IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse

UN Re-Surfaces After Long Pandemic Lay-off

By Thalif Deen
After several on-again and off-again pandemic lockdowns, the United Nations is planning to return to normal beginning this week. A circular from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on March 11 says “based on the new guidelines, we are now able to institute associated changes in our workplace, returning to full operational capability while still prioritizing the health and safety of personnel, and balancing the operational needs of the Organization”.

International Women’s Day, 2022
To Overcome Africa’s Development Crisis, Invest in Strengthening Girls’ Power

By Caroline Ngonze
It was on a visit to Lesotho that I first heard the derogatory term Mmutla – nocturnal hare. It is a word used in some southern districts to insult adolescent girls who have been forced into sexual exploitation and transactional sexual relations for survival.

International Women’s Day, 2022
Raising up Women as Light in Dark Times

By Gabrielle Lipton
When I was a young girl, a friend and I spent our summers building a treehouse. We built it because our older brothers were building one and wouldn’t allow us to help them. So, we asked our parents to support us through the procurement of basic tools, collected scrap wood from the local hardware store, chose a tree, and then spent day after day puzzling beams and boards together into structure in which only people of our small size could fit.

Changing a System that Exploits Nature and Women, for a Sustainable Future

By Mariela Jara
"Pachamama (Mother Earth) is upset with all the damage we are doing to her," says Hilda Roca, an indigenous Peruvian farmer from Cusipata, in the Andes highlands of the department of Cuzco, referring to climate change and the havoc it is wreaking on her life and her environment.

International Women’s Day, 2022
To be Just, the Energy Transition Must Include & Empower Women

By Lucia Cortina
Access to clean energy improves women’s lives in a myriad of ways. It supports access to education and quality healthcare, opens new economic opportunities, and reduces unpaid domestic labour and gender-based violence. Yet too often, the sector as a whole – from industry to policymaking – still fails to include women as energy users, decision-makers and agents of change of the energy transition.

International Women’s Day, 2022
Gender Blind Spots in the Water Sector

By Lina Taing and Grace Oluwasanya
UN Women estimates 150 million women and girls are emerging from poverty by 2030, thanks largely to comprehensive education, labor, and social protection strategies and reforms implemented by governments around the world.

International Women’s Day, 2022
Sexual Violence Laws are Failing Adolescents

By Jacqui Hunt
At Equality Now, we have been on a years-long journey to track and analyze sexual violence laws and their implementation around the world. This work was born after working with survivors of sexual violence for over two decades and observing that women and girls reported similar barriers to justice regardless of where they were from.

International Women’s Day, 2022
Women Demanding Justice & Peace in the Streets of Myanmar

By May Sabe Phyu
This will be the second International Women’s Day since the brutal coup erupted in Myanmar – and women remain fiercely in the lead in demanding justice and peace in the streets and behind closed doors.

International Women’s Day, 2022
Collective Solutions to Improve Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights in Climate Action

By Ayomide Oluseye and Gabriela Fernando
The devastating effects of climate change continue to disproportionately affect women and girls in the poorest regions, who have contributed the least to global warming.

Israel’s Glorious and Gloomy Reality

By Alon Ben-Meir
No people have ever risen from the ashes of near-extinction to form a country and achieve the height of development in every walk of life like Israel. These magnificent accomplishments are now tragically marred with domestically charged struggles which ominously undermine its very existence.

Is Big Power Rivalry Threatening to Sink the Indian Ocean Zone of Peace?

By Thalif Deen
A former Indian ambassador once told an American audience that one of the biggest misconceptions about the Indian Ocean is that it belongs to India. “Not so, but we wish we did”, he said, amidst laughter.

When the Fate of Half Our Planet is being Discussed, it’s too Important to Shut out Civil Society

By Will McCallum
Over the past two weeks, a petition signed by almost five million people globally was handed in to governments around the world. It called for a Global Ocean Treaty to help rescue our oceans.

UN’s Investigative Arm Launches Survey to Probe Racism & Discrimination in World Body

By Thalif Deen
The Joint Inspection Unit (JIU)-- the UN’s only independent external oversight body mandated to conduct evaluations, inspections and investigations-- is conducting a survey probing the widespread racism and discrimination in the world body.

Inconsistent Laws Perpetuate Unsafe Online Spaces for Children & Young People

By Amanda Manyame
The internet and digital technology have allowed children and young people to connect, exchange knowledge and information, and truly turn the world into a global village.

It is Time for a More Inclusive & Democratic UN

By Frank Habineza, Susanne Menge, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad and Angela Brown Burke
The global challenges we face are too complex for governance as usual. It is high time to strengthen the United Nations’ (UN) democratic and participatory character.

Is it Time to Bar Coup Leaders from the UN?

By Thalif Deen
A rash of military coups in Africa has resurrected a long dormant question: should leaders who take power through armed insurrections be barred from addressing the United Nations—an institution which swears by, and promotes, multi-party democracy?

Attacking Iran is a Recipe for a Catastrophe

By Alon Ben-Meir
Regardless of a success or failure to reach a new agreement with Iran, Israel must not attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and must work closely with the US to develop a joint strategy to curb Iran’s ambition to acquire nuclear weapons and potentially end the conflict with Iran on a more permanent basis

A Special Adviser to Probe Racism and Discrimination at UN

By Thalif Deen
“Racism and discrimination have no place in our world -- least of all at the United Nations”, warns UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who will soon appoint a Special Adviser to investigate the growing discrimination based on racial, national or ethnic origins in the world body.

Battle for Palestine: & the Day When David Felled Goliath with a Stone

By Thalif Deen
When Israeli Ambassador Gilat Erdan made an unusual presentation before the Security Council last week displaying a large rock, which he claimed, was hurled at Israeli vehicles in the Occupied Territories, a reporter at a UN press conference asked whether Palestinians will be given the right of reply--- by displaying in the Security Council chamber an Uzi sub- machine gun or a bulldozer deployed by Israeli armed forces against civilian demonstrations.

The UN’s Vital Role in Afghanistan

By Sultan Barakat and Richard Ponzio
On December 22, 2021, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to allow for more humanitarian assistance to reach vulnerable Afghans, while preventing the abuse of these funds by their Taliban rulers.

Mali must not Be a New Site for Clashes Between Global Powers

By Adam Dicko
Last week, I was delighted to speak to the United Nations Security Council. In the ten years that my country has been experiencing conflict, violence, and instability, dozens of conferences and other international summits have been held without ever really making room for those who are mobilized on a daily basis for more social justice, the defense of human rights and achieving Malian peace.
Next Page »