The Emerging Quad 3.0: Prioritizing a Hard Security Agenda

On 1 July, the foreign ministers of the Quad—Australia, India, Japan and the US—convened for the second time this year in Washington, DC. While the first meeting, held just hours after the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States, signaled the Quad's significance to the new US administration, the second meeting indicates that the Quad is entering a new phase with a renewed focus on a strategic and hard security agenda, weaning itself away from its non-traditional security priorities. This presents a departure from its previous versions: the first Quad, which collapsed in 2007, centred on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR), and Quad 2.0, which was reinstated in 2017, gradually developed a broad public goods agenda.

From Streets to Rivers: Driving Bangkok’s Sustainable Transport Future

Thailand’s transport sector is a significant contributor to national greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 18.4 per cent of the country’s total emissions. Bangkok is at the centre of this challenge. With more registered vehicles than residents, the resulting traffic congestion worsens air pollution and strains the city’s roads and overall mobility infrastructure.

High Stakes: Mountain Tourism in a Warming World

“It started with a thunderous roar in the distance, followed by the clatter of rocks grinding together,” said Mohammad Hussain, 26, a student, who witnessed the flash flood that hit the lakeside of Attabad on June 25, around 12:30 pm, in the mountainous Hunza Valley, a popular tourist spot in the northern part of Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B).

US Signs Strategic Civil Nuclear Agreement with Malaysia– while Planning a Security Alliance in the Asia-Pacific Region

The US is apparently contemplating the possible creation—either a formal or an informal-- security alliance in the Asia-Pacific region on the lines of the longstanding collective defense pact, the 32-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

To Be, or Not To Be, An Undocumented Migrant

To be, or not to be, an undocumented migrant, that is the question for millions of men, women and children in many less developed countries. “Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them” for a better life as an undocumented migrant in a foreign land.

Faith on the Frontlines: New Military Chaplain Programme Reaches Soldiers in Africa

It is a cold morning in eastern Zimbabwe as Lieutenant Colonel Reverend Doctor Samba Mosweu celebrates a glorious moment he has been waiting for all his life.

‘International Demand for Coltan Is Linked to Violence in the DRC’

 
CIVICUS speaks with Claude Iguma, a mining governance expert with a PhD in Social Sciences, who is based in Bukavu, South Kivu province, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

HLPF 2025: Civil Society Is Not A Service Provider – We Are The Frontline Of Transformation

As delegates gather in New York over the coming weeks for the 2025 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), we see this moment as a test. A test of whether world leaders are serious about rescuing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - or content to let the promises of Agenda 2030 drift quietly into irrelevance.

Gender-Discriminatory Nationality Laws are Fueling Poverty & Violence Against Women

Around a quarter of countries still have nationality laws that deny women the same rights as men to acquire, retain, or change their citizenship, or to pass citizenship onto their children or foreign spouses.

Sweet Hope to End Bitter Pills for Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis

Every day, Yondela Kolweni has to hold down her son, who screams and fights when it is time for his daily life-saving TB tablets—a painful reminder of her battle with the world’s top infectious killer disease. “It is a fight I win feeling awful about what I have to do,” says Kolweni (30), a Cape Town resident and a TB survivor. “The tablets are bitter, and he spits them out most of the time, and that reminds me of the time I had to take the same pills.”

WHO, UNICEF Find the World Is Off Track To Meet Childhood Immunization Goals

The latest data highlights that the world is off track to meet the targets set by the Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) to achieve 90 percent global immunization coverage for essential childhood vaccines and halve the number of unvaccinated children by 2030.

Trump Tech Big Bro: Monopoly Is Best

Trump’s billionaire cronies want more monopoly profits, not competition. With more policies crafted for them, wealth concentration is set to become greater than ever.

Financing for Whom? Trials & Tribulations from the Fourth Financing for Development in Seville

The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) took place in Seville, Spain from 30th June to 3rd July amidst intensifying attacks on multilateralism, unprecedented cuts to global aid and development financing, and regression of decades of progress in the fight against poverty.

A Crisis of Contagion and Collapse: Why Cholera Continues To Be a Problem in the DRC

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is grappling with one of its worst cholera outbreaks in recent history, exposing deep systemic cracks in public health, water infrastructure, and humanitarian response, leaving its youngest citizens in peril.

Man, Sea, Algae: HOMO SARGASSUM’s Stirring Critique of Human Culpability in the Caribbean

The United Nations’ HOMO SARGASSUM exhibition served as a public immersion into the marine world and called upon viewers to take action in the face of the climate crisis, specifically regarding invasive species and water pollution.

Can the Cali Fund Deliver on Its Billion-Dollar Biodiversity Pledge?

When the Cali Fund was unveiled in February on the sidelines of COP16.2 in Rome, the announcement sent ripples through the global conservation community. For the first time ever, companies that profit from digital sequence information (DSI)—the digitized genetic material of plants, animals, and microorganisms—will be expected to pay into a multilateral fund to protect the very biodiversity they benefit from.

The Risks Artificial Intelligence Pose for the Global South

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly developing and leaving its mark across the globe. Yet the implementation of AI risks widening the gap between the Global North and South.

NATO’s Trillion-dollar Gamble: The Dangers of Defence Without Accountability

Donald Trump’s bullying tactics ahead of NATO’s annual summit, held in The Hague in June, worked spectacularly. By threatening to redefine NATO’s article 5 – the collective defence provision that has anchored western security since 1949 – Trump won commitments from NATO allies to almost triple their defence spending to five per cent of GDP by 2035. European defence budgets will balloon from around US$500 billion to over US$1 trillion annually, essentially matching US spending levels.

Will the FfD4 Sevilla Commitment Ever be Followed up?

The extensive plan of action adopted at the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4), held recently in Sevilla, Spain (30 June - 3 July), triggers the question: Where will the money come from?

UN Reform: Is it Time to Renew the Idea of Clustering the Major Environmental Agreements?

“Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Winston Churchill’s famous maxim feels very relevant today, when multilateralism and many environmental causes seem to be in retreat. We now face a triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.

Conflict, Climate Change Push Migrants in Yemen to Return to Their Home Countries

Yemen's humanitarian crisis, driven by conflict, economic collapse and climate shocks, leaves migrants desperate to return to their home countries.