WHO Launches $1 Billion Appeal Amid Funding Shortfalls and Widening Gaps in Healthcare Access

On February 3, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched its 2026 global appeal to help millions of people living in protracted conflicts and humanitarian crises access lifesaving healthcare. Following a trend of sharply declining international funding, the agency warns that it is becoming increasingly difficult to respond to emerging health threats, including pandemics and drug-resistant infections.

Protecting Africa’s Ocean Future and Why a Precautionary Pause on Deep-sea Mining Matters

The world is entering a decisive period for the future of the ocean. With the High Seas Treaty coming into force and meaningful progress being made on the World Trade Organization Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, global momentum for stronger marine governance is building. Yet, new pressures linked to the push for deep-sea mining — the extraction of minerals from seabed thousands of meters below the ocean surface — threaten to undermine these gains. To safeguard progress, global decision-making will have to keep pace with such emerging risks. In this context, Africa will host several global discussions in 2026, including those that will shape the ocean's future, with a series of opportunities for leadership starting with the African Union Summit in February to the Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa, Kenya in June.

High Seas Treaty Will Transform Our Fragile Ocean for the Better

“The ocean’s health is humanity’s health”, said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in September 2025. He was commenting after the High Seas Treaty (BBNJ) [1] finally achieved ratification, going on to call for “a swift, full implementation” from all partners. As of January 17, 2026, the treaty has come into force, meaning the time for implementation is now. What is the High Seas Treaty?

U.S. Exit from Paris Agreement Deepens Climate Vulnerability for the Rest of the World

On January 27, the United States officially withdrew from the Paris Agreement, an international treaty adopted in 2015 aiming to reduce global warming and strengthen countries’ resilience to climate impacts. Following a year of regulatory rollbacks and sustained efforts by the Trump administration to dismantle federal climate policy, this move is expected to trigger wide ranging ripple effects—undermining international efforts to curb climate change, accelerating environmental degradation and biodiversity loss, and increasing risks to human health, safety, and long-term development.

Melting Reserves of Power: Mongolia’s Glaciers and the Future of Energy and Food Security

The International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation in 2025 was a timely reminder that the stability of Mongolia’s economy rests on fragile mountain systems that are melting faster than ever recorded. The loss reverberates across the country’s energy and agricultural systems, two development pillars that draw from the same finite resource: water.

Moving Towards Agroecological Food Systems in Southern Africa

In a quiet village known as Nkhondola, in Chongwe District, Eastern Zambia, Royd Michelo and his wife, Adasila Kanyanga, have transformed their five-acre piece of land into a self-sustaining agroecological landscape. With healthy soils built over time, the farm teems with diverse food crops, fruit trees, livestock and birds, nourishing their family and the surrounding community.

World’s Oceans Hit Record Heat in 2025, at Great Economic and Social Costs

In 2025, global ocean temperatures rose to some of the highest levels ever recorded, signaling a continued accumulation of heat within the Earth’s climate system and raising deep concern among climate scientists. The economic toll of ocean-related impacts—including collapsing fisheries, widespread coral reef degradation, and mounting damage to coastal infrastructure—is now estimated to be nearly double the global cost of carbon emissions, placing immense strain on economies and endangering millions of lives.

World Living Beyond Its Means: Warns UN’s Global Water Bankruptcy Report

The world has entered what United Nations researchers now describe as an era of Global Water Bankruptcy, a condition where humanity has irreversibly overspent the planet’s water resources, leaving ecosystems, economies, and communities unable to recover to previous levels.

Karatoya

Once a lifeline of northern Bengal, Bangladesh’s Karatoya River now drifts through Bogura as a fragmented, polluted channel, where climate change and human neglect quietly reshape livelihoods, memory, and everyday life.

The UN’s Withering Vine: A US Retreat from Global Governance

 
The Trump administration’s recent announcement of its withdrawal from 66 international organisations has been met with a mixture of alarm and applause. While the headline number suggests a dramatic retreat from the world stage, a closer look reveals a more nuanced, and perhaps more insidious, strategy. The move is less a wholesale abandonment of the United Nations system and more a targeted pruning of the multilateral vine, aimed at withering specific branches of global cooperation that the administration deems contrary to its interests. While the immediate financial impact may be less than feared, the long-term consequences for the UN and the rules-based international order are profound.

How Extreme Weather is Testing Tanzania’s $2 Billion Electric Railway Dream

On a rainy Wednesday morning, in Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania, the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) terminal bustled with a steady flow of passengers. Women ushered toddlers along. Snack bags dangling on their hands. Tourists dragged wheeled suitcases across the floor. Students scrolled through smartphones as they returned to campus. Each had been attracted by the speed, reliability and comfort of the electric train.

What Next? United States Exits Key Entities, Vital Climate Treaties in Major Retreat from Global Cooperation

President Donald Trump has escalated efforts to further distance the United States from international organizations and entities focused on climate, the environment, and energy. This strategy is in step with his administration’s established approach to undermine and redirect funds and international cooperation away from climate and clean energy programs.

Tracking the Invisible: Monitoring Air Pollution from Space

Take a deep breath. Did you know that in many countries in Asia and the Pacific, the air we breathe falls short of the safety standards for air quality set by the World Health Organization? While the start of a new year signals new beginnings, it also marks the continuation of the recurring air quality crisis across many countries in the region.

Richest 1% have Blown Through their Fair Share of Carbon Emissions for 2026 –in just 10 Days

The richest 1% have exhausted their annual carbon budget – the amount of CO2 that can be emitted while staying within 1.5 degrees of warming - only ten days into the year, according to new analysis from Oxfam. The richest 0.1% already used up their carbon limit on the 3rd January.

Experts Urge Rapid Adaptation as India Braces for ‘Stronger’ Cyclones, Quakes

Despite early warnings reportedly reaching communities before the cyclones (Ditwah and Senyar) struck coastal regions in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia late in November 2025, over 1,500 people lost their lives and hundreds went missing even as millions were impacted by these disasters, which caused massive destruction. Scientists say that these disasters reflect a changing climate system, which is making cyclones more hazardous than what we considered “typical” in the past.

Excluding Food Systems From Climate Deal Is a Recipe for Disaster

As they ate catered meals, COP30 negotiators had no appetite for fixing broken food systems, a major source of climate pollution, experts warn. Food systems are the complete journey food takes—from the farm to fork—which means its growing, processing, distribution, trade and consumption and even the waste.

US Retreat from Multilateral Institutions Undermines Rule Of Law

The Trump Administration’s sweeping executive order to withdraw the United States from dozens of United Nations bodies and international organizations, as well as a treaty ratified by the United States with the advice and consent of the US Senate, is a targeted assault on multilateralism, international law, and global institutions critical to safeguarding human rights, peace, and climate justice.

United States Withdrawal From Organizations Triggers Global Alarm

President Donald Trump's executive order to stop United States support for 66 international organizations, including 31 United Nations (UN) groups, has faced strong opposition from these organizations, the global community, humanitarian experts, and climate advocates, who are concerned about the negative effects on global cooperation, sustainable development, and international peace and security.

The Bitter Sweet Future of Cocoa Showcased During COP30, Belém

Izete dos Santos Costa, also known as Dona Nena among locals in Combu Island, welcomed hundreds of people from around the world during the recent climate conference in Belém. Her team showcased local crafts and chocolate-making processes in the land of the Amazon rainforest—far from the deafening air conditioner sounds at the Parque da Cidade, where the COP30 negotiations were ongoing.

A Grim Year for Democracy and Civic Freedoms – but in Gen Z There Is Hope

2025 has been a terrible year for democracy. Just over 7 per cent of the world’s population now live in places where the rights to organise, protest and speak out are generally respected, according to the CIVICUS Monitor, a civil society research partnership that measures civic freedoms around the world. This is a sharp drop from over 14 per cent this time last year.

A Global Movement for Nutrition Is Needed Now More than Ever

In my more than 30 years with the United Nations, I’ve seen enormous change, collaboration and progress towards improving human development. But I’ve also seen how history has a way of repeating itself to entrench some of the most intractable global challenges.