After over two years of extended warfare in Sudan, humanitarian organizations have expressed fears of an imminent collapse as widespread hunger, displacement, and insecurity ravages the population. With tensions between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) having reached a new peak in 2025, it is imperative that Sudanese communities in the most crisis-affected areas have unfettered access to life-saving aid.
CIVICUS speaks with Ukrainian gender rights activist Maryna Rudenko about the gendered impacts of the war in Ukraine and the importance of including women in peacebuilding efforts.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has profoundly impacted on women and girls. Many have been displaced and are struggling with poverty and unemployment. Those who’ve stayed endure daily missile attacks, damaged infrastructure, lack of basic services and sexual violence from Russian forces if they live in occupied territories. Women activists, caregivers and journalists are particularly vulnerable. The international community must increase support to ensure justice for victims and women’s inclusion in peace efforts.
For 2025, the theme of
World Health Immunization Week (24-30 April), “Immunization for All is Humanly Possible”, emphasizes the need to eradicate disparities in access to vaccines, particularly for children. By encouraging governments to implement vaccination programs at the local and national levels, the World Health Organization (WHO) seeks t0 ensure worldwide access to life-saving vaccines.
They found shoes, hundreds of them, scattered across the dirt floor of an extermination camp in Jalisco state. These abandoned shoes, once belonging to someone’s child, parent or spouse, stand as silent witnesses to Mexico’s deepest national trauma. Alongside charred human remains and makeshift crematoria meant to erase all evidence of humanity, they tell the story of a crisis that has reached industrial-scale proportions.
CIVICUS discusses Ecuador’s presidential election with Jorge Tapia de los Reyes, Coordinator of the Democracy and Politics Department and the Political Funding Observatory of the Citizenship and Development Foundation (FCD). FCD is an Ecuadorian civil society organisation that promotes participation, citizen monitoring and open government.
As gang violence in Haiti continues to target civilians and critical infrastructures, humanitarian organizations and the Haitian National Police (HNP) have found it increasingly difficult to manage the growing scale of needs. The United Nations (UN) and its partners fear that Haiti will approach a nationwide collapse due to numerous shortfalls in funding, a widespread lack of essential resources, and rampant insecurity.
Creativity and innovation are essential to finding extraordinary solutions to abnormal problems. Now more than ever we must continue finding creative solutions to protect the world’s most vulnerable children from the excruciating pain of war, dispossession and destruction of their last hope: a quality education. The current humanitarian and development funding levels are falling. However, with creativity we can prevent further deterioration and instead turn towards an upward direction.
Since the deterioration of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in March, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have issued numerous evacuation orders and bombardments on the Gaza Strip, resulting in exacerbated rates of displacement and a significant amount of civilian casualties. Roughly two million Palestinians within the enclave struggle to stay alive amid repeated blockages of humanitarian aid.
Since the breakdown of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the Gaza Strip has been subjected to significant bombardment and blockages of humanitarian aid. With aid deliveries having been halted from entering the Gaza Strip for over one month, roughly two million Palestinians have been relying on dwindling resources, facing heightened risks of malnutrition and disease.
Europe must understand that the only reasonable and humane way to tackle migrant smuggling is to open regular routes for people to reach Europe in safety and dignity.
On April 4, it was confirmed by Myanmar authorities that there were approximately 180,000 Rohingya refugees residing in Bangladesh that are eligible to return. Following numerous cuts in funding as a result of President Donald Trump’s reduction of USAID, as well as the increasingly volatile humanitarian crisis in Myanmar, it is uncertain if repatriation will best serve Rohingya refugee communities.
The 7.7 magnitude earthquake that struck central Myanmar on March 28, marked the strongest earthquake the nation has experienced in over a century and the second deadliest in it’s history. The earthquake caused extensive damage in Myanmar and Thailand, with infrastructures in southern China and Vietnam also having been affected.
On March 18, the first plane with deportees from the US landed in Cap-Haïtien. Of the 46 passengers, 25 were convicted felons. Taking effect on April 24 the
US Department of Homeland Security will revoke the temporary legal status of more than 210,000 Haitians. They had by the Biden administration been granted a safe haven, but all these Haitians are now expected to be deported back to a country immersed in a humanitarian crisis.
Sigrid Kaag is the new Chair of Education Cannot Wait’s High-Level Steering Group. Kaag brings a wealth of experience in political, humanitarian and development affairs, as well as in diplomacy. In 2025, she was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres as the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, a.i. Kaag has just concluded her mandate as Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza, a role she held since 2024. She served as the first Deputy Prime Minister and first female Minister of Finance in the Dutch government starting in January 2022. Prior to this, she was Dutch Minister for Trade and Development Cooperation from October 2017 until May 2021, and Minister for Foreign Affairs until September 2021.[related_articles]
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) warns that 100,000s of people in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been pushed into desperate conditions by the escalation of violent conflict in 2025.
After nearly two years of extended warfare and protracted crises as a result of the Sudanese Civil War, Sudan remains the world’s biggest internal displacement crisis. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (
UNHCR), heightened insecurity, widespread famine, economic strife, and climate shocks threaten the lives of approximately 25.6 million people.
Ahead of the
International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade on March 24, the United Nations (UN) unveiled a new exhibition examining the themes of equality and transformative solidarity in the context of the African diaspora.
The United Nations Refugee Agency faces
devastating cuts that may eliminate 5,000 to 6,000 jobs, with potentially catastrophic consequences for millions of people fleeing war, repression, hunger and climate disasters. This 75-year-old institution, established to help Europeans displaced by the Second World War, now confronts an unprecedented financial crisis, primarily due to the US foreign aid freeze – and the timing couldn’t be worse.
Over the past two decades, conversations surrounding mental wellness have entered the cultural consciousness in the western world. Despite this, these topics receive far less media exposure in the Global South, particularly in areas that have been entrenched in warfare, where the onset of harmful mental health conditions are prevalent.
On March 18, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched an attack on the Gaza Strip, effectively terminating the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement. This comes after a pause in ceasefire operations when Israel continued its blockade on humanitarian aid in the enclave and demanded the release of additional hostages.
As the United States confronts the unflinching demographic piper with the stark facts of reality, the new administration and Congress are denying, disengaging and dismantling.