’s Thammasat University.

“And it can be done,” he insists—and his life is proof. In 1969, the centenary year of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth, the Government of India launched a unique exhibition on wheels, a ten-coach train carrying Gandhi’s life and message across the nation. Rajagopal was part of the team that curated and travelled with it.

“For an entire year, we journeyed from state to state. Thousands of schoolchildren would gather at railway platforms, their faces lit with curiosity, waiting to meet Gandhi through our displays,” he recalls.

Yet somewhere along those long railway tracks, Rajagopal began to feel that displaying Gandhi’s ideals wasn’t enough. “The exhibition was beautiful,” he says, “but what was the use of preaching non-violence if we couldn’t live it, breathe it, and bring it to life?”

That realization led him to one of the most daring experiments in peacebuilding India had ever seen—negotiating with the feared bandits of the Chambal valley. “It was 1970,” he recalls. “We moved cautiously, first meeting villagers on the periphery to build trust. Once we had their confidence, we sent word to the dacoits: we wanted to talk. With the government’s consent, we ventured into what we called a ‘peace zone’—often by night, walking for hours through deep ravines—to meet men the world only knew as outlaws.”

The dialogues continued for four years. Eventually, as many as 570 bandits laid down their arms before a photograph of Mahatma Gandhi—a sight India had never seen before. The government, in turn, promised they would not face the death penalty and would receive land and livestock to rebuild their lives. Rehabilitation took another four painstaking years, but it was a victory of conscience over fear.

“They didn’t just surrender their weapons—they surrendered their anger,” Rajagopal says quietly. “There was real repentance, and that takes time—but it lasts.” His commitment came at a cost. At his ashram—a spiritual retreat he had founded—he was threatened, beaten, and ordered to abandon his peace efforts. He talked them through to accepting his presence.

“Today that same region is heaven,” he smiles, his eyes crinkling with memory. “Fifty years ago, people trembled at sunset—terrified of the bandits. Today, you can travel at 2:00 pm in the night, where fear ruled once.”

The mass surrender may have looked like a triumph for the state, but Rajagopal urges people to look deeper. “It’s the invisible violence—poverty, injustice, and oppression—that breeds the visible one: dacoities, kidnappings, and killings,” he explains.

Though Rajagopal and his companions had ended one form of violence, the deeper, quieter kind—born of poverty and neglect—still festered. Until that was confronted, he knew, peace would remain incomplete.

Years of working alongside the poor had taught him one truth: non-violence needs structure. If India’s Indigenous and landless communities were to be heard, they had to be organized.

“We began training young people from dozens of villages,” he says. “They went door to door, teaching others not only about their rights—especially the right to land—but also how to claim them peacefully.”

With that foundation, a five-year plan took shape. Each village home chose one member to take part. Every day, the family set aside one rupee and a fistful of rice—a humble but powerful act of commitment.

They even created a “playbook” of possible scenarios—how to stay calm under provocation, how to respond to setbacks, and how to practice non-violence in thought and action. “In one of our marches, a truck ran over three of our people, killing them,” he recalls softly. “There was grief, but no retaliation. Instead, they sat in silence and meditated. That was our true test.”

In 2006, 500 marchers walked 350 kilometers from Gwalior to Delhi, demanding land rights. Nothing changed. But they didn’t stop.

A year later, in 2007, 25,000 people—many barefoot—set out again on the national highway. “Imagine that sight,” Rajagopal says, eyes gleaming. “Twenty-five thousand people walking for a month, powered only by hope.”

The march displayed not just India’s poverty but also its power—the quiet power of the poor united. It was among the most disciplined mobilizations the country had ever seen. “There was one leader for every hundred people,” Rajagopal explains. “We walked by day and slept on the highway by night. Those in charge of cooking went ahead each morning so that by sundown, a single meal was ready for all.”

In a later march, Rajagopal recalls, the government sent a large police force. “I was worried,” he admits. “I called the authorities to tell them this was a non-violent protest—we didn’t need protection. The officer replied, ‘They’re not there for you; they’re here to learn how disciplined movements should be.’”

Along the route, villages greeted them like family—offering bags of rice, water, and prayers. “There was never a shortage of food,” Rajagopal smiles. “When your cause is just, the world feeds you.”

By the time the march reached Delhi, the government announced a new land reform policy and housing rights and agreed to enact the Forest Rights Act.

The government dispersed the marchers with hollow promises and the reforms never happened.

So Ekta Parishad planned an even larger march—a Jan Satyagraha of 100,000 people in 2012.

“Halfway through, the government came running.”

Rajagopal’s face lights up as he recalls the event. “They agreed to our ten-point agenda and signed it in front of the people. That moment was historic—governments almost never do that; the Indian government certainly never does it!”

The agreement included land and housing rights, a national task force on land reform, the prime minister’s oversight of policy implementation, and fast-track courts to resolve land disputes.

Today, because of these long, barefoot marches, more than three million Indigenous people in India now have legal rights to land and housing. The struggle also gave birth to India’s Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation, and Resettlement Act—a landmark in people’s movements.

“The Act also safeguards fertile land,” Rajagopal explains. “Before the government can acquire any area, a social impact study must be done. And if farmland is taken, the owners receive four times its value in compensation.”

“The purpose of our marches,” Rajagopal says, “is not to fight the government, but to win it over. The government is not the enemy; injustice is. We must stand on the same side of the problem.”

For Rajagopal, peace is not a sentiment but a system—something that must be built, brick by brick, through dialogue and respect. “Non-violence,” he says, “isn’t passive. It’s active patience—listening, accepting differences, never policing thought.” The same principle, he believes, can heal families, neighborhoods, nations—and the world itself.

His next mission is to create a Youth Peace Force, ready to enter conflict zones and resolve disputes through dialogue. He has also launched the Peace Builders Forum, or Peace7, uniting seven countries—South Africa, Japan, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Canada, India, and Armenia. His dream is to expand it to Peace20, where, as he smiles, “wealth will never be a criterion for membership.”

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On 10 October 2025, thousands of Palestinian families moved along the coastal road back to northern Gaza, amid the extreme devastation of infrastructure. Credit: UNICEF/Mohammed Nateel

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 15 2025 (IPS)

After two years of conflict with Israel, Hamas has released the remaining 20 living hostages, while Israel has freed 250 Palestinian prisoners and over 1,700 detainees who have since returned to Gaza. Following a ceasefire agreement that took effect on October 10, Israeli forces are set to withdraw from designated areas within the Gaza Strip as humanitarian organizations mobilize to assist Palestinians in urgent need.

For the past two years, Gaza has endured relentless bombardment, while aid deliveries have been largely obstructed throughout the course of the war. Over the past three days, the United Nations (UN) and its partners have been operating on the ground to provide lifesaving assistance to displaced civilians—many of whom are finally returning home and receiving access to basic services for the first time in months.

“After so much horror and suffering, there is finally relief at last,” said Olga Cherevko, the Spokesperson in Gaza for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). “Since the ceasefire took effect, the UN and our humanitarian partners have moved swiftly to scale up the delivery of humanitarian assistance across Gaza. The bombs have stopped falling and with that silence came an opportunity and the responsibility to act. The ceasefire has allowed those who are suffering during the two years of war, Palestinian and Israeli families, a breath of fresh air and a light of hope after many dark months.”

On October 13, OCHA confirmed that Israeli authorities had approved the delivery of more than 190,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid—roughly 20,000 tonnes above the previous agreement—including food, medicine, and shelter materials. According to Cherevko, 817 aid trucks have successfully entered Gaza without obstruction, offering a moment of relief for Palestinian families devastated by the conflict.

UNICEF trucks bring life-saving supplies into Gaza for children and their families. Credit: UNICEF/Mohammed Nateel

For the first time since March, cooking gas has been delivered to households in Gaza, while many residents have also gained access to frozen meat, fresh fruits and vegetables, and flour—essentials that had been out of reach for months. “All these items, we’ve been needing for so long,” Cherevko told reporters on Tuesday. “This is going to make a massive difference in people’s lives because we’ve been seeing families and kids collecting garbage to cook with. This will be a huge breakthrough.”

As a result of improved security conditions within the enclave, humanitarian agencies have gained greater mobility, allowing them to reach several previously inaccessible areas—including the north, where access had been most restricted and needs are most severe. OCHA has fully mobilized to deliver aid across all regions of Gaza as part of its 60-day scale-up plan for the ceasefire, which has so far proven effective.

“We’re offloading and collecting critical supplies and reaching areas we haven’t been able to access for months,” said Cherevko. “With the commercial sector reinforcing our response and bilateral assistance alongside us, we’re working to restore access to clean water and ensure people receive bread and hot meals.”

The UN and its partners have been working to resupply hospitals and field clinics that have been left without fuel or medical supplies for months, many of which were left only partially operational during the war. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), within 24 hours of the ceasefire taking effect, an emergency medical team was deployed to Al-Ahli Hospital.

Additionally, eight aid trucks carrying critical medical supplies, including insulin, cancer medicines, incubators, ventilators, patient monitors, and solar panels for desalination units, have reached the European Gaza and Nasser hospitals. Additional deployments are planned for Gaza City as displaced civilians begin returning to their areas of origin.

“Improving access to health facilities and expanding our operational missions are vital first steps toward delivering urgent health assistance to Palestinians throughout Gaza,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO. “Gaza’s health system must be rehabilitated and rebuilt. This crisis gives us the opportunity to rebuild it better: stronger, fairer and centered on people’s needs.”

Rubble and unexploded ordnance pose a significant threat to Palestinians returning home and remain one of OCHA’s top priorities during its sixty-day scale-up plan. Specialized OCHA teams are currently conducting assessments along key roads and crossings, making sure explosive ordnance is clearly marked and that communities know to stay away. The full extent of unexploded ordnance across the enclave has yet to be determined.

Despite marked improvements over the past several days, the scale of needs remains immense and additional funding is urgently required to support lifesaving services and ensure a sustained path for recovery. In addition to unexploded ordnance, displacement, destroyed infrastructure, lawlessness, damaged roads, and the collapse of basic services stand as significant challenges for humanitarian organizations.

“The ceasefire has ended the fighting, but it has not ended the crisis,” noted Cherevko. “Scaling up responses is not just about logistics and more trucks. It is about restoring humanity and dignity to a shattered population. We’re working around the clock with all parties to ensure predictable safe and sustained access.”

On October 14, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) announced that an estimated USD 20 billion will be required over the next three years to initiate Gaza’s reconstruction efforts—part of a broader recovery plan that could span decades and ultimately cost more than USD 70 billion. UNDP Representative Jaco Cillers told reporters in Geneva that while there are “good indicators” of support from potential donors in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States, no commitments have yet been confirmed.

Numerous humanitarian experts have affirmed that lasting peace is the only viable solution to the crisis, warning that conditions in Gaza are extremely fragile and could deteriorate further—especially with the onset of the winter season. “Let me be clear, humanitarian aid alone will not be a substitute for peace,” said Cherevko. “The ceasefire must hold. It must become the basis for broader political efforts that bring the end of cycles of violence and despair.

“The ceasefire has opened the door to a future in which children can go to schools safely, hospitals are places of healing and not suffering, and aid convoys are ultimately replaced by commerce and opportunity.”

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Global South cooperation arrangements must evolve to better respond to pressing contemporary and imminent challenges, rather than risk being irrelevant straitjackets stuck in the past.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The creation of Malaysia had led to problems with the Philippines and Indonesia, while Singapore had seceded from the new confederation in August 1965.

ASEAN was not a Cold War creation in the same sense as the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO), one of several regional security arrangements established by the Americans in the early 1950s, the only significant one remaining being NATO.

ASEAN’s most significant initiative was to declare Southeast Asia a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) in 1973, two years before the end of the Indochina wars.

Regional economic cooperation
The region has since seen four major economic initiatives, with the first being the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA).

AFTA was established at the height of the trade liberalisation zeal in the early 1990s. Beyond the initial ‘one-time’ trade liberalisation effects, there has been little actual economic transformation since then.

Trade liberalisation mahaguru Jagdish Bhagwati’s last (2008) book, Termites in the Trading System, saw preferential plurilateral and bilateral FTAs as ‘termites’ undermining the WTO promise of multilateral trade liberalisation.

While seemingly mutually beneficial, such FTAs are akin to termites that surreptitiously erode the foundations of the multilateral trading system by encouraging discrimination, thereby undermining the principle of non-discrimination.

Naive enthusiasm for all FTAs has thus actually undermined multilateralism, also triggering pushback since the late 20th century.

Following the 2008-09 global financial crisis, the G20’s developed economies all raised protectionist barriers, confirming their dubious commitment to free trade.

Meanwhile, US trade policies since the Obama presidency, and especially this year, have made a mockery of the WTO’s commitment to the multilateralism of the 1994 Marrakech Declaration.

Asymmetric financialization
The 1997-98 Asian financial crisis should have served as a wake-up call about the dangers of financialization, but the West dismissed it as simply due to Asian hubris.

Under Managing Director Michel Camdessus, IMF promotion of capital account liberalisation even contravened the Fund’s own Articles of Agreement.

When Japanese Finance Minister Miyazawa and Vice Minister Sakakibara proposed an East Asian financial rescue plan, which was soon killed by then US Treasury Deputy Secretary Larry Summers.

Eventually, the Chiang Mai Initiative was developed by ASEAN+3, including Japan, South Korea, and China as the additional three. Ensuring bilateral swap facilities for financial emergencies have since been multi-lateralised.

ASEAN+3 later led the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), still conceived mainly in terms of regional trade liberalisation.

Non-alignment for our times
Developing relevant institutions and arrangements in our times requires us to pragmatically consider history, rather than abstract, ahistorical principles.

2025 marks several significant anniversaries, most notably the end of World War II in 1945 and the 1955 Bandung Asia-Africa solidarity conference, which anticipated the formation of the non-aligned movement.

The world seems to have lost its commitment to creating the conditions for enduring peace. Despite much rhetoric, the post-World War II commitment to freedom and neutrality in the Global North has largely gone.

The world was deemed unipolar after the end of the Cold War. However, for most, it has been multipolar, with the majority of the Global South remaining non-aligned.

As for peace-making, the US’s NATO allies have increasingly marginalised the United Nations and multilateralism with it. Already, the number of military interventions since the end of the Cold War exceeds those of that era.

While ASEAN cannot realistically lead international peace-making, it can be a much stronger voice for multilateralism, peace, freedom, neutrality, development, and international cooperation.

East Asian potential
The world economy is now stagnating due to Western policies. Hence, ASEAN+3 has become more relevant.

Just before President Trump made his April 2nd Liberation Day unilateral tariffs announcement, the governments of Japan, China, and South Korea met in late March without ASEAN to coordinate responses despite their long history of tensions.

ASEAN risks becoming increasingly irrelevant, due to the limited progress since the Chiang Mai Agreement a quarter of a century ago. Worse, ASEAN’s regional leadership has rarely gone beyond trade liberalisation, now sadly irrelevant in ‘post-normal’ times.

Rather than risk growing irrelevance, regional cooperation needs to rise to contemporary challenges. Working closely with partners accounting for two-fifths of the world economy, ASEAN countries only stand to gain from broader regional cooperation.

President Trump’s ‘shock and awe’ tariffs and Mar-a-Lago ambitions clearly signal that ‘business as usual’ is over, and Washington intends to remake the world. Will East Asia rise to this challenge of our times?

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By Katsuhiro Asagiri
TOKYO, Oct 10 2025 (IPS)

Toda Peace Memorial Hall. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The hall itself is symbolic in Japan’s peace movement. It is named after Josei Toda, the second president of the Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai, who in 1957 made his historic Declaration Calling for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons before 50,000 youth members. That appeal has become a moral pillar of Soka Gakkai’s global campaign for peace and disarmament.

Reclaiming Women’s Voices

Semipalatinsk Former Nuclear Weapon Test site. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri

Her documentary, Jara—meaning “wound” in Kazakh—tells the stories of women from Semey, formerly known as Semipalatinsk, the site of 456 Soviet nuclear tests conducted between 1949 and 1989.

Unlike earlier films that focused on physical devastation and disability caused by nuclear testing, Jara explores the unseen and intergenerational impacts: the stigma, the psychological scars, and the inherited fear of bearing children.

“Most films show Semey as ‘the most nuked place on Earth.’ I wanted to show resilience instead of fear—to reclaim our story in our own voice,” she said.

Aigerim Seitenova Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri

Seitenova’s personal connection to the issue began with humiliation.

As a university student in Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan, when she introduced herself as being from Semey, a classmate mockingly asked if she had “a tail.”

“That moment stayed with me,” she recalled. “It made me realise that nuclear harm is not only physical. It lives on in prejudice and silence.”

That experience would later drive her to create a film that breaks that silence.

Patriarchy and Nuclear Power

In Jara, women appear not as passive victims but as active participants in their communities, confronting the legacies of secrecy and discrimination.

“In militarised societies, nuclear weapons are symbols of superiority,” Seitenova said in her speech. “Peace and cooperation are dismissed as weak— as feminine. That’s the mindset we must challenge.”

Her feminist perspective connects nuclear weapons and patriarchy, arguing that both systems thrive on domination and power over others.

From the Steppes to Global Advocacy

Author made a documentary of the 2018 conference which Seitenova participated. Credit:INPS Japan

Born into a third-generation family affected by radiation exposure in Semey, Seitenova said her activism was inspired by “quiet endurance and the absence of open discussion.”

In 2018, she joined the Youth for CTBTO and Group of Eminent Persons (GEM) ‘Youth International Conference’ organised by the Kazakh government. During the five-day programme, young representatives from nuclear-weapon, non-nuclear and nuclear-dependent states travelled along with nuclear disarmament experts overnight by train from Astana to Kurchatov, visiting the former test site. “It was the first time I saw the land that shaped my people’s history,” she said.

Aigerim Seitenova captured in a scene from “Jara”. Credit: Aigerim Seitenova

She cites Togzhan Kassenova’s Atomic Steppe and Ray Acheson’s Banning the Bomb, Smashing the Patriarchy as works that helped her articulate how nuclear policy and gender inequality are intertwined.

Mr. Hiroshi Nose, director of Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum explaining the impact of Atom Bomb. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri, President of INPS Japan

In October, Seitenova travelled to Japan to participate in the 24th World Congress of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) in Nagasaki, meeting survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Seitenova(Center) was among a youth representative from communities affected by nuclear testings sharing her experiences at the Nuclear Survivors Forum held at UN Church Center, New York. Credit: ICAN / Haruka Sakaguchi

That spirit carried into the Tokyo screening, where diplomats, journalists and peace activists discussed nuclear justice, gender equality and youth participation.

Turning Pain into Power

Through her organisation, the Kazakh Nuclear Frontline Coalition (ASQAQQNFC), Seitenova works to connect nuclear-affected communities with policymakers implementing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

“The fight for nuclear justice is not about the past—it’s about the future,” she said. “It’s about ensuring that no one else has to live with the consequences of nuclear weapons.”

As the applause filled the Toda Peace Memorial Hall, the resonance was unmistakable—linking a hall named for a man who condemned the bomb to the wind-scarred plains of Semey, where the voices of women are at last being heard.

Credit: SGI

This article is brought to you by INPS Japan in collaboration with Soka Gakkai International, in consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

INPS Japan

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Image: The White House 29.9.25 / Wiki Commons

By Ramesh Thakur
Oct 6 2025 (IPS)

Back in January last year, my Toda Policy Brief 182 was published with the title “Israel and Gaza: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”. On 29 September this year, President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a joint press conference to announce a peace plan for Gaza. The plan’s title could well have been “Gaza: Today, Tomorrow and the Day After”. Trump’s yearning for the Nobel Peace Prize is no secret, possibly out of Obama-envy. If the bold and audacious 20-point Gaza plan succeeds, he will surely deserve the award. For it entails the end of Hamas as a governing force in Gaza and a security threat to Israel, gives Arabs the stability they seek in the region, promises a terror-free future for Israel and keeps alive the dream of a Palestinian state. That said, however, potholes, there be a few on the pathway to Middle East peace.

First, the good news

Any viable peace plan must deliver on three core challenges: an immediate ceasefire that brings an end to the killings and a release of all Israeli hostages still in captivity, dead or alive (today); the removal of Hamas as a military, political and institutional force from Gaza and its replacement with a credible governance structure for the strip to oversee its reconstruction (the agenda for tomorrow); and appropriate provisions, backed by credible guarantees, to prevent the return of terror to Israel (the promise of the day after).

The plan calls for the withdrawal of Israeli forces to an agreed line, the immediate cessation of hostilities and freeze on battle lines once all parties have agreed to the plan; the return of all hostages to Israel within 72 hours of the latter’s acceptance of the agreement; the release of 2,000 Palestinian prisoners by Israel (points 3–5).

The second part (tomorrow) is covered in points 6–16. After the exchange of hostages and prisoners, Hamas members who give up their arms and surrender will be granted amnesty and, if they wish, be given safe passage to third countries. They will play no role in Gaza’s governance. Aid deliveries into Gaza will resume and distributed without interference from any party. Gaza will be governed by a transitional, technocratic and apolitical committee of qualified Palestinians and international experts. An international high-level Peace Board will “set the framework”, “handle the funding for the redevelopment of Gaza”, and “create modern and efficient governance” to the “best international standards”. Trump will draw up an economic development plan. No one will be forced to leave Gaza. Israel will neither occupy nor annex Gaza. Instead, its forces will withdraw to agreed lines and on a timetable tied to Hamas’s demilitarisation. The US, Arab countries and other international partners will provide a temporary International Stabilisation Force to deploy immediately in Gaza.

The third and final element is addressed in points 1, 9, 14, 19 and 20. They envision Gaza as “a deradicalised terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbours”; a guarantee from Arab regional partners that Hamas and its factions will comply with the provisions and New Gaza will not pose a threat to its people or to neighbours; and, possibly as the most critical trigger to a direct US involvement if the agreement is violated, the new “Board of Peace” to be set up “will be headed and chaired” by Trump himself. As Gaza redevelops and the Palestinian Authority implements the necessary reforms, a “credible pathway” to realise the aspirations of the Palestinians for self-determination and statehood will emerge. The US will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians “for peaceful and prosperous co-existence”.

Now, the rest of the news

There are thus a lot of moving parts and the plan will work only if everything that can go right, does go right. Usually this is an overly optimistic basis for any peace plan.

To start with, Israel gets almost all its demands and conditions met on hostage release, Hamas disarmament and its removal as a military and political power, and a security buffer zone in Gaza. Its own withdrawal will be phased on Hamas’s compliance. Hamas, not so much. Hostages have been its most powerful leverage over Israel. Mass civilian casualties and humanitarian suffering have been its most potent weapon in the campaign of global delegitimisation of Israel. The few credible opinion polls show Hamas to be the runaway choice in the West Bank and, especially, Gaza. Trump has threatened to give Israel the green light to finish the job if Hamas rejects his plan. For an ideology that welcomes martyrdom for shahids, they might choose to die on their feet rather than survive on their knees on Israeli sufferance.

Conversely, the deal might be torpedoed by the more hawkish partners in Netanyahu’s governing coalition who demand a permanent security presence in Gaza, annexation of the West Bank, no release of the worst of the Palestinian prisoners and no amnesty for the killers of 7 October. Of course, it’s possible that opposition parties that want an end to the war could step in to keep Netanyahu afloat.

Third, both Hamas and Israel might feel compelled to accept the plan in order to escape the wrath of the infamously short-tempered US president. But both have a long history of sabotaging the implementation of agreements reached, arguing endlessly over the finer details and implementation implications of the agreement’s clauses, pointing fingers at each other, and so on. The region has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Fourth, to believe that the Palestinian Authority, with a president who is into the third decade of his four-year elected term, will quickly transform into a corruption-free model of competence and effective governance is a triumph of hope over experience.

Fifth, Arab governments were brought on board with Trump’s very public rejection of Israel’s agenda to annex the West Bank. When Israel attacked targets on its soil, Qatar discovered the limits of playing all sides in hosting the Hamas leadership and a big US military base while also acting as a mediator in the Israel-Palestine conflict. This helped concentrate its mind to seal the deal. But how long will the Arab regimes be able to resist their attachment to the Palestinian cause?

Finally, Tony Blair’s presence on the Peace Board as an eminence grise is a kick in the teeth of international idealism. He is thoroughly discredited for his role in the 2003 Iraq war. Putting “Tony Blair” and “Middle East peace” alongside each other in any plan for the region has as much chance of peaceful coexistence as Hamas and a Netanyahu government in Gaza and Israel. We can only conclude that Trump lacks awareness of just how globally toxic the Blair brand is.

Related articles:
The return of the ugly American
Donald Trump: Self-proclaimed peacemaker lacking fortune and expertise
Donald Trump’s overwhelming force/surrender style of negotiation and governing

Ramesh Thakur, a former UN assistant secretary-general, is emeritus professor at the Australian National University and Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. He is a former Senior Research Fellow at the Toda Peace Institute and editor of The nuclear ban treaty: a transformational reframing of the global nuclear order.

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished from the original with their permission.

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Available data and research over several decades have consistently reached the same conclusion: Far-right extremists are more open to political violence, more likely to commit it, and responsible for far more homicides than far-left extremists. Credit: Shutterstock

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Oct 6 2025 (IPS)

Following the murder of Charles Kirk, a U.S. conservative activist, in Orem, Utah on September 10, various remarks, commentaries, and accusations have been made regarding politically motivated murders occurring across the United States.

In order for elected U.S. officials, policymakers, the country’s population, and others to have an informed understanding of politically motivated domestic murders, it is essential to consider the relevant facts, statistics, and research findings surrounding these homicides.

Although politically motivated murders represent a relatively small fraction of the overall number of homicides in the United States, these murders have a disproportionately large effect on the country. In particular, their symbolic impact, high visibility, media coverage, and threats to democracy make these murders especially significant for the United States

The starting point for this understanding is to define these types of homicides. Politically motivated domestic murders involve killings of people where the perpetrator’s primary motivation is ideology, politics, partisan affiliation, beliefs about government, or bias. Examples of such motivations include white supremacy, anti-immigrant sentiment, religious extremism, and political extremism.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were 22,830 homicides in the United States in 2023. Domestic politically motivated murders were relatively rare, with an estimated number of 20 extremist-related murders, representing about one-tenth of one percent of all homicides that took place across the country.

Additionally, between January 1, 2020 and September 10, 2025, 79 politically motivated murders were reported to have occurred in the United States. These murders accounted for approximately 0.07 percent of all murders during that time period, or 7 out of 10,000.

Although politically motivated murders represent a relatively small fraction of the overall number of homicides in the United States, these murders have a disproportionately large effect on the country. In particular, their symbolic impact, high visibility, media coverage, and threats to democracy make these murders especially significant for the United States.

Some political figures have suggested that left-wing groups are a greater threat than right-wing groups. However, research based on empirical data does not support these claims.

In recent decades, right-wing extremism, such as white supremacist, anti-immigrant, and anti-government ideologies, has been the most frequent ideology when it comes to politically motivated domestic homicides in the United States.

In contrast, while left-wing extremism, such as environmental or anti-police violence, is present in the United States, it is much less frequently associated with homicides.

Overall, domestic politically motivated violence in the U.S. is rare compared to total violent crime, but right-wing extremist violence has been responsible for the majority of domestic terrorism fatalities over the past several decades.

For instance, a study by the U.S. National Institute of Justice found that since 1990, far-right extremists have killed more than six times as many people in ideologically motivated attacks (520 people) as far-left extremists (78 people).

In the last five years, approximately 70% of politically motivated domestic homicides in the United States were committed by individuals with right-wing ideology, compared to about 30% by those with left-wing ideology (Figure 1).

Source: Cato Institute.

Furthermore, there has been a noticeable increase in plots or attacks in the United States targeting government officials, political candidates, party officials, or staff. The number of domestic attacks and plots against government targets motivated by partisan political beliefs in the past five years is nearly triple the number of such incidents in the previous 25 years.

The available data and research over the past several decades have consistently reached the same conclusions regarding domestically politically motivated homicides. In simple terms, far-right extremists are more open to political violence, more likely to commit it, and have been responsible for far more homicides than far-left extremists.

The rising threats and politically motivated domestic murders across the United Staes warrant countering the spread of disinformation, conspiracy theories, one-sided narratives, and violent rhetoric that have motivated many of the attackers and killers.

Political violence in the United States has risen in recent months taking forms that often go unrecognized. During the 2024 election cycle, nearly half of all states reported threats against election workers, including social media death threats, intimidation and doxxing.

The recent murder of Charles Kirk is just one in a series of politically motivated domestic killings that includes the June assassinations of Minnesota representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman.

Almost 75% of the U.S. public views politically motivated violence as a major problem for the country. Additionally, a majority of the U.S. public, 62%, believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction, while a minority of 38% believe it is moving in the right direction.

Threats and violence are increasingly seen as acceptable means to achieve political goals, posing serious risks to democracy and society. In October 2025, almost a third of the U.S. public, 30%, strongly agreed or agreed that violence may be necessary in order to get the country back on track. This figure is a significant increase from the 19% who strongly agreed or agreed in April 2024 that violence may be necessary (Figure 2).

Source: PBS News/Marist Poll.

The population of the United States should reject political violence in all its forms and reaffirm that democracies depend on peaceful participation. Public discourse and government rhetoric should aim to reduce tensions, not inflame them.

Furthermore, elected officials and political leaders of the United States need to emphasize that differences should be resolved through civic debate and elections, not by violence.

If violence becomes acceptable or inevitable in politics, then political outcomes may be determined not by votes or debate but by intimidation or force. The primary message to the U.S. public should be zero tolerance for political violence, vigilance against radicalization and societal polarization, and commitment to peaceful democratic engagement.

In summary, politically motivated domestic murders across the United States remain a small fraction of overall homicides in the country and are disproportionately driven by right-wing extremist ideologies. However, their symbolic impact and threats to both human lives and U.S. democracy make them especially significant.

Countering and preventing politically motivated domestic homicides must be achieved without infringing on the constitutional rights of free speech, religion, or political expression. Elected officials, political leaders, and the courts should prioritize preventing and prosecuting criminal acts, reducing radicalization, and lessening societal polarization, rather than undermining the democratic principles, rights, and liberties of the United States.

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division, and author of many publications on population issues.

HALO coordinating with the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force Explosive Ordnance Disposal Department (RSIPF EODD) to record the location of UXO in Dunde area, Munda, Western Province. Credit: HALO TRUST.

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Australia , Oct 6 2025 (IPS)

Last century the remote Solomon Islands was the stage for some of the most intense battles fought during the Pacific campaign of the Second World War. But while Allied troops departed on the heels of victory, the military forces of both sides left a massive legacy of unexploded ordnance (UXO) which is still scattered across the country and others in the region.

In September, ageing UXO was highlighted as a “multidimensional threat to sovereignty, human security, environment and economic development” by Pacific Island leaders during their annual summit held in Honiara, the Solomon Islands’ capital.

Maeverlyn Pitanoe would agree with that. Four years ago, she was with a church youth group organizing a fundraising event in Honiara.

“We wanted to raise some funds by selling boxes of locally cooked food,” Pitanoe, the 53-year-old youth mentor told IPS. Large holes were dug in the ground and fires lit to make ovens for cooking. Late in the day, Pitanoe and two youths, aged in their 30s, had been cooking for several hours.

“We were standing around the pot on the fire. I was putting the cabbage into the hot boiling water as the two boys held the pot from both ends,” Pitanoe recounted. “Then the bomb exploded on us from under the pot. The boys, I can see them rolling down the hill, struggling to pull their legs together because it blasted their legs. I was thrown backwards, then I realised I was twisting, like there was a whirlwind throwing me around.”

Maeverlyn Pitanoe. Credit: Bomb Free Solomon Islands-Honiara 2025

Both young men died within a week following the incident. One left behind a wife, who was also injured, and four children. Pitanoe, who is married with a family, lost fingers on her hand and spent nearly two months in hospital being treated for injuries to her legs, thighs and abdomen.

“What happened to me has been very, very devastating and it has changed my life and my family’s life one hundred percent. I used to have a very free life, but after the accident I don’t feel free,” she said, explaining her anxiety now of going out to social gatherings or walking along the beach.

Unexploded ordnance, or UXO, are explosive weapons and devices that did not detonate when they were used in a conflict. They are often buried in the ground or lodged in places where they can remain hidden from view and undetected for decades. Yet their capacity to explode can be triggered at any time by physical pressure or disturbance.

Not all the country’s more than 900 islands, that are today home to more than 720,000 people, were affected by the war. But, at the time, they were a British Protectorate and geopolitically crucial after World War II spread to the Pacific region in 1941. The year after attacking Pearl Harbour, Japanese forces advanced in the Pacific and troops allied with Britain and the United States converged on the islands to wage a counteroffensive.

Abandoned WWII Japanese knee mortars awaiting disposal in Munda, Western Province. Credit: HALO TRUST

Major battles were waged on the main Guadalcanal Island. But there was fighting on land, sea and in the air across central and northern areas of the country until the Japanese retreated in 1943. Solomon Islanders, with their local knowledge of the terrain, were vital partners in the conflict, working alongside Allied forces.

Today the islands harbour abandoned tanks and fighter planes and sunken battleships in tropical waters attract diving tourists. But every year islanders are killed and injured by the accidental detonation of ageing ordnance.

In 2023, the Solomon Islands government partnered with The Halo Trust to begin a nationwide survey and collect comprehensive data of where UXO are located. Emily Davis, Halo Trust’s Programme Manager in the country, told IPS that investigations are currently focused on Guadalcanal Island and Western Province to the northwest, with extensive consultations taking place with local communities aided by historical records.

“We’ve reported over 3,000 items so far, but that doesn’t take into account over ten times that amount that has already been destroyed by the Solomon Islands police,” she recounted. When ordnance is discovered, the explosives ordnance disposal team in the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force is notified to conduct its safe removal. Last year alone, they removed 5,400 potentially lethal items, including a large buried cache of projectiles in the grounds of a school in Honiara.

The Trust’s work in the country, which is funded by the United States, also extends to educating local communities about the risks and what to do if any devices are found. Schools are a particular focus, as “there are young children who have been known to play around and discover these things and sometimes they accidentally handle ordnance,” Peter Teasanau, a Halo Trust Team Leader in Western Province told IPS.

HALO Surveyor taking coordinates of UXO found near Betikama Power House, Guadalcanal Province. Credit: HALO TRUST

But organizing clearance of unearthed ordnance can take longer in remote rural areas, Teasanau explained. In Honiara, resources are close to hand, but in the outer islands, the police face the logistical challenges of difficult terrain and fewer roads and infrastructure.

Yet, wherever it happens, the human toll of explosions can be crippling, whether in injuries and disability or loss of livelihoods. Before the incident, Pitanoe had a job in the distance education department of the Solomon Islands National University, but afterwards she could no longer endure the arduous travel to rural areas.

“Physically, I am not fit for that now,” she said. Instead, she decided to turn her plight into an opportunity. “I have experienced something that no one would like to experience in their life, but I came out of it and I’d like to raise awareness,” she said.

This year, Pitanoe launched a civil society organization, called Bomb Free Solomon Islands, to support UXO victims and “feed hope and fund recovery.”

Despite still seeking funding, the organization has 20 members, all of whom are facing hardships. Some are widows who struggle to find the money to continue sending their children to school. Others face disability and have less money to pay for food and living expenses.

There are broader impacts of UXO in the country, too. The Solomon Islands is a developing country that has been striving to recover and rebuild following a civil conflict, known as the ‘Tensions,’ which occurred from 1998-2003. Ageing UXO contamination is an extra burden that can restrict access to agricultural land, diminishing rural incomes and food security, and disrupt national development.  And as ordnance decays, it can leak toxic substances, such as heavy metals, into the surrounding soil and waterways with detrimental consequences for human, plant and aquatic life.

However, Davis says that, while there is a lot of work ahead, it will be impossible to find and remove every piece of ordnance in the country. “The scale [of contamination] is too severe, but we are supporting the reduction of risk,” she said. And the UXO map they are completing “will guide future efforts to more systematically clear ordnance and this can help develop infrastructure or community development projects,” she continued.

It is difficult and painstaking work that requires specialized expertise and major funding, and securing access to the resources needed is an issue facing other countries in the region as well. Papua New Guinea and Palau, for instance, are also grappling with UXO contamination and regional leaders argue that, as the ordnance was imposed on their nations, the responsibility of dealing with it should be shared.

Speaking at the United Nations in New York in June, Benzily Kasutaba, the UXO Director of the Solomon Islands’ Ministry of Police, called for increased international assistance to low-income affected nations, so that “together we can create safer communities, protect our environments and build a more secure future for generations to come.”

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Credit: Forus - UN High-Level Political Forum 2025

By Sarah Strack and Christelle Kalhoulé
NEW YORK, Sep 26 2025 (IPS)

This September the UN turns 80, but the lessons of peace, justice, and cooperation are still unfinished. The world today faces the flames of inequality, conflict, ecological collapse and growing digital threats. In short, the very problems the UN was created to solve are once again staring us in the face.

That’s why the UN’s latest reform push, “UN80,” matters. Launched this spring, it promises to make the multilateral system more inclusive and accountable. But here’s the real question: can it align with 21st century’s needs? Will it be remembered as a budget drill or the start of a renewal that truly delivers for people where they live?

If this moment is going to count, three things must happen.

First, reforms must put people at the center, and we must avoid a reform by spreadsheet.

The UN is under financial strain. Geopolitical tensions are sky-high, negotiations are gridlocked, Member States are late on dues and membership fees, arrears run into the billions, and the UN’s mandate, efficiency, and effectiveness are under question.

“In a polycrisis world, shrinking the UN’s capacity is like cutting the fire brigade during wildfire season,” warns Christelle Kalhoulé, Forus Chair and civil society leader in Burkina Faso. “Reform cannot be about cutting corners. It must be about giving people the protection, rights, and solidarity they are being denied today.”

The UN80 Initiative marks the most sweeping reform effort in decades, with three tracks: streamlining services and consolidating IT and HR systems, reviewing outdated mandates, and exploring the consolidation of UN agencies into seven thematic “clusters.”

On paper, these reforms could bring overdue coherence. But the process has too often felt opaque, with key documents surfacing via leaks and staff unions flagging limited transparency and consultation.

Increasing the use of tools like AI is among the “solutions” being floated to “flag potential duplication” and shorten resolutions — yet without clear guardrails, there’s a risk of automating cuts and reinforcing bias rather than empowering people-first innovation. And the debate has too often been framed around cash flow, back payments, and cuts. The United States alone owes $1.5 billion in dues. Major donors are cutting ODA, and several UN humanitarian agencies are planning double-digit reductions in 2025 in their budgets.

As Arjun Bhattarai, Executive Director of the NGO Federation of Nepal warns: “Reform cannot be a synonym for austerity. Cutting budgets may make spreadsheets look tidy in New York, but it leaves communities in Kathmandu, Kampala, Khartoum, or Kyiv without support when they need it most.”

The danger is a reform focused on management efficiencies instead of reimagining what the UN must be to meet today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.

Second, a better compass exists.

Despite its flaws, multilateralism remains indispensable. Without the UN, the world would be poorer when it comes to peace, cooperation, and collective problem-solving.

What makes the UN matter most, however, are not the halls of New York or Geneva, but the people and communities it exists to serve.

The UN was created “for the people and by the people”. Protecting, safeguarding and promoting healthy sustainable lives for communities must remain the core priority.

Our measure for reform is simple: a transformed UN must reduce inequalities, ensure fairer and more inclusive representation across its governance structures, deliver public goods fairly with accountability, and protect people better, faster, while safeguarding rights.

As Moses Isooba, Executive Director of the Uganda National NGO Forum, puts it: “A reformed UN must stand closer to the people than to the corridors of power. It must be measured not by the length of resolutions, but by the depth of hope it restores and the changes it makes for communities worldwide.”

If UN80 becomes a technocratic exercise in “doing less with less,” we will emerge with a smaller, weaker UN at precisely the moment we need it most.

If instead it becomes a justice-driven reimagining — linking architecture and finance to a clear vision of protection, equity, participation, and decentralization — it could renew the UN’s capacity to act as a backbone of international cooperation.

As Justina Kaluinaite, Policy and advocacy expert at the Lithuanian NGDO Platform, stresses: “The UN will survive another 80 years only if it learns to listen. True reform is not about doing more with less, but about doing better with those who have been left out.”

Third, put reforms through three simple tests.

When leaders meet in New York, we challenge them to have every reform proposal answering three questions:

1. The Inequality Question: Does this reform measurably narrow gaps — by income, gender, geography, or status — in who is protected and who benefits?

2. The Localisation Question: Does it move money, decisions, and accountability closer to communities, with transparent targets and timelines?

3. The Rights Question: Does it strengthen — not dilute — protection, gender equality, and human rights?

As Christelle Kalhoulé, sums it up: “The measure of UN80 should not be how much paper it saves, but how many lives it protects. History and the legacy we leave to future generations will not ask whether the UN balanced its budget in 2025; it will ask whether it stood with people.”

If leaders embrace this moment, the UN can emerge sharper, stronger, and more inclusive, with a justice-driven renewal of multilateralism, reclaiming its place as the backbone of global cooperation. If not, UN80 may go down in history as the moment when multilateralism chose retreat over renewal.

If UN80 is going to matter, it must prevent crises before they explode, deliver for both people and planet, give underrepresented countries and communities a real voice, keep civil society free and strong, and fix financing so money reaches those on the frontlines. The real test isn’t how tidy the org chart looks, it’s whether lives are saved, trust is rebuilt, and the UN proves it can still rise to the moment and be fit to serve this 21st century world.

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A view of the podium and the United Nations emblem in the General Assembly Hall. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Sep 26 2025 (IPS)

As the high-level opening week of the UN General Assembly unfolds, with heads of states delivering often self-serving speeches from the UN’s podium, the organisation is undergoing one of its worst set of crises since its founding 80 years ago. This year’s General Assembly – ostensibly focused on development, human rights and peace – comes as wars are raging across multiple continents, climate targets are dangerously being missed and the institution designed to address these global challenges is being hollowed out by funding cuts and political withdrawals.

A UN Commission has just determined that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, while the Israeli state recently escalated its campaign of violence by bombing Qatar. Meanwhile, Russia’s war on Ukraine threatens to spill over with its recent launch of drones against Poland and incursion into Estonia’s airspace. Conflicts continue in Myanmar, Sudan and many other countries, despite the UN’s foundational hopes of ensuring peace, security and respect for human rights.

The Trump administration has abandoned multilateralism in favour of transactional bilateral dealmaking while spearheading a donor funding withdrawal that is hitting both the UN and civil society hard. The US government has also repudiated the Sustainable Development Goals, the ambitious and progressive targets all states agreed in 2015, but which are now badly off track.

Today’s multiple and growing crises demand an effective and powerful UN – but at the same time they make this less likely to happen.

Cutbacks loom large

As state leaders meet, one of the items on the agenda is the UN80 initiative. Launched in March, this is presented as a reform process to mark the UN’s 80th anniversary. But reflecting the impacts of the funding crisis, it’s first and foremost a cost-cutting drive. The slashing of donor aid – not only by the USA, but also by other established donor states such as France, Germany and the UK, often in favour of military spending – is having a global impact. The UN is being hit both by states failing to pay their mandatory assessed contributions, or delaying them for long spells, and by underfunding of initiatives that rely on additional voluntary support.

When it comes to mandatory contributions, the most powerful states are those that owe the most, with the USA in the lead with a circa US$1.5 billion debt, followed by China on close to US$600 million. Meanwhile voluntary funding shortfalls are particularly hitting human rights work, always the most underfunded part of the UN’s work. In June, UN human rights chief Volker Türk announced that 18 activities mandated by Human Rights Council resolutions wouldn’t be implemented because of resource constraints. In a world riven by sickening conflicts, human rights investigations on Palestine, Sudan and Ukraine aren’t able to operate at anywhere near full capacity.

Funding shortfalls, intensified by the Trump administration pulling out of key UN bodies and agreements, have forced the UN to plan for a 20 per cent budget cut in 2026. That may involve shedding some 7,000 jobs from its 35,000-person workforce, merging some agencies, shutting offices and relocating functions to cheaper locations.

The UN is undoubtedly an unwieldy and over-bureaucratic set of institutions, and it would be surprising if there weren’t some efficiency savings to be made. If staff are relocated from expensive global north hubs to cheaper global south locations, it could help UN bodies and staff better understand global south realities and improve access for civil society groups that struggle to travel to the key locations of Geneva and New York, particularly given the Trump administration’s new travel restrictions – although that wouldn’t be the rationale behind relocation.

But the proposed cuts mean the UN is effectively planning to do less than it has done before, at a time when the problems are bigger than they’ve been in decades. Given this, decisions about UN priorities mustn’t be left to its officials or states alone. Civil society must be enabled to have a say.

Civil society already has far too little access to UN processes. At the high-level week, even civil society organisations normally accredited for UN access are locked out of events. Reform processes such as last year’s Summit of the Future have also fallen far short of the access needed. Civil society’s proposals to improve the situation – starting with the creation of a civil society envoy, a low-cost innovation to help coordinate civil society participation across the UN – haven’t been taken up.

Now even civil society’s limited access could be further curtailed. Already the Human Rights Council is shortening sessions, reducing the opportunities available for civil society. The proposed cuts would impact disproportionately on the UN’s human rights work. In the name of efficiency, the UN could end up becoming less effective, if it grows even more state-centric and less prepared to uphold international human rights law. States that systematically violate human rights can only benefit from the ensuing lower levels of scrutiny.

Civil society is an essential voice in any conversation about what kind of UN the world needs and how to make it fit for purpose. It urgently must be included if the UN is to have any hope of fulfilling its founding promise to serve ‘we the peoples’.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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Wars and oppression leave behind not just rubble and graves. They leave behind invisible wounds, profound trauma carried by survivors. And most often, women carry the largest burden. They are targeted not only because of their gender, but because surviving and leading threaten structures based on patriarchy and domination.

Mozn Hassan

“Violence against women is never accidental,” Hassan explains. “It is systematic. It’s about control, silencing, and making sure women do not have the tools to stand up, to resist, to create alternative futures.”

In this report by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the percentage of women killed in armed conflict doubled in 2024, accounting for 40 percent of all civilian casualties. “Over 600 million women and girls live in conflict-affected areas, a 50 percent increase since 2017.” The report points out that nearly every person exposed to a humanitarian crisis suffers from psychological distress, and 1 in 5 people go on to develop long term mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. “Only 2 percent get the care they need”.

The matter of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) has been brought up during the previous two reviews of the UN peacebuilding architecture (2020 and 2024) mentioned in this report of the International Peace Institute, “a peaceful society cannot exist if psychological impacts of war (such as grief, depression, stress and trauma) are left unaddressed in individuals, families and communities.”

Hassan has been a pioneer in the application of narrative exposure therapy (NET) among women in refugee camps and war zones. In contrast to other therapy models that concentrate on one-on-one psychological treatment, through NET she pushes for collective healing ans solidarity.

“Narrative exposure therapy is one of the tools of community psychology. It puts collective trauma-informed therapy higher than individual approaches,” she explains. “Being within collective spaces brings sharing of experiences, solidarities, and makes the community itself resilient. They can go through this afterward by themselves, they don’t need another, more educated person in a power dynamic over them.”

The approach, according to Mozn, has shown to be successful in dealing with Syrian, Palestinian, and Lebanese women in refugee camps in Lebanon and Turkey. Through five- or six-day workshops, participants narrate and re-narrate their stories, building strength on each other while creating knowledge and data on the realities of war.

Hassan remembers how women in camps, frequently from various ethnic or religious minorities, drew strength not just from sharing their own experiences but from hearing others. In this way, they developed resilience where there should have been none. “But when it’s collective, people are not left alone with their pain. They gain tools, they gain solidarity, and they gain resilience.”

Hassan points out that trauma is not a monolithic experience: “Studies show that only 20–25% of people who face trauma develop PTSD. One of the misconceptions has been that everyone who experiences trauma must have PTSD, it’s not true. Collective approaches make interventions more applicable and save resources, which are always limited for women.”

Above all, NET has given strength and mechanisms to these women to move forward. “Trauma doesn’t happen overnight, it’s an accumulation. Healing is the same. It’s not about saying: I was sick, and now I’m healed. Healing is a process. When you are triggered, you shouldn’t go back to the first point. You can have your own tools to say: I don’t want to be this version of myself while I was facing trauma,” she reflects.

For Hassan, one of the key questions of feminist peacebuilding is why women are so typically assaulted in war, revolution, and even in so-called peacetimes.

“We must stop thinking about peacebuilding only in the traditional way, only when there is open war,” she argues. “Patriarchy, militarization, securitization, and societal violence are all forms of violence that normalize abuse every day. Stability is not the same as peace.”

She points to Egypt as an example. While the country has not witnessed a civil war like Syria or Sudan, it does have systemic gender-based violence: “Egypt has more than 100 million people, half of them women. Official statistics say domestic violence is more than 60%, sexual harassment more than 98%. Femicide is rising. This is the production of collective trauma and acceptance of violence.”

The 2011 revolution, she remembers, brought these dynamics into sharp focus: “What we saw in Tahrir Square, the gang rapes, the mass assaults, was the production of societal violence. Years of harassment and normalization led to an explosion of gender-based violence that was then denied.”

Hassan’s warning is stark: the absence of bombs does not mean peace. “As long as you are not bombed by another country, people say you don’t need peace because you live in peace. But the absence of war is not peace.”

Healing, for Hassan, cannot be separated from politics and accountability. She rejects the idea that healing means forgetting.

“Forgiveness or letting go needs a process. Many people cannot sit at the same table with those who hurt them personally. But maybe it’s not our generation who will forgive. Maybe we can at least leave to others a better daily life than we lived,” she says.

Accountability, she argues, is a requirement for stability. “You couldn’t reach stability while people are thinking only about revenge. Collective healing in Egypt is important, but it also needs accountability, acceptance, and structural change.”

She also criticizes the tendency to depoliticize feminist movements: “Our definition of politics is not only about being in parliament. It is about feminist politics as tools for change everywhere. Too often feminists were pushed to say ‘we are not political.’ That sidelined many women who were engaging directly in politics.”

In spite of repression and trauma, Hassan says that women remain incredibly resilient. What they need most is recognition and tangible support to rebuild their lives and societies.

“The amazing tools of women on resilience gives me hope. I saw it so clearly with Syrian women, leaving everything, rebuilding societies, changing everywhere they go. Their accumulation of resilience is what gives me hope,” she says.

However, Mozn is wary of the narrative that glorifies women’s strength without addressing its costs. “We shouldn’t have to be strong all the time. We should be free, and lead lives where we can just be happy without strength and grit. But unfortunately, the times we live in demand resilience.”

Mozn Hassan’s words make us question what peace actually is. It is not merely ceasefires or agreements, but a challenge to deal with patriarchy, violence, and trauma at its core. Healing is political, accountability matters, and rebuilding with women is imperative. As she says: “Maybe it’s not our generation who will see forgiveness, but we can try to leave to others a better daily life than we lived.”

Her vision is both sobering and optimistic: peace will not be arriving tomorrow, but as long as women keep building resilience and insisting upon self-respect, the way to it is not yet closed.

Sania Farooqui is an independent journalist, host of The Peace Brief, a platform dedicated to amplifying women’s voices in peacebuilding and human rights. Sania has previously worked with CNN, Al Jazeera and TIME.

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By Anna Naupa
Sep 8 2025 (IPS)

 
Globally, there is a 0.36% deterioration in average levels of peacefulness, as more countries are increasing their levels of militarisation against the backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions, increasing conflict, and rising economic uncertainty.

But this statistic omits most Pacific island countries. In 2025, only three are ranked by the Global Peace Index (GPI): New Zealand in 3rd place, Australia in18th and Papua New Guinea ranking 116th out of 163 nations.

As regional dialogue about an ‘Ocean of Peace’ concept advances, a dedicated Pacific Peace Index—as suggested by Solomon Islands’ Professor Transform Aqorau at the July 2025 Pacific Regional and National Security Conference—might provide additional form to an evolving political dialogue amongst Pacific Islands Forum member states.

But, how is Pacific peace defined? How might our own Pacific measure of peacefulness complement existing efforts to safeguard peace and security in the region?

What is Pacific Peace?

Peace is more than the absence of conflict or violence; it is a global public good that enables people to live full, healthy and prosperous lives without fear.

“Peace must serve the people, not geopolitics, not elites in the region, not distant interests,” Professor Aqorau says, in articulating a vision for Pacific peace. Peace must also tackle broader factors affecting safety and wellbeing across the Pacific, particularly for women and vulnerable populations, says Fiji’s Shamima Ali.

Peace and development are two sides of the same coin. The Pacific 2050 Strategy for a Blue Pacific Continent places peace alongside harmony, security, social inclusion, and prosperity, as a key element for attaining free, healthy, and productive lives for Pacific peoples. Delivering Pacific peace, therefore, entails securing well-being; protecting people, place and environment; advancing development; and securing futures for present and future generations, the latter efforts entailing climate action and protection of sovereignty.

While global indices are variably critiqued for omissions of Pacific Islands data, unilateral development and indicator bias, poorly contextualized methodologies, or the significant resourcing required to produce Pacific datasets, indices can nonetheless usefully inform policy-makers.

What could a Pacific Peace Index measure?

The current starting point for measuring and monitoring peace in the region is found in the form of existing country commitments to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16 (the ‘Peace Goal’).

The Pacific Roadmap for Sustainable Development has contextualised eight SDG 16 indicators for regional reporting that address experiences of violence, access to justice, civil registration and legal identity, transparency of public expenditure, and public access to information and views on participation in decision-making processes.

In 2022, a regional monitoring report led by the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat found that limited data availability for SDG16 hampered measurement of progress in the Pacific. This is broadly reflective of global trends, where investment is needed in further data generation efforts and statistical capacity to measure SDG 16.

The report also found that the Pacific was regressing on advancing effective institutions, transparency, and accountability.

But are SDG16’s Pacific contextualised indicators sufficient to meet the expectations of the Boe Declaration on Regional Security and the Pacific 2050 Strategy’s Peace and Security pillar? Can this type of reporting serve as a potential proxy ‘Pacific Peace Index’?

While answers to these questions are both technical and political in nature, there are two things to keep in mind:

1) Peace has deep roots in Pacific social and cultural structures

Despite close alignment with regional strategies, the current SDG 16 contextualised indicators do not encapsulate the depth of a Pacific vision for peace.

Pacific Islands Countries’ policy commitments to aspects of peace are well-documented. Each year new initiatives are announced that respond to an expanded concept of security, ranging from traditional security cooperation to tackling gender-based violence, climate mitigation and humanitarian assistance or investing in democratic processes.

But, knowledge gaps remain about the contribution of locally driven peace initiatives to national and regional efforts, and how these contribute to overall Pacific well-being. Addressing these gaps allows for a more comprehensive telling of an aggregated Pacific narrative of peace, which could be factored into a Pacific Peace Index. For example, peace-building dialogues following the Bougainville crisis, Solomon Islands’ ethnic tensions, and series of Fiji coups have highlighted the important contributions of locally-driven approaches, including drawing on traditional dispute resolution.

2) Telling a story of purposeful peace

Yet, Pacific peace is more than a collection of discrete data points and time-bound security-related projects. Peace is an evolving process, it is future-oriented and a proactive, purposeful exercise.

Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Baron Waqa has stressed that peace must be “anchored in sovereignty, resilience, inclusion and regional solidarity.” Many Pacific scholars agree, arguing that there is no real peace without addressing longstanding issues of colonisation, militarisation, restricted sovereignty and justice, which continue to bear on many Pacific islanders.

To tell a regional story means connecting, for example, Tuvalu’s international statehood recognition, the recent landmark ICJ advisory opinion on climate change, the nuclear legacies in the region, political instability, elections, and well-being measures, to the region’s vision of peace. Combined, we can then begin to grasp all the elements that contribute to a cumulatively peaceful region.

So, where to from here?

Another tool is the Positive Peace Index which measures the ‘attitudes, institutions and structures that sustain and create peaceful societies’. It assesses socio-economic development, justice, good governance and effective institutions, inclusion, resilience and diplomacy. A Pacific Peace Index could adapt this to incorporate Pacific indigenous philosophies of peace and values of social cohesion, well-being and reconciliation that are absent from existing global indices, for example, and track the region’s journey, disaggregated by country.

Multi-country indices demand considerable capacity so a State of Pacific Peace assessment may instead offer a simpler option. This could entail a dedicated section in the existing Pacific Regional Security Outlook report produced by regional organisations. Alternatively, the region’s academic institutions (e.g. via Track 2 mechanisms) could be invited to assist. Investing in peace summits also provides the opportunity for ongoing regional peace dialogue.

The emphasis, however, must be on building, not duplicating, existing regional mechanisms.

The opportunity of a Pacific Peace Index would be in owning and telling a coherent peace narrative that: a) bridges security and development and, b) reflects how the peace interests and dignity of Pacific peoples are being upheld over time.

As political dialogue about a Pacific ‘Ocean of Peace’ evolves, Pacific peoples’ visions of peace must drive any framing and subsequent action. Professor Aqorau offers further wisdom: ” Our peace should not depend on choosing sides, but on asserting our needs, on our terms and on our collective aspirations.”

Related articles:
Peacebuilding: The Missing Peace in COP30 Climate Ambition

Climate Change in Pasifika Relational Itulagi

Anna Naupa is a ni-Vanuatu PhD candidate at the Australian National University.

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished from the original with their permission.

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This year marks half a century since the start of Lebanon’s civil war in 1975 – a conflict that lasted 15 years, killed over 150,000 lives, and resulted in as many as 17,000 missing. Decades later, the legacy of that war is still everywhere: in the silence of classrooms without history books, in families who never knew what happened to their missing loved ones, and in violence made mundane in all parts of society.

Lina Abou-Habib

And yet, today, much of Lebanon’s younger generation has no real knowledge of what happened. There is no state history book of the civil war in the nation, leaving a void in collective memory.

“One of the most striking moments I’ve had with my students at AUB was when I asked them, ‘What is the Taif Agreement?’” Lina says, referring to the Saudi-brokered accord that formally ended the war. “Most of them didn’t know. When they searched for visuals, their first observation was this: there were no women in the room. Not a single one.”

And that absence matters. Women’s experiences of the war, and their understanding of peace were excluded from the official record. After the war, Lebanon’s parliament passed a general amnesty law, which granted immunity to political parties and leaders for wartime practices and absolved individual and group militia members for sexual violence, murder, torture and forced disappearance. “After the war, there was a general amnesty law, which basically told everyone to ‘turn the page’ and move on – without justice, without accountability, and without healing,” Lina explains. “This amnesty institutionalized impunity.”

The consequences, she says, are far-reaching. “If men who committed heinous crimes during the war walked away free, then why wouldn’t impunity extend into other spheres? If someone can get away with mass murder, then femicide or gender-based violence becomes ‘no big deal.’”

This normalisation of violence permeates everyday life, from the political sphere to domestic. It teaches citizens, particularly women, that accountability is not something they can expect. Impunity has been succeeded by a culture of silence – a wilful forgetting that allows the wounds of war to remain unhealed. “Impunity doesn’t just happen politically, it’s also personal,” Lina reflects. “To normalize it at the national level, you need to go through a kind of intentional amnesia. But of course, you can’t truly forget. You internalize trauma, and when you don’t heal it, you pass it on.”

Without truth, without accountability, trauma is passed down generations. Families whose relatives disappeared still do not know where they were buried, or whether they survived. Entire communities grow up with questions that remain unanswered.

It was in this silence that the women in Lebanon got together to become guardians of memory, collectively forming the Committee of the Families of the Disappeared, a movement led primarily by mothers, sisters, and wives of those who went missing during the war.

“Of the 17,000–18,000 people still missing in Lebanon, 94% are men,” Lina notes. “But it’s women who have led the search for truth. And that truth-seeking is not about revenge. It’s about recognition. It’s about the right to know.” For these women, truth is not a weapon but its dignity. They echo similar struggles in Latin America, the Balkans, and Africa, where women have been at the forefront of truth-telling and reconciliation movements. Even years after the war, Lebanon remains highly militarized. Weapons are common, often associated with masculinity and control.

“Peace and carrying arms cannot coexist,” Lina says bluntly. “They are fundamentally incompatible – it’s an oxymoron.”

She emphasizes that weapons are never neutral. “Who carries weapons? Who decides who should be protected and who is a threat? Guns are not neutral – they are tools of power, of dominance.” For women, patriarchy contributes to militarization. Violence against women in war is often dismissed as private, hidden, or silenced – and war only makes it worse. “War doesn’t stop gender-based violence. It amplifies it. Bombings don’t stop rape. Displacement doesn’t stop domestic violence. On the contrary, it exacerbates it.”

This reality is not an exception in Lebanon. Everywhere, from Sudan to Libya, women are still subjected to rape, sexual slavery, and femicide as instruments of war. And too many times, their suffering goes unnoticed. Other countries that endured mass violence – from Rwanda to the former Yugoslavia to Latin America – have built transitional justice processes around one central truth: you cannot rebuild without memory.

“You cannot move forward without truth,” Lina stresses. “You didn’t get to write a new constitution or form a new government without first addressing what had happened – without naming the pain, the crimes, and the people who suffered.” But the truth does not come easily. Power, she warns, is patient. “The powers that be will always try to wait you out. That’s exactly what has happened in Lebanon. They’ve just been waiting for the families of the disappeared to die – to literally disappear, one after another.”

The lesson, then, is perseverance: truth-telling must outlast systems of denial.

Despite Lebanon’s collapse in recent years, economic crisis, political stagnation, and social disillusionment, Lina sees a moment of possibility in recent political change. “If any real change is to happen, this is our window. And I fear we won’t get another one,” she says. The change requires bold steps, “Disarming unlawfully militarised groups; dismantling corruption; building a just and inclusive legal system; and strengthening independent civil society”. “These are not small asks,” Lina admits. “But this is what real peace looks like. Not just the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice.”

Ultimately, Lina’s hope lies in Lebanon’s resilient civil society, a multi-generational network of activists, academics, feminists, and everyday citizens who refuse to give up. “The true actors of peace – the real builders of peace – are elsewhere,” she says. “Peace simply won’t happen if everyone isn’t included – especially not if women’s voices are excluded.”

Sania Farooqui is an independent journalist and host of The Sania Farooqui Show. She is soon launching her new podcast, The Peace Brief, a platform dedicated to amplifying women’s voices in peacebuilding and human rights.

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By Katsuhiro Asagiri
TOKYO, Sep 1 2025 (IPS)

Marking the United Nations’ International Day Against Nuclear Tests, young activists and experts gathered at the UN University in Tokyo for an event titled “The Role of Youth in Supporting Global Hibakusha.” The forum underscored how youth solidarity can amplify the voices of survivors of nuclear testing and bombings, known collectively as the “Global Hibakusha” — communities scarred by the use, production, and testing of nuclear weapons, from Hiroshima to the Marshall Islands — and strengthen global momentum toward nuclear abolition.

The event was part conference, part call to arms. Its message was clear: the nuclear age is not a matter of history, but a crisis that continues to live in the bodies, memories, and struggles of people worldwide. And young people, the organizers emphasized, must shoulder the responsibility of carrying those voices forward.

Youth Survey on Nuclear Awareness

Daiki Nakazawa (right) and Momoka Abe(left) presenting the final results of a Youth Peace Awareness Survey. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri

The five organizations presented the final results of a Youth Peace Awareness Survey, conducted between January 6 and August 9, across five countries—the United States, Australia, Kazakhstan, Japan, and the Marshall Islands. Targeting youth aged 18 to 35, the survey drew responses from 1,580 participants, examining their knowledge of nuclear weapons, attitudes, and readiness for action.

“In every country surveyed, those who had heard the testimony of survivors were more likely to be taking action for nuclear abolition,” said Daiki Nakazawa, a representative from SGI Youth. “It shows that listening to Hibakusha is not simply remembrance. It is a catalyst for activism.”

His colleague, Momoka Abe, added that for their generation, survivor accounts “remain one of the most powerful ways to understand both the human costs of nuclear weapons and the urgency of preventing their use.”

Remembering Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Legacy

Semipalatinsk Former Nuclear Weapon Test site. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri

He reminded the Tokyo audience that much of the data on those tests was removed to Moscow during the Soviet collapse, leaving independent assessments patchy at best. “The consequences are still poorly understood,” he said. “But the human suffering is clear.”

Kazakhstan’s government closed the Semipalatinsk site in 1991, the year of its independence, and voluntarily renounced the world’s fourth-largest nuclear arsenal. It was that historic gesture that the U.N. chose to honor when it designated August 29 as a global day against nuclear testing in 2009.

A Japanese Perspective

Kazakhstan presided over the 3rd meeting of state parties to TPNW which will take place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York between March 3 and 7 in 2025. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri, President of INPS Japan

Yuki Nihei, an SGI youth who traveled to New York in March for the Third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), recounted a moment that made that gap vivid. At a side event on Global Hibakusha, she listened to testimony from an Indigenous Australian exposed to British nuclear tests.

“There was no warning. No consent. And to this day, they receive little compensation, and their suffering is barely acknowledged,” she said. “While Hiroshima and Nagasaki are often recalled in Japan as historical tragedies, but hearing from Global Hibakusha shows that nuclear harm is present-tense. A lot of people are still suffering now.”

That realization, she said, pushed her to think differently about solidarity:“As a Japanese youth, I want to stand with Global Hibakusha in pursuit of genuine nuclear abolition.”

The Treaty and Its Challenges

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, signed 20 September 2017 by 50 United Nations member states. Credit: UN Photo / Paulo Filgueiras

Takagaki also offered a note of caution against reducing youth activism to inheritance. “We often hear that young people should ‘carry on the voices of Hibakusha,’” he said. “That is important, but it is not enough. Each of us must also decide what kind of society we want to build — and take responsibility for creating it.”

Kazakhstan’s Call for Action

Anvar Milzatillayev, Counselor of the Embassy of Kazakhstan in Japan.　Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri

“Testimonies of survivors must continue to be shared,” he stressed, “because they have the power to transform awareness into action.” Milzatillayev expressed confidence in the “three powers of youth”—to spread the truth of nuclear harm, to connect across borders, and to mobilize society—adding: “Together with young people of Kazakhstan, Japan, and around the world, we will support the Global Hibakusha and build a nuclear-free future. I truly believe this is possible.”

Professor Tshilidzi Marwala, the Rector of the United Nations University, also emphasized the responsibility to carry forward the voices of all those affected by nuclear weapons. Renewing the United Nations’ founding pledge “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” he called on the generations who will shape the future to take action for peace with foresight and courage.

This article is brought to you by INPS Japan in collaboration with Soka Gakkai International, in consultative status with UN ECOSOC.

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Chrystal Tabobandung, Founder of RAISE Indigenous cultural awareness.

By Minoru Harada
TOKYO, Aug 28 2025 (IPS)

Minoru Harada, president of the Soka Gakkai Buddhist organization, has today issued a statement marking 80 years since the end of World War II, titled “Creating a Wave of Change Toward a Century Without War,” clarifying its ongoing commitment to peace.

Harada’s statement is grounded in the determination that no one on this planet should have to endure the horrors of war. Sharing his own wartime experiences of the terror of the firebombing of Tokyo, Harada expresses condolences for those killed in war and regret for the suffering caused by the Japanese military during World War II.

He writes: “As a Japanese citizen, I once again firmly pledge to continue working to build peace not only in the Asia-Pacific region, where Japan’s past actions caused immense devastation and suffering, but also throughout the world, guided by deep reflection on this history.”

Harada stresses that concern for the suffering of innocent civilians underpins the Soka Gakkai’s commitment to peace. The same concern motivated the manifold efforts to build peace and renounce war initiated by his mentor SGI President Daisaku Ikeda (1928–2023)—from his visits to countries in Asia devastated by Japanese brutality to his efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons, and his contribution of annual peace proposals over a 40-year period.

Harada expresses grave concern about the ongoing conflicts and calamitous situations in Ukraine and Gaza and calls for persistent diplomatic efforts to achieve genuine ceasefires. He laments that the 80-year-old goal of the Charter of the United Nations—freeing the world from the scourge of war—has not yet been achieved and urges adherence to international humanitarian law. He also proposes galvanizing public opinion toward the prohibition and abolition of nuclear weapons.

Harada concludes by outlining three key commitments by the Soka Gakkai:

Firstly, ongoing youth exchanges, in line with the organization’s long track record of promoting grassroots exchanges with neighboring countries in Asia, including China and South Korea. He writes: “We firmly believe that friendships forged by the youth of the next generation will serve as the most powerful foundation for a bulwark against war.”

Secondly, Harada confirms the commitment to continued engagement in interfaith dialogue of the Soka Gakkai and the SGI (Soka Gakkai International).

And thirdly, he urges the expansion of global solidarity and commits to ongoing support for UN-centered efforts to address issues such as human rights and climate change.

He states: “Now, more than ever, the international community must transition from an era characterized by increasing mutual mistrust leading to military buildup to one in which nations work together to tackle common threats and challenges facing humanity. By steadily advancing such efforts, the path toward a century defined by the renunciation of war will inevitably come into clear view.”

The Soka Gakkai is a global community-based Buddhist organization that promotes peace, culture and education centered on respect for the dignity of life. Its members study and put into practice the humanistic philosophy of Nichiren Buddhism. Minoru Harada has been Soka Gakkai president since 2006.

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Excerpt: