A civil society protest at COP 31 demands a transition from fossil fuels. Credit: UN Climate Change/Kubilay Ciftci

By Umar Manzoor Shah
ANTALYA, Türkiye, Nov 14 2026 (IPS)

The shift away from fossil fuels is made more difficult by the powerful, often overlooked role of national oil companies. These companies are deeply embedded in their countries’ economies and political systems.

During the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Inter Press Service (IPS) spoke exclusively with Amir Shafaie, Legal and Economic Program Director at the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), about the role of state-owned oil companies in the energy transition, the financial risks of continued fossil fuel investments and the policies governments need to adopt to meet global climate goals.

Shafaie said national oil companies produced 54 percent of the world’s oil and half of its gas in 2025. Their share of global production could rise to around 62 percent by 2050 if current trends continue.

Excerpts from the interview: 

Amir Shafaie, Legal and Economic Program Director at the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI). Photo: Supplied

IPS: National oil companies account for nearly half of global fossil fuel production. How significant is their role in the global transition away from fossil fuels, and why have they received less attention in climate negotiations?

Shafaie: National oil companies are even more significant than the question suggests. In 2025 they produced 54% of the world’s oil and half its gas, and their share is projected to reach around 62% by 2050. Last year (2025) NOC capital expenditure was around US$240 billion — more than three times what the oil majors spent. So, the pace of the transition away from fossil fuels will be significantly shaped by these state-owned companies.

NOCs are also politically sensitive. They often have a massive role in the national political economy and significant influence over government: they fund national budgets and public services and are often bound up with national identity.

Given their importance, it’s time to stop treating them as a footnote in transition conversations.

They deserve to be a headline.

IPS: What specific steps should national oil companies take to align their business strategies with the global goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C?

Shafaie: There is no single model — NOCs differ widely in mandate and capability — but every NOC needs a deliberate strategy of transformation to navigate the energy transition, and government owners of NOCs need to ensure that is the case.

As a first step, NOCs must stop treating business as usual as a neutral option and start to seriously assess the risks – and opportunities – presented by the global energy transition. Every NOC should test its planned investments against various demand scenarios, including those in which countries meet their climate pledges and oil and gas demand falls — and publish the results. Many projects that NOCs view positively today may not pay back. In 2023, NRGI analysis found that NOCs plan about US$1.8 trillion of upstream spending over the 2023-2032 period and that roughly a quarter, about US$425 billion, of that public money would be lost if oil demand falls in line with governments’ climate pledges.

Moreover, in these assessments, NOCs shouldn’t assume a pivot to gas eliminates risk: demand destruction from the recent crisis, with countries switching to renewables that can be cheaper and less geopolitically volatile, works against that; and there is still a lot of gas and LNG coming on to the market in coming years, so projects will need to be competitive.

Governments and NOCs also need a credible plan for the new business areas NOCs pursue, identifying sectors and technologies in which the NOC holds genuine comparative advantages.

Finally, NOCs are not only commercial entities—in many producing regions they are anchor employers and service providers, and their transformation carries real consequences for workers and communities. Governments and NOCs must anticipate the just transition needs of different regions as NOCs transform.”

IPS: How can governments persuade state-owned oil companies to reduce fossil fuel production while balancing energy security, economic growth and employment concerns?

Shafaie: Balancing these various concerns is not easy, but governments need to weigh all the factors (energy security, economic growth, employment concerns and production plans), not focus on just one or some of them. Governments are also well placed to do this with NOCS.

They own these companies or hold large stakes in them, so this is less about persuading NOCs than about setting a clear policy, including around how much revenue can go back into new oil and gas and requiring investments to be tested against different demand scenarios.

And there is room to balance these factors. The recent energy crisis shows that energy security and energy transition are not opposites: oil dependence is itself a security and cost-of-living risk, and NOCs often end up absorbing the cost, as Pertamina has with subsidised fuel prices.

The challenge also looks different for NOCs in net-importing and net-exporting countries. In net importers such as Thailand, producing more at home offers little protection from world prices, so the energy security gains come from cutting demand and diversifying supply. In large net exporters such as the UAE or Norway, the main risk is volatile revenues, and today’s windfalls are an opportunity to diversify their economies. Many NOCs, including Pemex, Pertamina, NNPC and increasingly Ecopetrol in the case of gas, sit in between and face both challenges at once, so governments need mandates that address both.”

IPS: What risks do continued investments in new oil and gas fields pose to developing countries, particularly in terms of stranded assets, public finances and long-term energy security?

Shafaie: The risks are significant, and they fall on ordinary people in producing countries. Our 2023 analysis finds that if governments meet their existing climate pledges, around a quarter of NOCs’ planned upstream investments for 2023–2032 may never break even. For some — Uganda’s UNOC and Cameroon’s SNH — the figure exceeds 80%.

When a state company’s assets lose value, the hit lands on public balance sheets, leaving less for health, education and diversification. Current high oil prices can mask these vulnerabilities in the short term, but they don’t remove them. The longer-term dynamics from the energy transition are still there. It is particularly important for NOCs and the government to exercise fiscal discipline in the current context, where market signals may lead them to take greater risks. As UN Secretary General Guterres said at COP31 ‘taxpayers should not underwrite investments that lock in fossil fuel dependence’.

IPS: The COP30 roadmap seeks to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. What concrete policy measures, financial incentives and accountability mechanisms are needed to ensure national oil companies become part of this transition rather than obstacles to it?

Shafaie: The Brazil COP roadmap is a significant step forward in taking the “transition away from fossil fuels” from an abstract idea to a basis for national planning. What happens at the national level is what really matters now.

The roadmap rightly asks countries to start now and equitably recognises that what this means in each country will differ, depending on exposure and capacity. The approach looks different in each country and can range from starting the phase-out of licensing and production in rich Global North producers to starting serious transition risk – and opportunity – assessments and associated planning in low- and middle-income producer countries.

The COP30 Presidency Roadmap also rightly recognises the distinctive role of NOCs at the intersection of public revenues, energy security and industrial development. Accordingly, for countries with NOCs, discussions around the NOC’s future should be central from the start if transition plans are to be credible.

International cooperation can also play a vital role in supporting NOC transformations through peer learning around scenario-based planning, disciplined investment decisions, decarbonisation and methane emissions abatement and finance for credible diversification into renewable energy and other business areas.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Members of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) gather at the COP31 climate summit, calling on governments to prioritise zero-waste solutions and methane reduction over waste-to-energy incineration in Antalya, Türkiye, on November 10, 2026. Credit: Nipe Fagio

By Chemtai Kirui
ANTALYA, Türkiye & NAIROBI, Nov 13 2026 (IPS)

Plans to build waste incineration plants across Africa risk undermining efforts to curb methane emissions, zero-waste campaigners have warned, as world leaders and climate negotiators gather in Antalya, Türkiye, for the COP31 climate summit.

Waste management and methane reduction are among the issues under discussion at the summit, with campaigners saying that governments should prioritise waste separation, composting and recycling over investment in incineration infrastructure.

Weyinmi Okotie, executive director of the Green Knowledge Foundation, said only 55% of municipal solid waste was collected across Africa, with just 4% recycled.

Organic material accounts for as much as 70% of municipal waste in some African cities, Okotie said, much of which ends up in dumpsites and landfills.

As it decomposes in oxygen-poor conditions, the waste releases methane, a greenhouse gas with about 80 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.

Food waste accounts for up to 14% of global methane emissions, according to a 2026 report by the UN Environment Programme

Mary Nyambura Kanyui at her recycling aggregation yard on Juja Road in Nairobi’s
Eastleigh area, where she buys recyclable materials from waste pickers. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS

and UN-Habitat. The report estimated that 1.05bn tonnes of food were wasted in 2022, even as 783mn people faced hunger.

A ministerial declaration issued at COP31 by countries participating in the Global Methane Pledge called on governments to prevent organic waste from being sent to landfill, expand resource recovery, and capture methane emissions where avoidance is not yet possible.

The declaration reaffirmed the Global Methane Pledge‘s goal of cutting global methane emissions by at least 30 per cent below 2020 levels by 2030. It was endorsed by seven countries: Belgium, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Norway, the UK and the Federated States of Micronesia.

The declaration was issued as ministers and private-sector representatives met to assess progress towards the target.

Existing commitments are projected to deliver only 10–11 per cent of the emissions reductions needed by 2030, participants warned, and they called for stronger policies, improved emissions monitoring, and increased public and private investment.

They called for stronger policies, improved emissions monitoring and greater investment to accelerate methane reductions across the energy, agriculture and waste sectors.

Global municipal solid waste is projected to rise from 2.1bn tonnes in 2023 to 3.8bn tonnes by 2050, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The annual cost of managing waste, including the effects of pollution, ill health and climate change, could reach US$640.3bn by then if current trends persist.

A shift towards a circular economy, in which materials are reused rather than discarded, could instead generate net annual economic gains of US$108.5bn by 2050, UNEP estimates.

Türkiye’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, urged governments to embrace zero-waste initiatives, saying efforts to reduce rubbish and increase recycling could help cut emissions and tackle the climate crisis.

His call came as Türkiye’s COP31 presidency urged countries to halve the projected growth in global annual waste generation by 2035. The proposed target shifts the focus from waste collection and disposal towards preventing waste at source, extending the life of materials and reducing emissions from discarded organic matter.

Sherphine Apiyo Kochiyo, a monitoring and evaluation officer at Kenya’s Centre for Environment Justice and Development (CEJAD), attends the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Türkiye. Credit: GAIA

Wednesday was designated Zero Waste Day at COP31, with discussions focusing on circularity and methane reduction.

But campaigners warned that the growing promotion of waste-to-energy incinerators in African countries risked locking cities into costly infrastructure and diverting investment from waste prevention, composting and recycling.

An average of USD 4.1bn a year in climate finance was tracked for methane reduction in the solid-waste sector in 2021–22, but 94 per cent of that funding — USD 3.86bn — went to projects involving undifferentiated waste incineration, according to the Climate Policy Initiative.

Just USD 223m went to targeted waste-management measures, such as landfill-gas capture and food-waste anaerobic digestion. A further USD 22m was directed to organic-waste management. Sub-Saharan Africa received 57 per cent of the funding for targeted projects, the analysis found.

A report by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), published in October, identified 15 waste-to-energy incineration projects and proposals across 10 African countries, with combined estimated capital costs exceeding US$4bn.

Public funding was the largest identified source of finance. Yet only one project — the Reppie plant in Ethiopia — was operational. Two others were under construction, while the remaining 12 were at various stages of approval, financing, planning or proposal.

Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran, a researcher at India’s Centre for Financial Accountability, said companies were increasingly promoting incineration in Africa after pushing the technology in parts of Asia.

Waste workers with the Nipe Fagio waste collection service sift through compost to remove larger particles during the production of organic fertiliser in Bonyokwa, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2023. Credit: Nipe Fagio

Kulasekaran cited a proposed plant in Casablanca, Morocco, which would be the largest incinerator in Africa if built. An agreement for the project was signed in August, he said, although details of its financing remained unavailable.

Desmond Alugnoa, programme manager for zero waste and climate at GAIA, said governments facing waste-management problems and electricity shortages were attracted by the prospect of generating power from rubbish.

But incinerators required large upfront investments and a constant supply of waste to operate, he said. Alugnoa cited Ethiopia’s Reppie plant, which he said had received substantial public investment but generated relatively little electricity for the national grid compared with its operating costs.

Such projects also risked diverting public money from efforts to reduce waste before it was discarded, Alugnoa said.

Across eastern, western and southern Africa, community-based waste workers are already recovering organic waste and recyclable materials that might otherwise end up in dumpsites and landfills.

In Ngong, located on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, Michael Wangombe collects food waste from markets and nearby businesses and supplies it to a black soldier fly project, where larvae convert the organic material into fertiliser.

Collectors are paid about KSh80 (US$0.62) for each bucket of waste collected. The material is weighed before being fed to the larvae, while the remaining residue is processed into fertiliser for agricultural use.

Wangombe is a member of the Ngong Social Justice and Environmental Centre, whose members have received protective equipment and support in finding buyers through the Danish Refugee Council’s Fair Recycling project.

Maurice Onzere, project manager of the Danish Refugee Council’s Fair Recycling project, said the initiative was helping waste pickers move from informal collection into more structured recycling businesses.

Participants receive training in waste segregation, financial management and market access, and are linked to aggregation centres where they can sell recovered materials to recycling companies.

Further along the waste-recovery chain, Mary Nyambura Kanyui runs an aggregation yard on Juja Road in Nairobi’s Eastleigh area, buying recyclable materials from waste pickers and selling them to recycling companies.

Kanyui spent three years collecting waste before setting up the business nearly six years ago. She now employs five workers, each earning KSh600 ($4.57) a day.

The Danish Refugee Council has helped her establish links with buyers, including recycling companies.

Onzere said women accounted for 57% of the waste pickers engaged by the programme in December 2025, up from less than 12% in 2021. The project works with about 4,000 waste pickers, including refugees and members of host communities.

In Tanzania, the environmental organisation Nipe Fagio works with waste pickers in Dar es Salaam to turn organic waste into fertiliser using black soldier fly larvae. The organisation is also working with the city of Zanzibar on plans for a zero-waste island.

A similar model is being pursued in Ghana, where a project established with Alugnoa’s support converts food and other organic waste into compost for urban farmers. The initiative also works with farmers to demonstrate its use. Despite operating across several municipalities, it processes less than 70 per cent of the city’s organic waste, Alugnoa said.

Durban, South Africa offers another approach. At Warwick Market, a project diverts unsold food from traders for use as animal feed, with the remaining waste sent for composting.

These initiatives were among the approaches discussed at the COP31 Food and Agriculture Pavilion, where practitioners from Tanzania, Uganda and Indonesia shared experiences of using black soldier fly larvae, biogas and composting to manage organic waste and reduce methane emissions.

Piotr Barczak of Africa Circular presented the BUGS project, which supports the development of black soldier fly systems across Africa. Representatives of Tanzania’s Nipe Fagio, Uganda’s Collect Village and GAIA Asia Pacific in Indonesia also outlined how these approaches were being applied in their respective countries.

But expanding such initiatives and the wider systems that support waste recovery requires investment.

Kanyui said she could make a profit of KSh10,000–15,000 (US$77–116) on days when she sold plastic after paying her workers. But banks were reluctant to lend to her because they did not consider the materials and equipment at her yard sufficient collateral.

“Someone goes to the yard the first time and sees rubbish,” she said.

Kanyui said access to a loan would allow her to buy more recyclable materials and that she would be able to repay it quickly.

Kenya’s Sustainable Waste Management Act, passed in 2022, requires waste to be separated at source and makes producers responsible for the environmental impact of products they introduce to the market. Regulations gazetted in November 2024 established an extended producer responsibility (EPR) framework, requiring companies to finance the collection and recycling of waste from their products.

Companies can meet these obligations individually or through producer responsibility organisations (PROs), which collect contributions from members and arrange for the recovery and recycling of discarded materials.

Dorothy Adhiambo Otieno, a programme officer at Kenya’s Centre for Environment Justice and Development (CEJAD), said some PROs had initially subsidised recycling companies buying recovered materials before shifting their support to aggregators, who collect materials from waste pickers and supply them to recyclers.

Some PROs were now exploring direct payments to waste pickers, Otieno said. But workers operating informally faced documentation requirements, including obtaining personal identification numbers from the Kenya Revenue Authority, which could make it difficult for them to receive payments.

Figures published by the Kenya Extended Producer Responsibility Organisation (KEPRO) show that its subsidy framework for September–December 2026 allocates 30 per cent of funding to recyclers, 25 per cent to aggregators, 15 per cent to transporters and the remaining 30 per cent to waste collectors.

Individual waste pickers and community-based organisations can participate through contracted aggregators. Guidance issued by the National Environment Management Authority (Nema) also provides for direct payments to waste pickers at collection points and material recovery facilities.

Producers are required to publish the rates they pay for waste collection services, the guidance says.

Sherphine Apiyo Kochiyo, a monitoring and evaluation officer at CEJAD, said the framework was welcome, but its effectiveness would depend on whether funding reached the workers recovering the waste.

Speaking on the sidelines of COP31, Kochiyo called for greater investment in community-based waste management, including separate collection vehicles for organic and dry waste, support for compost standards and certification, and funding to help community organisations participate in developing waste-management policies.

Campaigners warned that expanding incineration capacity risked diverting investment from waste reduction, recycling and composting. Kulasekaran said the plants’ need for a steady supply of rubbish could also lock cities into long-term dependence on incineration, rather than encouraging efforts to reduce waste at the source.

UN secretary-general António Guterres urged governments to move beyond pledges and increase investment in waste collection, composting and circular infrastructure. Citing projects in Durban, Dhaka and Kampala that convert organic waste into compost, fertiliser and animal feed, he said such initiatives could create jobs and lower costs.

“The era of pledges is over. The world needs action,” Guterres said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 
CIVICUS discusses the case for United Nations (UN) reform with Heba Aly, director of the Article 109 Coalition, an international civil society network that calls on states to review and update the UN Charter.

Heba Aly

Why does the UN Charter need reforming?

Our world faces multiple existential challenges. Violence and conflict are on the rise, as seen in Gaza, Iran and Ukraine, among other places, and the UN has been unable to respond meaningfully. The changing climate is devastating communities, with the recent flooding in Nepal just the latest example. AI is going off the rails, with AI agents acting rogue in the absence of regulation. And big powers are threatening nuclear war. Our current global governance systems are not equipped to deal with any of this.

At the same time, the UN is under attack. The USA, its historic architect, is now undermining it by questioning its effectiveness, cutting its funding and establishing competing bodies. Other states are retreating from multilateralism, some because they don’t want to play by the rules, others because they feel the UN doesn’t represent the interests of the majority.

That is in part because the UN’s architecture still reflects the world of 1945 rather than that of 2026 and still privileges five countries that won a war over 80 years ago. Its Charter was adopted before the internet, before the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, before the idea of planetary boundaries.

Triggering Article 109 of the UN Charter, which establishes the process for convening a General Conference of UN member states to review and update the Charter, offers the possibility of bringing the UN into the 21st century.

How can Article 109 be triggered, and why use it?

Triggering Article 109 requires a two-thirds majority vote in the UN General Assembly, where every state has a seat, plus the support of nine of the 15 members of the Security Council. This means the five permanent members of the Security Council cannot veto a conference being held. So triggering Article 109 is very much within reach.

Article 109 offers a pathway to a renewed UN architecture that is democratic, inclusive and fit for the 21st century, and legitimate because it is rooted in the Charter. It was a concession made in 1945 to the many countries that opposed giving the five permanent Security Council members veto power, with the promise that this would be revisited by the UN’s 10th year. The purpose of Article 109 was also to offer the means to adapt the organisation to changing world circumstances, based on learning from its first years of operation. Eighty-one years on, this built-in review mechanism has never been used. It’s an opportunity hiding in plain sight.

A General Conference would bring all states together to discuss openly what is and is not working in international governance, and where changes are needed for everyone’s benefit. Many states have grievances about the current system, and giving them a chance to share their vision of a future UN can help rebuild much-needed trust.

What about the risk of making things worse?

The threats the world faces today need urgent action. If we do nothing, the UN could collapse altogether.

Our recent analysis of voting patterns at the UN General Assembly shows that efforts to roll back norms on climate change, gender and human rights have failed to secure two-thirds majority support, which is the threshold required to change the Charter. The data simply does not support the suggestion that a majority of states would back an outcome that dilutes fundamental principles of the Charter. In fact, it suggests quite the opposite. An overwhelming majority of states have expressed support for human rights and multilateralism, as evidenced by initiatives such as the Friends of Human Rights and Multilateralism, the Hague Group and Partners for Multilateralism.

A new world order is going to emerge, whether we like it or not. It will be either built by the powers who are de facto changing realities on the ground or shaped through a structured and inclusive process where every state has a voice. That’s what a General Conference to review the UN Charter would offer.

What would reform mean for people in the global majority?

Most of the effects of today’s crises are felt in global majority countries. Take climate change. It is estimated that some 143 million people in global majority countries will be displaced by its effects by 2050. The disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global majority countries was another striking example.

Most of these crises stem from failures of global governance and inequitable decision-making at the global level. And that is in part because international institutions tend to exclude global majority voices. This means the countries suffering the most do not have enough of a voice in the fora set up to tackle these challenges.

The Security Council is an example of this. Although the majority of its work is dedicated to Africa, the continent does not have a permanent seat on the Council.

A review of the UN Charter is an opportunity to rebalance power and ensure equitable access to resources and equal protection from harm. It is an opportunity for the global majority to shape the next world order in a way they could not in 1945, when many countries, still under colonial rule, did not have a seat at the table.

What role should civil society play in reform?

There is strong public support for international cooperation and an effective UN. One recent poll found that 57 per cent of people across 34 countries want their country to work with others to take on common threats, even if it means compromising on some national interests. And in another, 73 per cent of people who had an opinion about the UN said it needed reform.

Civil society therefore has an essential role in channelling public demands for a UN that can deliver effective international cooperation. It can help push states to embrace a more ambitious vision of multilateralism and pressure them to meet the moment.

Civil society can also help think through the outcomes we want from a Charter review and from a future UN and, during negotiations, hold governments accountable for outcomes that benefit people. Those outcomes could include a much more formal role for civil society at the UN. Today civil society engagement at the UN is often a tick-box exercise, and many civil society organisations face restricted access. A renewed Charter could codify a role for civil society in international decision-making that goes beyond today’s voluntary consultative approach.

I encourage civil society organisations that are interested in rebuilding international cooperation to get in touch and join the hundred-plus organisations that are already part of our network.

There are reasons for hope. In recent months, many western leaders have echoed what leaders from the global majority have been saying for some time: that the current world order is not fair and that we need something more equitable. Now we have an opportunity to make that happen.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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A seal navigates the icy waters of the Antarctic—an ecosystem under mounting pressure from commercial fishing and climate change. Credit: Our Antarctica/Shawn Heinrichs

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 12 2026 (IPS)

On October 30, the 45th annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR-45) concluded in Hobart, Australia. After another year of negotiations without a consensus reached on Antarctic marine protection measures or krill fishing regulations, conservation groups are urging consumers and retailers to boycott all krill products.

Widely regarded as a vital, shared global commons, the Antarctic is home to trillions of krill. A keystone species, krill from the Southern Ocean form the backbone of the polar ecosystem, sustaining nearly every major predator, from seabirds and seals to whales. Antarctic krill possess one of the largest biomasses of any wild animal on Earth, measuring between 379 and 500 million tonnes.

In an exclusive interview with IPS, marine biologist, policy expert, and Antarctic Wildlife Alliance Executive Director Ally Kristan explained that Antarctic krill act as a “tremendous” carbon sink and are critically important for the health of the Southern Ocean. She stressed that the stability of Antarctic marine ecosystems is a major climate driver for the entire globe.

“If you lose krill, you lose the foundation of the entire Southern Ocean food web. So then, all of the predators who feed on krill and the predators who feed on the predators who feed on krill would all be decimated,” said Kristan. “So we do need a healthy Southern Ocean ecosystem, biologically and chemically, to have a healthy climate and to have as much carbon absorbed into these nutrient-rich cold waters of the Southern Ocean.”

Despite their ecological importance, industrial fishing fleets harvest hundreds of thousands of tonnes of krill annually. Given the abundance of krill biomass in the Southern Ocean, Kristan noted that the species is “probably” not being overfished, but the central issue lies with how they are being fished.

She explained that industrial krill fishing is often heavily concentrated in small areas, which can have devastating localized impacts on regional marine fauna. With krill fishing often overlapping with wildlife feeding grounds, polar predators have been increasingly forced to compete with commercial supertrawlers for food.

“Science shows us that the krill fishery and the recovering whale population both probably can’t be supported by krill populations, especially as the climate continues to change,” she said. “Fisheries have a huge compounding impact on all the climate pressures whales are already facing.”

IPS also spoke with Max Bello, an international ocean policy expert and Blue Marine Foundation’s Global MPA Specialist. He underscored the ethical concerns surrounding Antarctic krill extraction, noting that it supplies high-end consumer products, such as omega-3 supplements, pet food, and farmed fish feed, even though viable alternatives exist.

Kristan added that krill fishing has no direct use for addressing human food security. Instead, fleets from wealthy nations in the Global North—primarily Norway and China—exploit this shared global resource to supply high-end markets, risking potentially dire environmental consequences.

She highlighted the commercial market for the luxury Antarctic toothfish—commonly sold under the market name of “Chilean Seabass”—as a key example. Bello echoed these concerns, emphasizing that up to 70 percent of harvested krill goes toward salmon aquaculture, a market “which has proven to be extremely destructive around the entire world, highly polluted.”

Bello stressed that unsustainable krill fishing practices coupled with the Antarctic’s position as an Area Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) set an alarming precedent, with global powers relying on a shared resource to enrich themselves.

“This definitely creates a big question about our governance of the oceans around the world, where we keep seeing wealthy nations and companies that have the technology and resources to exploit an area that belongs to us all,” said Bello. “So that sends a really worrisome message. A message to our nations that we are basically spectators or witnesses of how other countries continue to build wealth out of the destruction of a common resource.”

He added that the exploitation of Antarctic marine ecosystems has ripple effects that go “beyond money” that we all depend on, such as oxygen, biodiversity, and the “stability of our very vulnerable ecosystem.”

Seventeen years after CCAMLR members pledged to implement a comprehensive network of MPAs, only two have been established. In 2024, CCAMLR allowed the expiration of a critical safeguard designed to spread krill catches across four distinct management zones, which has elicited significant pushback from conservation and environmental justice groups.

Ahead of the summit, conservation groups called on governments to implement four marine protection measures: reinstating restrictions separating industrial fishing areas from wildlife feeding grounds, adopting the Antarctic Peninsula Marine Protected Area (MPA), setting a firm roadmap for completing a network of Southern Ocean MPAs, and introducing caps on krill catch limits. None of these calls were answered.

As CCAMLR continues to fail to deliver meaningful action, a growing global initiative has formed to protect Antarctic marine ecosystems by directly challenging consumer support in the markets. During NYC Climate Week in September, oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle and the Antarctic Avengers—a coalition of ocean leaders, policymakers, scientists, and public figures—launched a global boycott of Antarctic krill, urging consumers and retailers alike to reject all krill-derived products.

Several major retailers in the Global North have shown support for this growing movement. In April, Holland & Barrett—one of the United Kingdom’s leading international health and wellness retailers—entirely withdrew from the krill market, ceasing the sale and production of all krill-derived products.

Approximately 94 percent of German drugstores have also announced commitments to cease selling krill products. Two of Australia’s largest supermarket chains—Coles and Woolworths—followed suit. The Antarctic Wildlife Alliance continues to call on American retailers to take similar action.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Speaker of the House of Peoples' Representatives, Ethiopia, Ahmed Shide, told the African and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting on Policy Dialogue: Population, Development, SRHR, and Gender Equality that Africa’s young population and Asia’s varied demographic needs call for sustained investment in health, education, and decent employment, especially for young people and women. Credit: APDA

By Cecilia Russell
ADDIS ABABA & CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Nov 12 2026 (IPS)

Although Africa and Asia face different demographic challenges, they share a common imperative: ensuring that legislation, policies and budgets translate into tangible improvements in people’s lives.

This was the central message of Dr Abdul-Rashid Hassan Pelpuo, Ghana’s Minister of State for Special Initiatives and President of the African Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (FPA), in his opening address to the two-day Africa–Asia Parliamentarians’ Conference on Population and Development, held earlier this month in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The conference opened with a moment of silence in honour of former Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo, Honorary Chair of the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA), who was remembered for his contributions to international cooperation, particularly in population, development and sexual and reproductive health.

The opening session also featured addresses by Shibata Hironori, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Ethiopia, and an opening statement by Ahmed Shide, Speaker of the House of Peoples’ Representatives, Ethiopia.

A recurring theme was the importance of reliable demographic data to guide policies, budgets and long-term planning.

Shibata Hironori, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, said Japan has supported international cooperation and development efforts in Africa and Asia. Credit: APDA

Summing up the conference, Dr Claudia Shilumani, Africa Regional Director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), noted that Africa’s population was expected to grow by one billion by 2050, yet only about half of births were registered. She urged parliamentarians to advocate for modernised data systems, stressing that reliable information and transparent reporting were essential to measuring progress.

But data alone was not enough.

Dr Ikegami Kiyoko, Vice-Chair and Secretary-General of APDA, drew on Japan’s experience of an ageing population to demonstrate the importance of anticipating demographic change.

“Understanding population trends today helps parliamentarians anticipate future needs,” she said.

Her presentation also brought a deeply personal perspective to policymaking. Recounting her mother’s recovery from a stroke, she described how home-based medical care, rehabilitation, nursing and family support had helped her mother regain some independence and remain connected with her family.

Dr Claudia Shilumani, Africa Regional Director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), succinctly summarised a central message of the African and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting: Policy Dialogue on Population, Development, SRHR and Gender Equality, stating that rights need resources and resources need accountability. Credit: APDA

“Policies are ultimately about the people’s lives and dignity,” she said, emphasising that Japan’s goal was not simply to extend life expectancy but to enable people to remain healthy and independent for as long as possible.

The conference also showcased how cooperation between Africa and Asia was translating development commitments into practical interventions.

Mr Koffi Kouame, UNFPA Country Representative, highlighted an initiative involving the Ethiopian Government, UNFPA, Japan, JICA and Japanese private-sector companies to improve menstrual health while creating economic opportunities for women and girls.

Seng Nhak, an MP from Cambodia, outlined an ambitious programme to equip 1.5 million young people with vocational skills, including free training and financial support for disadvantaged participants at the African and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting: Policy Dialogue on Population, Development, SRHR and Gender Equality. Credit: APDA

ITOCHU Corporation provided technical training in producing absorbent sanitary shorts, while JICA, Safaricom and Sumitomo Corporation supported digital solutions, including smartphones and mobile money services that enabled women to purchase materials, manage finances and market their products.

The initiative has trained 485 women in sanitary shorts production and menstrual health management, with nearly 45 000 shorts produced across 17 workspaces in Amhara and Tigray. Approximately 33 000 people received training on reproductive and maternal health, rights and gender-based violence, while 500 women are now producing and selling the products in their communities.

Investing in young people emerged as another critical priority, particularly for Africa, where a rapidly growing youth population presents both opportunities and challenges.

UNFPA’s Jacques Emina noted that Africa’s population could reach 2.5 billion by 2050, with approximately 60% under the age of 25. He warned that youth unemployment and the mismatch between education and labour-market needs could undermine the continent’s prospects of harnessing a demographic dividend.

Drawing on South Korea’s experience, Young Hong, Deputy Regional Director, UNFPA ESARO, emphasised that building human capital required sustained investment over decades, rather than short-term projects. She highlighted how long-term investment in education, voluntary family planning and primary healthcare had contributed to the country’s economic transformation and helped break cycles of intergenerational poverty.

Yakushi Hiroyuki, Chief Representative, JICA Ethiopia Office, and Koffi Kouame, Country Representative of UNFPA, gave delegates at the African and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting: Policy Dialogue on Population, Development, SRHR and Gender Equality examples of pilot projects that benefit youth and women. Credit: APDA

Presentations from Ethiopia and Cambodia demonstrated how countries were working to equip young people with marketable skills.

Safaricom Ethiopia Foundation’s Bethlehem Tameru reported that more than 1 000 young people had completed foundational digital-skills training and over 1 700 had completed advanced training.

However, she stressed that success should be measured not simply by the number of people trained but by whether they secured employment, started businesses or improved their livelihoods.

“Training should not be the end of the intervention. It should be the beginning of the pathway.”

Seng Nhak, Cambodia’s MP, outlined an ambitious programme to equip 1.5 million young people with vocational skills, including free training and financial support for disadvantaged participants. He reported that 80% of graduates found employment in the companies where they had trained within six months, illustrating the importance of linking skills development directly to labour-market opportunities.

Across the presentations, a common message emerged: demographic change can create opportunities, but realising them requires sustained investment, effective partnerships and policies informed by reliable evidence.

Ultimately, as delegates repeatedly emphasised, the success of these commitments will be measured not by the promises made at international conferences but by the improvements they bring to people’s lives.

Note: The Policy Dialogue on Population, Development, SRHR and Gender Equality was organised by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) in collaboration with the African Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (FPA). It was hosted by the House of Peoples’ Representatives of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. The UNFPA East and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO), the Japan Trust Fund (JTF) and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) supported the meeting.

IPS UN Bureau Report

People wade through flooded streets in Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria, with vibrant mural art on buildings. Credit: Ben Iwara/Pexels.

By Ignatius Banda
ANTALYA, Türkiye & BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Nov 12 2026 (IPS)

Floods. Extreme heat. Droughts. African communities have experienced it all and more.

And as has come to be expected, humanitarian agencies have responded by providing essential emergency assistance such as food aid and other critical needs for affected communities amid increasingly dwindling funding.

Amid those challenges, researchers are now calling for a shift in how African governments and aid agencies respond before and after extreme weather events by focusing on mental health challenges that emerge as a direct result of floods.

According to the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies, 27 African countries “experienced unusually heavy rainfall in 2024” and affected 11 million people. Floods left more than 2,500 dead, four million displaced, and communities lost hundreds of thousands of livestock.

The extent of such losses is enough to break the stoicism of families already struggling to make ends meet in a continent where millions live in extreme poverty.

A cohort of African researchers in diverse fields that include psychiatry, epidemiology, climate science and medicine are pointing to these figures to investigate the impact of extreme weather on the mental health of flood and extreme weather victims.

And ahead of COP31 underway in Türkiye, the link between climate change and mental health in countries on the receiving end of what is considered human-driven nature’s fury is gaining traction as researchers explore the resilience of flood victims beyond relief aid.

While this year’s Conference of the Parties has “resilient health infrastructure and climate-resilient cities” as part of “action agenda priorities”, African researchers are pushing for the inclusion of mental health and psychosocial support as a critical flashing point that demands more attention in climate change discussions.

The new study led by Professor Collins Iwuji of the Africa Health Research Institute under a project called Weather Events and Mental Health in Africa (WEMA) that brought together academics and nongovernmental organisations provides insights into the devastating effects of floods in Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Kenya and South Africa.

Members of civil society demonstrate in the corridors. Credit: UN Climate Change/Kubilay Ciftci

“There is a need to explore the lived experiences of people and communities impacted by climate change, especially those living in communities facing social and structural vulnerabilities,” the study found.

WEMA researchers say the findings are not representative of the whole African continent but “broaden the evidence on flooding and mental health across these regions.”

It raises questions about how the continent is handling the psychological impact of flooding on vulnerable communities with families losing their homes and livelihoods and how they deal with grief.

Last year, research by the United for Global Mental Health consortium found that “mental health was not included in the majority of national adaptation policies and, when it was included, it was often mentioned superficially and with no corresponding adaptation action.”

Dr Sanae Okamoto, a researcher at the United Nations University in Maastricht specialising in climate change and mental health, has observed that globally, governments were only allocating “around two percent of their health budgets to mental health, a number that will need to increase as climate change intensifies.”

Amid that deficit, WEMA scientists say the study seeks to change this situation, especially as the link between climate and mental health is also attracting the attention of European experts who are intensifying their research on the psychological effects of climate change.

And with the spectre of a super El Nino, preparing for climate-induced mental health challenges has become even more urgent.

The WEMA study notes that “the risks and impacts of climate change on mental health are already rapidly accelerating, resulting in several direct, indirect, and overarching effects that disproportionately affect those who are most vulnerable and marginalised.”

This report also comes as other researchers say new ideas such as “climate change anxiety” have entered the lexicon as part of efforts to understand the wider psychological impact of extreme weather.

“Across four countries we found that individuals exposed to flooding have a higher burden of mental disorders compared to individuals that were not,” said Professor Collins Iwuji of the Africa Health Research Institute, the WEMA research project lead.

“If you took away flooding, you would reduce the number of mental disorders in our study population by 25 percent,” Iwuji told Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism, the WEMA media partner.

A 2021 study covering young people aged between 16 and 25 years carried out in Australia, Brazil, Finland, France, India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Portugal, the UK, and the USA found that “climate change has important implications for the health and futures of children and young people, yet they have little power to limit its harm, making them vulnerable to climate anxiety.”

WEMA says the study was carried out because the “limited data on the specific effects of EWEs on mental health in Africa highlights the need for more research to guide policy and practice.”

“Mental health support must be integrated into disaster preparedness and response and the provision of psychological first aid in the immediate aftermath of these events, not six months later,” Owuji said.

Meanwhile, Oxfam reports that there have been more than 8,000 flood deaths this year (the highest level since 2013) and that monthly temperature records are being recorded in more than 100 countries, despite the toll 87 private jets have so far landed at Antalya Airport during the UN climate summit (COP31).

It says the carbon pollution of a person in the richest 1 percent has contributed 34 times more to today’s extreme heatwaves than the average person and 100 times more than someone in the poorest 50 percent. 

“These records are not accidents of weather. They are the foreseeable consequences of a fossil-fuelled economy in which those who pollute most are also the best protected from its consequences,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar. 

Oxfam’s analysis of data from Polluterjet reveals that 87 private jets have landed at Antalya Airport since 7 November, emitting an estimated 777 tonnes of CO₂, which is equivalent to flying around the world more than three times.

Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote’s private jet flew approximately 4,370 kilometres from Lagos to Antalya, emitting an estimated 30 tonnes of CO₂, which is roughly the same as the average person emits in six years. During COP30 last year, 66 private jet journeys were recorded.  

IPS UN Bureau Report

Four years after Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, the human cost of the war keeps rising. Even though the global public eye is primarily glued to the progress of the conflict itself, its geopolitical implications and territorial bargaining, the millions of Ukrainian women and children experience the burden of this war that changed their lives and future forever.

Oleksandra Matviichuk, Nobel Peace Laureate & Head of the Centre for Civil Liberties

Matviichuk believes that until the war goes on, Ukrainian women would keep paying an unusual price for the opportunity to raise their children safe from Russian aggression.

Women were actively involved in humanitarian activities in Ukraine; they took care of displaced people and continued providing basic services to communities, as well as taking on duties that traditionally belong to men who either fight in the army or have fallen during the war.

However, their participation in the conflict is a huge personal sacrifice for women.

The war aggravates inequalities faced by women and girls as it makes them more vulnerable to gender-based violence, poverty, internal displacement, and psychological distress. Besides, women-led NGOs, which provide vital services ranging from psychosocial help, violence prevention, and humanitarian aid, face serious difficulties with funding in times of increased needs.

From Matviichuk’s perspective, the implications of the war go far beyond the humanitarian crisis. For her, it is the clash between two opposing systems – democracy and authoritarianism.

Matviichuk talks about the freedoms that Ukrainian women have in family and social life, comparing them with the limitations of women living in authoritarian states.

“We are fighting for our daughters. We want our daughters would never appear in situation when they have to prove someone that they also are human beings and have all freedom and all rights,” she says.

Probably there is no place where the costs of this war will become more obvious than in the life of Ukrainian children.

Children displaced, interrupted in their studies, separated from family members, attacked, and witnessing the destruction of infrastructure have lost all sense of stability and security. Many Ukrainians are forced to spend childhood in the world of air raid sirens, uncertainty and continuous loss of relatives.

According to Matviichuk, the psychological consequences of living in such conditions for a long time can cause terrible damage because trauma leaves a person trapped in the past, depriving of any future.

For the families living in Ukraine, the war has stripped them of one of the most basic necessities that can exist for anyone in this world, that is, the assurance of security in terms of knowing that they would be alive the next day. Talking about the kind of life that they have to lead today, Matviichuk explains that they go to sleep without knowing whether they or their children will wake up on the next day. “It’s very difficult to live like us when we go to bed and our children go to bed, we have no idea whether or not we will get up next morning because war is lottery and probably it will be your residential building that would be hit this night,” she explains.

However, Matviichuk says that the first sign of healing is when children start dreaming.

Collaborating with colleagues who work as psychological support for children, she asked them to record what Ukrainian children dream about.

As the result, it became clear not only how devastating war could be but how simple the children’s wishes are.

Some children dream of going to school without the need of studying online anymore. Others want to become football players in order to make their deceased parents proud of them. There is also a dream of inventing something that will help to save other people, while another dreams of becoming Secretary-General od the United Nations to prevent wars.

Others simply want their loved ones back.

“I dream that my grandmother, my best friend Misha and my dog would be alive,” reads one child’s response.

Another dreams of a new computer, Lego and, most importantly, “that Russia would stop sending missiles and drones at us.”

These are not extraordinary aspirations. They are the ordinary dreams of children who want safety, education, family and the freedom to imagine a future.

Besides the direct ramifications of displacement and violence, Matviichuk brings up another issue that is even more serious: the fate of Ukrainian children who live under the control of Russian occupation.

She says that there are systematic measures aimed at eliminating the identity of Ukrainian children through education, prohibition of language and culture, and militarization.

Matviichuk points out that children are being educated with the help of Russian textbooks which do not recognize the existence of Ukraine as a separate country. In addition, there have been reports of sending the children to Russian re-education camps where they undergo military training and identity reshaping.

According to her, the problem might be far-reaching: these children will get Russian passports and might be conscripted into the Russian army in the future.

“This is not just a human rights problem. This is a security problem.”

The issue requires the immediate international response, especially concerning the protection of children under occupation, their reunification with families, preventing forced transfer and preserving their cultural identity.

The humanitarian disaster is even further compounded by the uncertainties associated with international peace talks. Even though diplomatic endeavors have led to some hope regarding the possibility of stopping the ongoing war, Matviichuk seems to question the adequacy of such peace talks to address the problems of the people affected by the conflict.

According to Matviichuk, there is a need for continued pressure on Russia through international sanctions and confiscation of frozen Russian assets to end the war.

The international community needs to create economic and political costs that exceed the gains in the continuation of the war for the Kremlin.

Apart from these measures, it is essential to increase humanitarian efforts, empower women organizations, prevent violence against children, and provision of education, health and psychological services.

It is also important for the international community to focus on war crime prosecution, repatriation of deported children, and freeing illegally detained people.

Women and children who have been experiencing the impacts of war for years cannot only recover from rebuilding of their dilapidated structures. There is a need for the restoration of their dignity, security, economic independence and active participation in their nation-building process.

As Matviichuk explains, the effects of the war will be felt by many generations to come. Children who will lose several years of learning and who will feel the loss of their families and security will require support for many years to come even after the war ends.

The real question, however, is not only how fast Ukraine will recover, but also if the international community is ready to invest in the future that is free from fears for women and children.

A sustainable peace should guarantee not only the end of the war but also justice, accountability, freedom, and respect for the dignity of people.

Most importantly, a sustainable peace should give Ukrainian children something which they lost because of the war, the right to dream about their future.

Sania Farooqui is an independent journalist and host of The Peace Brief, a platform dedicated to amplifying the voices of women in peacebuilding and human rights.

IPS UN Bureau Report

By Saber Azam
GENEVA, Nov 12 2026 (IPS)

This is the final article in a four-part series with related titles, highlighting the responsibility of mainstream media and religious leaders for the world’s current appalling state and the calamities that may await future generations if proper measures are not taken in time. When megalomania is given a “human face,” historical facts are distorted, acts of aggression are whitewashed, unlawful wars are portrayed as vehicles of “democracy, human rights, and morality,” other people’s intelligence is undermined and mocked, bias overshadows international norms, and religion becomes an instrument of bigotry, I sustain my accusation:

Saber Azam

The media is often described as a primary mechanism for informing the public about crucial social, political, and economic issues that can directly or indirectly affect society. Across mass, community, and small- and medium-sized outlets, it also educates and connects people, shapes public opinion, and gives whistleblowers a platform. Impartiality, truthfulness, and investigative rigor are among the principal pillars of its credibility. The most important red lines no media outlet should cross include the propagation of hatred in any form, racism, lies and defamation, deliberately false information, and violations of privacy and personal data. Core principles also include freedom of expression, pluralism, and fact-based reporting.

To date, no single body of international legislation governs the media. Countries and regions apply their own laws and regulations. Since World War II, many powerful countries have funded mainstream media outlets that primarily serve as tools for domestic and foreign-policy propaganda and narrative control. Some wealthy individuals and institutions have done the same to advance their own interests.

In some wealthy and powerful countries, domestic injustices and violations of human dignity are often overlooked, while political assassinations, bloody regime changes, covert subversive operations, denial of facts, and other harmful policies and practices carried out abroad against less powerful countries have been presented to the public as necessary responses to alleged “violations” of certain principles or rights.

In many cases, blatant falsehoods have been transformed into absolute truths, and unlawful acts of aggression have been whitewashed. Without diminishing the good work they have accomplished, these media networks bear responsibility for “justifying” many unjustifiable acts, resulting in countless deaths, material destruction, and shattered lives. The tragedy is that this continues: even when hundreds of journalists are brutally murdered, many mainstream media outlets still fail to denounce these misdeeds.

However, with the rise of the internet, mobile phones, social media, independent podcasters, alternative news networks, and other tools, timely information can now reach vast audiences instantly, while independent audio and video creators and hosts dig deeper to uncover facts. Anyone can capture a photo or video of an event and share it immediately on social media. Younger generations across continents seek facts about the past and present to build a better future. They consult historical archives and draw on multiple sources to form informed opinions on issues that matter to them. Of course, they are not immune to misinformation or malicious manipulation. Yet many people can find accurate information from well-informed alternative sources, even if those outlets lack the political backing and financial power of mainstream media organizations, which bear an even greater responsibility to speak the truth, especially when it matters most.

I Accuse the Religious Leaders

Religion may be understood as a divine philosophy through which God establishes principles intended to ensure harmonious, respectful, equitable, and peaceful living. It can also define the relationship between the Creator and the created, among human beings, and between humans and their environment. Some religions also outline political, economic, and scientific frameworks or rules. Scholars have long sought to explain the foundations of religious belief and have advanced testimonial, philosophical, and extraordinary arguments. Faith, however, is rooted in a profound qualitative appreciation of life and its meaning. Human values and dignity form important common ground among monotheistic, polytheistic, pantheistic, and atheistic convictions. Therefore, those who carry the banner of any belief bear a great responsibility to denounce violations of the principles they profess.

Over time, politics intruded into the sphere of faith and influenced decision-makers, business leaders, and society at large. Rulers often defined their own versions of particular beliefs. Divisions followed, and people of the same religion began killing one another in the name of God. Later, interfaith conflicts arose, leading to devastation and massacres.

One of the most despicable developments in recent human history was the initiation, expansion, and full implementation of the Doctrine of Discovery, through which faith became a justification for bigotry, discrimination, oppression, and expansionism, contributing to centuries of slave trading, gratuitous exploitation, and the devastation of the colonial era. Shamefully, some so-called scholars have characterized the decrees issued in this regard as “international law,” enabling the promulgation of appalling “codes,” political statements, and acts of violence. In the process, hundreds of millions of people were massacred, their treasures looted, and their capacity for self-defense crushed. In some parts of the world, native peoples were nearly erased. Serious crimes continue to be committed in the name of religion; yet, for various reasons, few leaders have come forward to say, “Not in our name!”

The intertwining of religion with politics and business has pulled faith away from its moral and social foundations and placed it in the service of those in power. In some cases, religious principles are invoked to sow division and violence among peoples.

Many faith leaders who persuade people to accept their teachings fail to demonstrate the moral courage and vision needed to take concrete action against injustices committed in the name of their beliefs and to oppose present-day misdeeds. They bear a heavy responsibility for the loss of innocent lives and for the world’s deteriorating condition.

Final Words

It is painful to witness dictatorships commit transgressions, but it is even more devastating to see “democratic societies” commit or condone similar acts. We may be approaching a major and extremely violent global calamity. Will the leaders mentioned in my four-part series of related articles realize they have strayed, take the needed corrective actions, or step aside and let younger, talented, and responsible generations take over and lead our world toward a more secure, promising, and prosperous future? If not, will the world’s youth launch a billion-signature vote-of-no-confidence petition to help save the planet and humanity?

Saber Azam is a former UN official. He is the author of Soraya: The Other Princess and Hell’s Mouth: A Journey to the Heart of West African Jungles. His third book, Nowhere to Go, will be published soon.

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

This is the final article in a four-part series.

'The proposed Yavarí-Tapiche Corridor is home to Indigenous communities, including Indigenous Peoples living in voluntary isolation and initial contact, and 1.7 million hectares of intact tropical forest. The cross-border corridor is threatened by oil and gas, logging, and mining, as well as illegal activity.’ Credit: Earth Insight

By Juan Carlos Jintiach and M. Florencia Librizzi
ANTALYA, Türkiye, Nov 12 2026 (IPS)

The world cannot claim to protect the climate and nature while opening Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ territories to industrial activities that threaten their rights, livelihoods and ways of life. Yet governments increasingly recognize these communities’ contributions to climate and biodiversity protection while authorizing mining, oil drilling, industrial agriculture and infrastructure projects that can undermine the very territories they safeguard.

Last year, at COP30 in Belém, governments took an important step toward addressing the historical injustice of insecure land tenure. Through the Intergovernmental Land Tenure Commitment (ILTC),17 countries and one subnational government have now committed to advancing territorial rights across 160 million hectares by 2030: recognizing tenure across at least 80 million hectares and strengthening governance and protection across another 80 million hectares where rights are already recognized. A complementary $1.8 billion Forest and Land Tenure Pledge for 2026–2030 offers resources to support this work.

One year later, as governments gather for COP31 in Antalya, the challenge is to turn this landmark commitment into lasting territorial security.

For Indigenous Peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant Peoples, territories are inseparable from identity, culture, livelihoods, knowledge and, for many, spirituality and self-determination. Securing these rights, alongside recognizing and upholding the rights of nature, is fundamental to protecting both communities and the territories they have stewarded for generations.

Our new research shows that forests within established and proposed reserves for Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact (PIACI) in the Peruvian Amazon experienced 16 times less forest loss than forests outside these areas. Across the tropics, communities are recovering ancestral lands, exercising customary governance, monitoring threats, and restoring ecosystems. Their stewardship sustains biodiversity, carbon storage and water cycles essential to climate resilience.

Yet industrial pressures threaten these achievements. Our research has found that oil and gas blocks overlap approximately 31 million hectares of Indigenous and community territories in the Amazon Basin, while mining concessions overlap 18.7 million hectares in Mesoamerica. In the Congo Region, oil and gas blocks overlap 38% of mapped community forests and mining concessions 42%. In Indonesia, wood concessions overlap approximately 6 million hectares of Indigenous territories. These overlaps highlight potential conflicts between industrial development and territorial rights.

The proposed Yavarí-Tapiche Territorial Corridor illustrates what is at stake. This Indigenous-led initiative spans approximately 16 million hectares across Peru and Brazil, including territories of Indigenous Peoples in isolation and initial contact. Yet oil and gas blocks overlap approximately 10% of the proposed corridor, alongside logging and infrastructure pressures. Industrial development can affect entire watersheds, ecosystems and livelihoods through roads, pollution and habitat fragmentation.

From Recognition to Territorial Security

Legal recognition is a fundamental achievement and the foundation of territorial security. But rights recognized on paper must also be respected in practice. When energy, mining, infrastructure and investment decisions disregard rights-holders’ authority, the benefits of recognition can be undermined. The ILTC gives signatories an opportunity to align tenure recognition and governance with land-use planning, licensing, and investment decisions, while respecting the rights and priorities of affected peoples and communities.

Five Priorities for Action

First, accelerate recognition of Indigenous Peoples’, local communities’ and Afro-descendant Peoples’ territorial rights, including customary tenure. Recognition and restitution must respect rights-holders’ institutions, priorities and applicable human rights standards.

Second, strengthen governance and protection alongside recognition. Newly recognized and existing territories need sustained legal, institutional and financial support so rights-holders can exercise their authority, advance their priorities and protect their lands.

Third, align industrial licensing, infrastructure and investment with territorial rights. Governments must address conflicting concessions, qrespect territorial governance plans and fulfill applicable consultation and free, prior and informed consent obligations, including respecting rights-holders’ decisions to reject unwanted industrial activities.

Fourth, ensure financing reaches rights-holders. Governments and donors must provide direct, flexible and sustained funding for communities’ priorities, including governance, territorial protection, monitoring and sustainable economies.

Finally, measure more than hectares. Progress must reflect whether rights-holders can exercise their authority, industrial threats are addressed and financing reaches communities.

Delivering these priorities requires coordinated government action so that land, energy, mining, infrastructure and investment decisions reinforce territorial rights. Building on the leadership of Indigenous Peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant Peoples, the ILTC can help align policies and financing with their priorities. By 2030, success should be measured not only by hectares recognized, but by whether rights-holders can exercise their rights, govern their territories and determine their own futures free from extractive and large-scale industrial activities.

The commitment was made in Belém. Antalya is an opportunity to turn it into lasting territorial security.

Juan Carlos Jintiach is Executive Secretary, Global Alliance of Territorial Communities and M. Florencia Librizzi is Deputy Director, Earth Insight

IPS UN Bureau

By External Source
Nov 11 2026 (IPS)

 
For millions of women around the world, violence is not a distant threat.

It is a reality experienced in homes, communities, workplaces and increasingly, online.

According to the World Health Organization, approximately 840 million women – nearly one in three worldwide – have experienced physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner, or sexual violence by someone else, during their lifetime.

And the problem is not diminishing quickly.

Over the past two decades, the global prevalence of intimate-partner violence has declined by an average of just 0.2 percent annually.

The consequences can be fatal.

According to UN Women and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, nearly 50,000 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or family members in 2024.

That’s approximately 137 lives lost every day.

One every ten minutes.

Violence also begins at an alarming age.

The WHO estimates that 12.5 million adolescent girls between 15 and 19 experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner in a single year.

Meanwhile, digital technology has created new avenues for abuse, including online harassment, stalking, threats and AI-generated sexual imagery.

But despite the scale of the crisis, investment in prevention remains limited.

In 2022, just 0.2 percent of global development aid was allocated to programmes specifically focused on preventing violence against women.

On November 25th, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women marks the beginning of 16 Days of Activism, culminating on Human Rights Day, December 10th.

The United Nations is calling for stronger laws, effective prevention programmes, survivor-centred services and greater accountability.

Because violence against women is neither inevitable nor acceptable.

Ending it requires sustained action – from governments, institutions and communities.

Every woman and girl has the right to live free from violence and fear.

Older people at the forefront of climage justice. Climate Justice March, COP30, Belém, Brazil. Credit: Hari Krishna Nibanupudi

By Hari Krishna Nibanupudi
ANTALYA, Türkiye, Nov 11 2026 (IPS)

As COP31 gets underway in Antalya, two realities demand attention. The World Meteorological Organisation reports that 2015–2025 were the 11 hottest years on record, with 2025 about 1.43°C above pre-industrial levels.

The World Health Organisation projects that the number of people aged 60 and over will rise from one billion in 2020 to 1.4 billion in 2030 and 2.1 billion in 2050, roughly one in five people.

These trends are connected: together, they define the population that climate policy must serve. Yet representation in climate negotiations has barely changed.

The UN climate process recognises nine NGO constituencies, including women and gender, youth, Indigenous Peoples and farmers, but none for older people. These constituencies coordinate interventions, nominate speakers and facilitate participation in mandated events. An older minister at the negotiating table cannot be assumed to represent older people facing drought, displacement or unaffordable electricity.

Source: WHO, Ageing and health, 2030 and 2050 values are projections.

From agreement to whose action

There are reasons to defend the COP process. Dubai’s COP28 operationalised the loss and damage fund and agreed a transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems. Baku’s COP29 established a goal of at least $300 billion annually for developing countries by 2035, with developed countries taking the lead, alongside efforts to scale finance from all sources to $1.3 trillion a year. Belém’s COP30 called for tripling adaptation finance by 2035, adopted 59 adaptation indicators and agreed a just transition mechanism.

Yet appearing on a list of vulnerable groups is a limited form of inclusion. Recognition must bring authority, resources and accountability across climate institutions, long after a summit closes

These decisions offer a route from dialogue through consensus towards delivery, although targets are not disbursements and promises are not protection.

The COP31 agenda brings finance, adaptation measurement, emissions cuts and a just transition into focus, alongside loss and damage funding. Its action priorities include food security, resilient cities, health systems, clean energy and youth and education. Each has an ageing dimension. The test is whether the institutions delivering these priorities explicitly recognise older people as rights holders and partners, and reflect that recognition in investment.

Recognition has consequences. Women have a Gender Action Plan; Indigenous Peoples have dedicated institutional spaces; children and youth have an established constituency and a youth climate champion in the presidency. These gains were won through sustained advocacy and remain incomplete.

They demonstrate that institutions can change. Recognition exists in fragments: the Sharm el-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda identifies older people among populations requiring heat protection. But being named in a vulnerability list is a limited form of inclusion. Recognition must carry authority, resources and accountability across climate institutions, long after a summit closes. 

Source: Falchetta, G., De Cian, E., Sue Wing, I., & Carr, D. (2024). Global projections of heat exposure of older adults. Nature Communications, 15, 3678.

The mortality figures are already an answer

WHO reports that heat-related mortality among people over 65 increased approximately 85% between 2000–2004 and 2017–2021. Europe’s summer of 2022 brought an estimated 61,672 heat-related deaths. The 2025 Lancet Countdown, summarised by WHO, estimates an annual global heat death toll of 546,000 across all ages. “Every fraction of a degree of warming costs lives and livelihoods,” WHO’s Jeremy Farrar warned.

The risks accumulate. Heat can aggravate heart, lung and kidney disease. Isolation, inaccessible transport, inadequate housing and interrupted electricity or health services can turn exposure into catastrophe.

An early warning delivered only through a smartphone, or an evacuation plan that assumes everyone can walk, can exclude precisely those it is meant to protect.

A 2024 Nature Communications study projects that by 2050 more than 23% of people aged 69 and over will live in climates where the hottest days exceed 37.5°C, compared with 14% in 2020. Depending on the scenario, an additional 177–246 million older adults could face this acute heat exposure.

Population ageing magnifies the consequences of delayed adaptation. Every clinic without backup power, every unshaded settlement and every inaccessible shelter becomes a longer-term liability as the population it serves changes.

Ageism or institutional inertia?

Is this exclusion ageism? The UN’s Global Report on Ageism estimated that one in two people worldwide holds ageist attitudes towards older people. That does not establish climate negotiators’ motives. It does make it implausible to assume that climate institutions are insulated from a prejudice embedded elsewhere in society.

Perhaps overloaded institutions have developed inclusion fatigue: another constituency, another consultation, another demand on scarce finance.

But population ageing is not a fashionable new issue. It is a foreseeable transformation of the societies that these institutions exist to serve. The division between “today’s older generation” and “tomorrow’s climate victims” is also false. Someone aged 40 today will be 64 in 2050. Adaptation that neglects ageing fails both people who are older now and those who will grow old under harsher conditions.

The people still tending the land

The case for inclusion goes beyond preventing deaths. Older people continue to produce food and sustain the knowledge on which adaptation depends. Eurostat found that 33.2% of EU farm managers were at least 65 in 2020; they managed 16.9% of utilised agricultural land.

Furthermore, Japan’s agriculture ministry reports that 71.7% of its core agricultural workers were 65 or older in 2024, with an average age of 69.2. These are different statistical categories, not a global comparison. Both findings expose the folly of designing agricultural resilience without older producers. In remote rangelands, forests and mountain environments, experience can be an adaptation resource.

UNESCO’s African climate work identifies elders as holders of detailed, often undocumented knowledge about weather and coping practices. The IPCC finds that exchanges between Indigenous elders and youth can strengthen adaptive capacity, and that pastoralists’ local knowledge can complement scientific research. 

The ecological stakes are substantial: IPBES estimates that Indigenous Peoples traditionally own, manage, use or occupy at least a quarter of global land. That figure describes Indigenous Peoples collectively, not older people alone. It nevertheless underlines the importance of supporting the elders who help transmit ecological knowledge within these communities. Excluding elders can weaken the transfer of knowledge needed to sustain landscapes. Their expertise should be tested alongside contemporary climate science, supported and remunerated, rather than treated as a free substitute for investment.

Recognition must change where the money goes

Climate funding criteria should recognise older people and include them in decisions. The Green Climate Fund and Adaptation Fund should require proposals to assess age-related risks, consult older people’s associations and fund relevant measures.

Country programmes should support heat plans with home outreach, accessible cooling and evacuation, and resilient primary health and care services. Projects should report spending and outcomes by age, sex and disability, distinguishing older age groups.

Loss and Damage applicants should involve older people in assessing losses and selecting responses, including accessible temporary housing, livelihood recovery, and continued access to medicines and care. Assessments should capture non-economic losses, including cultural knowledge and community ties, not only wages and property.

Eligibility and delivery must not depend on employment records, land titles or digital access. The Santiago Network should help countries and communities assess older people’s losses and plan responses. National adaptation plans and early warning systems should identify who needs accessible information, transport or assistance, and release finance when agreed forecast triggers are met. Fund older people’s associations to plan, conduct outreach and monitor outcomes. 

Finally, the UNFCCC should establish a transparent, time-bound pathway towards recognising an older people’s constituency. Meanwhile, governments and climate bodies should include representatives of older women, Indigenous elders and older people with disabilities in national delegations, adaptation consultations and relevant advisory processes, with accessible participation and travel support.

Intergenerational programmes should pay elders and young people to combine ecological knowledge with climate science. None of this requires postponing action until another negotiating agenda is created. It requires institutions to recognise the demographic reality already before them and make existing commitments serve it.

The writing is on the wall: the world is growing hotter and older. How many more summits will pass before climate institutions let that reality shape who decides, what is funded and whose lives are protected?

Hari Krishna Nibanupudi is a global climate change and ageing adviser with HelpAge International

Excerpt:

Campaigners protest against nuclear energy at COP31 in Antalya, Turkey. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
ANTALYA, Türkiye, Nov 11 2026 (IPS)

Gabriel Sheunopa Manyangadze holds a placard reading “No nuclear spin, let renewables win” as a campaigner leads protesters against nuclear energy in Africa at the United Nations climate summit in Antalya, Turkey.

The activists warned African leaders of the investments required to establish nuclear energy and the dangers its waste poses.

“We have realised that when people put nuclear forward as a solution, they are only looking at it from a short-term perspective. They do not look at the long-term effects that include pollution,” Manyangadze, a food and climate justice manager at the Southern African Faith Communities Environment Institute based in South Africa, told IPS during a protest against nuclear energy as a climate solution at the ongoing Conference of the Parties, or COP31.

South Africa is the only country on the continent that has a commercial nuclear power plant.

Located in Melkbosstrand near Cape Town, the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station has an installed capacity of around 1,854 MW, providing roughly 5% of the country’s electricity. Its units will operate until the 2040s.

But there are concerns about the sustainability of this nuclear power plant.

False Climate Solution 

Manyangadze said the power generation company is struggling to dispose of nuclear waste.

“They are dumping the liquid waste and the solid waste that is being generated from the power plant in a place called Vaalputs, but the area is still radioactive, affecting the environment in the surrounding areas,” he said.

The Vaalputs National Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility is South Africa’s primary and only radioactive waste disposal site in the Northern Cape. The 10,000-hectare site handles near-surface disposal of solid and solidified low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste from Eskom’s Koeberg Nuclear Power Station. Nuclear waste remains radioactive for up to 300,000 years.

Though the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) licenses and regulates it, with continuous environmental and seismic monitoring showing no detectable radiological impact outside safe limits since operations began, farmers fear leaks into nearby water could affect agricultural productivity.

Manyangadze said that communities who live around this area have not prepared for a disaster. “We work with the people around the nuclear facility, and they are not clear on what to do in case of a disaster,” he says.

There are concerns about the capacity of African governments to handle and prevent a nuclear disaster.

There have been major nuclear disasters around the world after explosions released radioactive materials into the environment, affecting thousands of people and polluting the environment.

The Chernobyl Disaster in Ukraine on 26 April 1986 involved a flawed safety test combined with operator errors that caused an uncontrolled power surge, triggering a steam explosion that released massive amounts of radioactive isotopes across Europe, leading to the deaths of dozens of people and the permanent evacuation of over 160,000 people.

An earthquake and tsunami caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster on 11 March 2011. The floods knocked out active cooling systems and backup diesel generators, resulting in explosions, the deaths of dozens of people and the displacement of 164,000 people.

Some parts of Africa are facing climate change disasters like floods, mudslides, landslides, and storms, which are becoming more frequent. Such weather poses a threat to power plants, as happened in Fukushima.

At the United Nations climate summit in the Mediterranean country, the COP31 presidency is pushing for a global target to increase electricity’s share of final energy consumption to 35%, up from the current 20%, by 2035.

Proponents of nuclear energy are pushing for investments and the expansion of nuclear reactors to generate electricity to meet this global electrification target.

Rachitaa Gupta from the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice said that nuclear energy is not the solution that is needed to fix the energy crisis in the Global South.

“Most of this nuclear energy is being pushed on indigenous lands. It is our communities that are subjected to uranium mining and its devastating consequences,” she said.

“Our lands are being destroyed for nuclear energy plants, but the power does not even go to the people. It powers data centres that are being promoted by big technology companies. This is not for the people but for corporations.

South Africa’s Eskom and the Department of Electricity and Energy plan to procure an additional 5,200 MW to 10,000 MW of nuclear capacity by 2039 under the Integrated Resource Plan 2025. They plan to start public consultations in late 2026.

Togo, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Morocco, Ghana and Egypt are some of the African countries that are also considering nuclear energy.

Russia’s Rosatom is constructing a four-unit El Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant, 320 kilometres northwest of Cairo. The first nuclear power plant in the country and in the region, El Dabaa, will generate 4,800 MW of electricity.

Amos Wemanya, a senior climate advisor at Power Shift Africa, a research group in Kenya, said that nuclear power is not the best energy option for Africa right now because it takes a long time to set up, while the continent needs energy quickly.

“These people need access to electricity as soon as possible so that this power can help them power their development, power their prosperity. It takes a very long time to build a nuclear power plant,” he said.

“So we cannot be investing our limited resources at the moment in an energy system that is not going to help our people achieve our development as soon as possible.”

Nuclear energy requires high upfront investments running into billions of dollars, which are relatively lower once the plant is operational. A kilowatt is $5,300, or about $6bn more for a single large-scale reactor, estimates the World Nuclear Association. This is beyond the reach of most African countries that are struggling to service their debts and provide services like health, jobs and education.

Manyangadze said nuclear energy will ruin the South African economy.

Alternatives 

About 600 million people lack access to electricity in Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for roughly 85% of the global population lacking electricity.

Gupta said they protested that if there is a push for energy, it needs to be clean, renewable energy, and not polluting energy, like nuclear energy.

“The model must not be the same as the fossil fuel energy systems, which are exploiting our communities,” she said.

Wemanya said that Africa needs an energy source that can transform the lives of communities.

“We need an energy system that is easy to deploy. There are so many alternative sources, renewable sources such as solar, that are easy to deploy and can benefit off-grid communities,” he said.

He said that wind and solar are cheaper alternatives compared to nuclear energy. “We cannot afford to invest in a nuclear energy system that is not fit for purpose for our continent,” he said.

According to the IEA, Africa contains 60% of the world’s best solar resources.

“And in most of the countries, particularly from where I come from in Southern Africa, we have the sun, and we can actually build our energy around renewables like the sun and the wind,” Manyangadze said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 
CIVICUS discusses France’s student protest movement with Aminata and Mariam Touré, two sisters involved in the protests. Aminata is a member of the Popular Youth Front (Front de la Jeunesse Populaire), a collective of young people from working-class neighbourhoods.

Aminata and Mariam Touré

Why did you decide to take action?

In our secondary schools, we have holes in the walls, missing chairs, toilets without doors, overcrowded classrooms and absent teachers. Students completing secondary education also face constant pressure from Parcoursup, the national higher education admissions platform.

During the last heatwave, in Saint-Denis, in the northern suburbs of Paris, pupils fainted during their exams because there was no air conditioning and it was too hot in the exam halls. Pupils who were ill were forced to attend lessons, as these were the only days when teachers were present. With no school nurses on hand, they were unaware they were contagious and passed viruses on to each other.

These catastrophic situations only affect poor regions, rural areas and France’s overseas territories, which are even poorer. You never hear about this in central Paris, where the government concentrates its budget. A parliamentary report has shown that the state spends less per pupil in Seine-Saint-Denis than elsewhere. The result is that every child there loses, on average, the equivalent of a whole year’s schooling over the course of their education. For the start of the 2024 school year, the Seine-Saint-Denis inter-union group estimated there was a shortfall of 5,000 teachers, 2,200 support staff for pupils with disabilities and 175 senior education advisers. This is effectively a two-tier education system.

We’ve been raising these issues with our head teachers, but the government is doing nothing, apart from passing pointless laws. Blocking access to our schools was the only way to make ourselves heard. Thanks to that, we’re now the focus of national and global attention.

How did the movement spread?

The blockades began as early as 31 August in overseas territories. It’s just that, due to media censorship, we always find out too late. The movement then spread to Créteil, in the Paris suburbs, and then to other working-class areas of the Île-de-France region, notably Essonne, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne.

At first, everyone blockaded their own school. Then, solidarity among school pupils and support from trade unions brought us together on the streets for a common cause. School and student unions, and the General Confederation of Labour, one of France’s main trade union confederations, helped organise the protests and put forward our demands. Other movements joined us, including the gilets jaunes, the social protest movement that emerged in 2018. This solidarity proved decisive for each and every one of us.

Faced with the state’s contempt, the movement went national. Even privileged young people became aware of their educational privileges and the need to draw attention to this inhumane situation. The media have shown this. Attention paid to the blockades increased tenfold when students also blockaded elite institutions such as the University of Assas, the Catholic Institute of Paris and the Parisian secondary schools Louis-le-Grand and Montaigne.

What are your concerns about the national budget?

We are calling for more funding for education. The government is investing heavily in defence. The defence budget has risen from €32.2 billion (approx. US$34.8 billion) in 2017 to almost €54 billion (approx. US$58.3 billion) in 2026, and is set to reach €64 billion (approx. US$69.1 billion) in 2027. It will have almost doubled in a decade. But for education, the government is content with a mere increase of €200 million (approx. US$216 million) in 2026, while cutting thousands of jobs. This is not investment. It is a publicity stunt.

At the same time, the government is increasing pressure on people while easing the burden on big business. Life is becoming increasingly difficult. All the movements agree on one point: we must invest in education. However, the government continues to arm the police on a massive scale while depriving the education sector of the resources it needs to function.

How do you respond to the looting and violence of 17 October?

We are against all violence, whether it comes from the police or protesters. Looting is regrettable, but it is even more regrettable that greater importance is attached to insured shops than to people who lose a limb or the use of a sense. As a citizen, when I see a young person who has looted a shop receiving a harsher sentence than a man convicted of raping his daughter, my anger redoubles.

The state’s response is so violent that it unfortunately drives some people to loot even more, as this is the only time when anyone looks at you or listens to you. But these excesses backfire on us. The media use them to stifle our demands, which diverts attention from our struggles and weakens the movement.

The movement is torn between those who seem to want revolution and those who want peace, but one cannot exist without the other. Our history books teach us that all France’s great advances have stemmed from revolts, destruction and riots. We don’t find these tools in some shadowy online network or from belligerent leaders. We find them in our textbooks. Nevertheless, like the majority of protesters, we will continue to mobilise peacefully until the government listens to us.

How do you view the police response?

It’s a disgrace. We feel as though we’re at war. Police officers hit, shove, insult and threaten us. One slogan has appeared on several placards, referring to the police’s riot units: ‘We send out SOS signals, we get the CRS instead’. That’s where we’re at. Trust in the authorities was never as low as it has been since the protests began.

These aren’t isolated incidents. It’s a doctrine. Since the gilets jaunes protests, the French approach to policing has been documented as one of Europe’s most brutal. Activist groups have recorded around 20 protesters who have lost an eye and several who have lost a hand, and in Marseille, a local, Zineb Redouane, died after being hit by a teargas canister.

Violence isn’t limited to blows with batons. On 17 October, I was on my period, and I was doused with teargas for no reason, while my friends and I were helping unprotected people, many of them tourists, with saline solution and milk. The next day, I felt excruciating pain in my stomach. I then discovered that many women exposed to teargas report menstrual cycle disturbances.

We are living in an authoritarian state, where violence reigns and the social contract has been broken. The most severe violence is that perpetrated by the state, because it’s supposed to protect us and be legitimate. Yet it maims us without a shred of empathy.

How do you view the president’s reaction?

President Emmanuel Macron’s speech following the protests was shameful, despicable and deeply disrespectful. When he demands we choose sides, then singles out the left as responsible, he shows that he’s not listening to us. Asking us to choose sides ignores the fact that we don’t want to be on his side. Pointing the finger at so-called culprits shows that he fails to grasp the extent of the damage he has caused and continues to cause.

In 2017, Macron was elected by claiming to speak for the people. Two years later, he introduced a series of measures that harmed workers. We see this even in housing policy. Cuts are being made to housing for poor people while multinationals get richer. This is a political choice.

The government should learn to respect its people, listen to them and consult them. We expect it to take action to improve conditions in secondary schools and for our views to be taken into account, because it’s our future’ at stake.

What impact do you hope to have on the 2027 presidential election?

We hope the candidates will talk more about the problems facing young people and propose tangible solutions. We want to show that secondary school pupils, too, can make their voices heard and that they must not be ignored simply because they are young. I hope all French people will be taken into account in the debates, and that we will stop talking about Islam and migrants and focus more on precarious living conditions, dignity and security. I won’t be able to vote, as I’ll still be 17. It will also be a chance to see whether those who do vote realise that their voice matters, both for them and for us.

In 2024, Macron dissolved the National Assembly following the victory of the far-right National Rally in the European elections. Then, even though the left came out on top in the snap general election, he appointed a right-wing government.

In the wake of the dissolution, we formed the Popular Youth Front, a collective rooted in working-class neighbourhoods, to put voting back at the heart of people’s concerns, as abstention rates are extremely high in those neighbourhoods. Our open letter was signed by over 6,000 young people from working-class neighbourhoods and rural areas. But it’s clear we must fight both against the far right, which is not yet in power, and against the government.

What the world sees as a spontaneous revolt by Gen Z is anything but spontaneous. These are exactly the demands we were putting forward in working-class neighbourhoods two years ago. This uprising is the predictable result of a slow, bipartisan abandonment of working-class and racialised young people. This abandonment is not the work of the far right that everyone fears, but of the centre that claims to be blocking its advance. The proof lies in its response. A government that responds to children with teargas and calls this ‘urban violence’ has already adopted the authoritarian reflex it claims to be protecting our country against.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

One of those featured and photographed in this article is a minor. She appears with her parents’ consent, which was obtained in writing prior to the interview. Her name and all details that could identify her are included with her permission, as reconfirmed at every stage of the publication process.

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Gen Z protests: new resistance rises CIVICUS | State of Civil Society Report 2026
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India’s young people find their voice CIVICUS Lens 07.Aug.2026

Hiroshima atomic-bomb survivor Katsuko Tanaka, center-left, joins nuclear-disarmament advocates and experts at the “Nuclear Between Disarmament and Proliferation” forum during Sant’Egidio’s International Meeting for Peace in Assisi, Italy, Oct. 26, 2026. Credit: Community of Sant’Egidio

By Katsuhiro Asagiri
ASSISI, Italy, Nov 11 2026 (IPS)

Eight decades after atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world is confronting a new and potentially dangerous question: What happens when decisions involving human life increasingly pass from people to machines?

Community of Sant’Edigio

The meeting, organized by the Community of Sant’Egidio from Oct. 25 to 27, marked 40 years since Pope John Paul II brought representatives of the world’s major religions to Assisi to pray for peace.

This year’s theme, “Unarmed and Disarming Peace,” carried particular urgency. Nuclear arms control has weakened, military spending has reached record levels, and artificial intelligence is rapidly entering defense systems whose consequences remain difficult to predict.

The question was no longer simply whether humanity possessed the means to destroy itself. It was whether governments and societies retained the judgment to prevent those means from being used.

Katsuko Tanaka, Hibakusha from Hiroshima (Left). Credit: Beppe Raso/ Soka Gakkai

The human consequences of nuclear warfare formed the moral foundation of a forum devoted to disarmament and proliferation.

Katsuko Tanaka, also known as Toshiko Tanaka, a Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor, recalled the bombing of Aug. 6, 1945, when she was six years old.

Her account recalled a catastrophe that killed indiscriminately and left survivors carrying physical and psychological wounds for decades.

Archbishop Peter Michiaki Nakamura of Nagasaki, in his published remarks, drew on the legacy of Takashi Nagai, the physician and atomic bomb survivor who devoted his later life to peace.

Together, their perspectives challenged the language of nuclear deterrence, which measures security in terms of military capabilities rather than the lives potentially lost.

Susi Snyder, the Director of Programmes at ICAN. Credit: Community of Sant’Egidio / Assisi 2026

The expiration of the New START treaty between the United States and Russia in February, followed by the failure of the 2026 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference to reach consensus, has reinforced concerns about the future of nuclear restraint.

Attention is now turning to the first Review Conference of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, scheduled to begin in late November.

But disarmament advocates face a persistent obstacle: The governments possessing nuclear weapons largely remain outside the treaty.

Teaching a Generation Without Memories of War

Credit: Simone Giara per Senzatomica

Alessja Trama, representing the Be The Hope Foundation, an organization affiliated with the Italian Soka Gakkai, described in her prepared remarks the work of Senzatomica, an initiative that has organized exhibitions and educational activities on nuclear weapons in communities across Italy.

The campaign traces its inspiration to a 1957 declaration by Josei Toda, the second president of the Soka Gakkai, calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Its premise is that remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki must lead to public responsibility, particularly among younger generations who have no personal connection to the war.

Yet even as campaigners seek to reduce the threat from existing weapons, advances in artificial intelligence are transforming the nature of military power.

When Human Judgment Becomes Optional

At a separate forum titled “Humanity in the Age of Technology,” Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia warned that technological capabilities were advancing faster than the institutions meant to govern them.

Tiziana Catarci, an Italian artificial intelligence researcher, raised a critical distinction: placing a human in a decision-making process does not necessarily mean that person exercises meaningful control.

An operator may formally approve a machine-generated recommendation without fully understanding how it was produced or being able to challenge it.

Embedded gallery image from the Soka Gakkai Italy article ‘Ad Assisi la speranza come scelta di pace: la Soka Gakkai ai forum sul nucleare e sulla tecnologia’. Credit: Beppe Raso

In military operations, that gap could become deadly.

Catarci called for stronger oversight of AI systems and the prohibition of autonomous weapons capable of making lethal decisions without meaningful human control.

Embedded gallery image from the Soka Gakkai Italy article ‘Ad Assisi la speranza come scelta di pace: la Soka Gakkai ai forum sul nucleare e sulla tecnologia’. Credit: Beppe Raso

Nagaoka noted that AI is increasingly being embraced as a source of advice in everyday life in Japan, with some people turning to it for guidance when making deeply personal decisions about their lives.

One example he cited was the case of an elderly woman who turned to generative AI for advice about the medical treatment of her terminally ill husband.

For Nagaoka, the issue was not whether AI could provide useful information. It was whether reliance on such systems might gradually weaken the human willingness to make difficult moral judgments.

He warned particularly against delegating decisions about killing to autonomous weapons, advocating international rules to prohibit systems that independently select and attack human targets.

His argument extended beyond warfare to healthcare, where statistical predictions cannot replace compassion, personal choice and professional responsibility.

A Technology That Can Also Help

Other participants cautioned against viewing artificial intelligence solely as a threat.

Matt Vasey of the Gates Foundation argued that AI could improve access to healthcare, education and agricultural knowledge, especially in communities historically neglected by technological development.

But he also warned that people could voluntarily surrender moral responsibility to systems designed to make decisions easier.

Cisco executive Gianpaolo Barozzi emphasized the need to redesign work around human capabilities, while Rabbi Noam Marans of the American Jewish Committee distinguished the accumulation of information from the exercise of wisdom.

The speakers offered no single regulatory blueprint. They nevertheless returned repeatedly to the need for accountability, transparency and human judgment.

The gathering’s closing Peace Appeal connected these concerns to a broader agenda, urging that resources devoted to weapons be redirected toward food, water, education, healthcare and decent work.

It also identified nuclear threats, rearmament and artificial intelligence as challenges requiring international cooperation.

Closing ceremony. Credit: Community of Sant’Egidio / Assisi 2026

The message underscored a growing dilemma.

Humanity has developed technologies of extraordinary power. Yet the institutions and moral commitments needed to restrain their destructive uses have not necessarily kept pace.

From Hiroshima’s surviving witnesses to researchers confronting autonomous weapons, the warning emerging from Assisi was that security cannot be measured simply by what humanity is capable of building.

It must also be measured by what humanity is prepared to refuse.　

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

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

By Stephanie Hodge
NEW YORK, Nov 11 2026 (IPS)

The United Nations knows how to announce a milestone. What interests me, after a career that has included working inside UNICEF and UNDP and evaluating institutions from outside them, is what happens between the announcement and the working day.

Thalif Deen’s IPS article of 3 November 2026 asks whether gender bias at the UN is approaching an “inglorious end.” It is a question, not a declaration, and the reporting gives considerable space to continuing inequalities. Alongside achievements in representation, staff representatives describe barriers to advancement, weaknesses in accountability and fears about reporting discrimination. The article itself supplies reasons to resist a premature obituary for institutional bias.[1]

I bring a perspective to this question, certainly. But the discipline of evaluation requires me to challenge my own expectations as carefully as an institution’s claims. If the evidence demonstrates progress, acknowledge it. If it supports a narrower conclusion than the public celebration, say so.

The UN’s published figures demonstrate substantial progress towards numerical gender parity. They do not, on their own, establish whether discrimination in recruitment, advancement, treatment or access to authority has diminished.

UN Women reports that women’s share of Professional and higher categories across the UN system rose from 47 per cent in 2021 to 48.8 per cent in 2023, reaching 50.4 per cent in 2025. It also reports that parity among the Senior Management Group and resident coordinators has been maintained since 2018. These are meaningful achievements, and dismissing them would weaken any serious critique.[2]

The dates matter. The Secretary-General’s 2025 report principally covers January 2022 to December 2023, with developments through mid-2025. Its figures should not be presented as a fresh assessment of the workforce in November 2026.[2]

But an institutional average is an exceptionally comfortable place to hide an uncomfortable distribution.

UN Women’s accompanying infographic presents the following figures for 2025, citing the system-wide dashboard in June of that year:[3]

These figures appear in the same published presentation. They show how an overall majority can coexist with women’s underrepresentation at director levels. Under the UN’s operational definition, parity falls within a range of 47 to 53 per cent; the D-1 and D-2 figures above remain below that range.[3] [5]

That distribution does not, by itself, prove discrimination in individual appointments. Nor does a snapshot establish that women progress more slowly than men. It establishes why an aggregate percentage cannot answer the question of equal advancement. For that, we need to follow careers: who applies, who is shortlisted, who is selected, who progresses, how long progression takes, and who leaves.

There is another question beneath the celebration: which UN are we measuring?

The Secretariat dashboard cited in the article explicitly covers a defined population of international staff. Its explanatory notes say General Service and national staff are not shown and are intended for a subsequent phase. It also specifies appointment types and excludes entities with ten or fewer people. These are legitimate statistical boundaries, but they are boundaries all the same.[4]

This does not mean the UN collects no information about those groups elsewhere. It means this particular dashboard cannot establish what is happening across the whole workforce.

The Secretariat and the wider UN system are not interchangeable reporting populations. Neither are international professionals, national personnel and consultants. Every claim should tell the reader whose working lives it describes.

The Secretariat’s own human resources strategy also identifies a measure that reaches beyond headcounts. In A/80/550, the gap between women and men in the employee-empowerment dimension of the staff engagement survey is recorded as eight percentage points in 2021 and nine in 2024. Closing that gap is an explicit objective.[5]

The table does not explain the causes, establish whether the change is statistically significant, or identify which group scored higher. It should not be used as proof that discrimination worsened. It does, however, identify a workplace-experience gap that representation figures alone cannot resolve.

Nor should scepticism escape scrutiny. Shihana Mohamed, quoted in the IPS article, argues that reductions in male-dominated parts of the workforce helped produce the improved percentages. That is an explanation requiring examination, rather than a demonstrated finding we can simply adopt. The article does not provide the underlying analysis needed to establish how much of the change resulted from workforce reductions.[1]

An illustrative example shows why the question matters. An organisation employing 400 women and 600 men has 40 per cent female representation. Remove 200 men, recruit nobody, and it reaches 50 per cent. The calculation is correct; the explanation determines what achievement can reasonably be claimed. This is a hypothetical example, not a description of what happened at the UN.

Conversely, that possibility cannot justify assuming that the UN’s gains are merely arithmetic. We need comparable data on recruitment, promotion, retirement, separation and post abolition, using consistent dates and staff populations. Scrutiny must work in both directions.

What would persuade me that institutional bias was diminishing? Evidence of fairer career progression across grades, nationalities and contract types; greater confidence in raising concerns; credible protection against retaliation; and demonstrable consequences for discriminatory management. These are proposed tests of institutional change, not findings that the representation statistics have already established.

I would also ask whose experience disappears inside the category “women.” An international director, a national officer and a consultant awaiting renewal may share a gender while having profoundly different access to security and influence. An assessment of equality should examine those differences, rather than assume that one aggregate can represent them all.

The UN deserves credit for its documented gains in women’s representation. It should welcome equally rigorous examination of what those gains mean for working lives.

Count the women, certainly. Then examine who advances, who has authority, who can challenge a decision safely, and whose expertise changes the decision. Numerical parity is a meaningful achievement. Establishing that institutional bias is diminishing requires further evidence.

References

1. Deen, Thalif. “Is Gender Bias at the UN Coming to an Inglorious End?” Inter Press Service, 3 November 2026. Syndicated version.
2. UN Women. “Improvement in the status of women in the United Nations system: Report of the Secretary-General (2025).” Publication summary accompanying report A/80/260, 25 July 2025.
3. UN Women. “Representation of Women in the UN System.” Infographic accompanying the 2025 Secretary-General’s report, p. 1; 2025 figures attributed to the UN System-wide Dashboard on Gender Parity, June 2025.
4. United Nations. “UN Secretariat Gender Parity Dashboard.” Coverage and methodological notes. Accessed 3 November 2026.
5. United Nations, Secretary-General. “Implementation of human resources management reforms: outlook for 2026–2029.” A/80/550, 28 November 2025, p. 13: gender-parity definition, employee-empowerment indicators and targets.

Stephanie Hodge, MPA Harvard (2006), is an international evaluator and former UN advisor who has worked across 140 countries. She is a former staffer of UNDP (1994-1996 & 1999- 2004) and UNICEF (2008-2014). She writes on governance, multilateral reform, and climate equity.

IPS UN Bureau

Communities in the Kavango West region of northern Namibia have firsthand experience of the severe impacts of climate change. The dry, cracked soil and emaciated livestock provide a constant reminder of the lack of access to water in this part of the country. Credit: UNFPA Namibia

By UN Women
ANTALYA, Türkiye , Nov 10 2026 (IPS)

More than one in three women and girls worldwide – at least 1.5 billion – live in climate hotspots, where high exposure to climate hazards, insecure jobs and deep gender inequality collide, according to a new UN Women fact sheet on “Gender Equality in the Age of Climate Crisis”. UN Women warns that while 73 per cent of countries recognize the climate risks facing women and girls, just over one in three address them comprehensively.

“Across the world, women are already leading the fight for a better future – in their communities, in laboratories, in parliaments and on the front lines of the climate crisis. We must give women and girls equal rights, resources and the power to lead, and they will help drive the change our world so urgently needs”, said Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women.

On the current trajectory, the world is headed for a minimum of 1.8°C of heating, unleashing even more devastating droughts, floods, wildfires and cyclones, and creating irreversible loss and damage to communities and ecosystems. New data from UN Women shows that women and girls in the countries least responsible for climate crisis are hit hardest by it, from the food they go without to the violence they face, climate change is affecting every aspect of their lives.

• Under a worst-case scenario, up to 141 million additional women and girls could be living in extreme poverty.
• Based on data from 24 countries, a 1°C increase in average temperatures is associated with women losing 34 per cent more of their total income than men likely reflecting their more limited ability to shift to non-farm work or migrate when harvests fail.
• Climate change is increasing unpaid care responsibilities, such as collection of water and fuel, and care for family members in the aftermath of disasters. Of the 1.8 billion people without water on their premises, women are primary water collectors in two-thirds of households. Under a high-emissions scenario, the time spent collecting water could increase by up to 30 per cent by 2050.
• Climate-related livelihood losses, displacement and resource scarcity can magnify existing drivers of gender-based violence. Across 14 countries, exposure to prolonged extreme drought was associated with 21 per cent higher odds of sexual violence against adolescent girls and young women.
• Over the past decade, progress in reducing child marriage has nearly doubled in pace. Climate change threatens to undo that progress. In 24 of 46 countries where data on child marriage can be disaggregated by exposure to slow-onset events, rates of child marriage were higher in more arid environments than in more humid ones.
• AI technology drives up energy demand, while 326 million women and girls still lack access to electricity.
• Women remain largely excluded from climate decision-making, holding just 12 per cent of energy portfolios globally, and women environmental defenders face harassment and even death for protecting their communities and the planet.
• Developing countries receive less than a third of the climate finance they need, while just 4 per cent of climate-focused Official Development Assistance prioritises gender equality.

The fact sheet also shows that progress is possible. With the right investments, women could secure up to 66 per cent of net new green jobs, gaining 68 million additional jobs by 2035.

Governments are stepping up; 73 per cent of nationally determined contributions – governments’ self-defined climate action plans – now acknowledge gender-specific climate risks. However, just over one in three addresses them comprehensively.

At COP31, UN Women calls on world leaders to put gender equality and women’s rights at the heart of climate action, to move towards economies that put people and the planet before profits, build resilience for all and advance gender equality. That means guaranteeing the right of all women and girls to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, protecting the women environmental human rights defenders who risk their lives for their communities and the planet, and giving women and girls real power at the decision-making table.

It means delivering gender-responsive climate finance that reaches women and their organizations, advancing a just transition that redistributes care, and tackling the heightened risks of violence against women and girls as the climate crisis deepens. The new Belém Gender Action Plan must be fully implemented and fully financed, so that political commitments become real change for women and girls on the front line of climate crises.

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

Opening press conference at COP31, in Antalya, Türkiye. Credit: Kubilay Ciftci/UN Climate Change

By IPS Correspondent
ANTALYA, Türkiye, , Nov 10 2026 (IPS)

Africa’s transition to clean energy received a potential boost at COP31 with the announcement of a new international financing coalition, co-chaired by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and World Bank from 2027.

The Electrify Now Finance Coalition will bring together governments, development banks and private investors to mobilise funding for electrification in emerging and developing economies.

The initiative forms part of COP31’s ambitious 35-by-35 Global Electrification Pledge, which aims to increase electricity’s share of global final energy consumption from approximately 23% to 35% by 2035.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) will also support developing countries in strengthening electricity grids, preparing investment projects and accessing finance.

At the COP31 venue, members of civil society demonstrate. Credit: UN Climate Change/Kubilay Ciftci

Highlighting the economic opportunities for Africa and other developing regions, Sustainable Energy for All CEO Damilola Ogunbiyi said, “Electrification presents an opportunity to industrialise, create jobs, improve livelihoods and strengthen energy independence.”

The announcements come as COP31 President Murat Kurum calls for an “Implementation COP”, where climate commitments translate into tangible results.

“Now our promises must be backed by capital. That capital must fund investment. And that investment must deliver results,” Kurum said.

For Africa, the challenge will be ensuring that these initiatives translate into accessible financing, expanded electricity infrastructure and affordable clean energy.

IPS UN Bureau Report

A CGIAR report warns that climate change will further reduce the availability of water and increase the amount of time women spend collecting water by 30%. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe &, Nov 10 2026 (IPS)

Fetching water was once a back-breaking daily reality – one that Nomuhle SibandaMpofu will never forget.

Mpofu, from Inyathi village in Bubi District in Matabeleland North Province, is a horticulture farmer and livestock farmer. Water is everything to her livelihood. She has had to overcome the challenge of travelling many kilometres to fetch water for her family and for irrigating her crop and livestock farming enterprise.

For millions of women in the rural areas, increasing droughts, worsened by climate change, are not just an environmental crisis but mean a labourious and time-consuming daily water collection marathon.

Water scarcity could increase women’s water-collection time by 30%, while the shift of rural women into off-farm jobs could either create more resilient livelihoods or entrench inequality, finds a CGIAR GENDER Accelerator report, Advancing equality, transforming futures.

The CGIAR gender report warns that without deliberate policy action, climate change and economic disruption could leave women further behind in food, land and water systems by 2050. The report was released ahead of the 31st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP31) underway in Antalya, Türkiye, until 20 November 2026.

Farmers like Mpofu have insulated themselves against the risks of water insecurity by drilling boreholes and adopting water-saving methods.

“Before I drilled a borehole I used to fetch water from a community borehole and from a seasonal dam nearby,” Mpofu tells IPS. “I used a wheelbarrow to collect water from the dam, which dried up mid-year, and the community borehole more than a kilometre away was the closest source of water.”

Mpofu grows spinach, tomatoes, kale, onions, and occasionally potatoes on her two-hectare fenced plot.

“I used to wheel three 20-litre containers of water from the borehole before I bought a scotchart and donkey and was able to carry 24 containers of water for my vegetable garden. I would skip two days before I made another water run because of the labour of the task,” Mpofu recalled.

Long Walk to Water Freedom

Then three years ago she saved enough money and drilled a borehole in her homestead and  erected a 5000 litre water tank, enabling her to  easily water her garden and her goats, sheep, pigs and cattle.

“Before I had a borehole it was difficult collecting water, a tough task which I had to balance with other chores in the homestead, but now that difficulty is past, I now turn on the tap, and water flows.”

Drilling a borehole within her homestead helped Mpofu end at least five hours a day she spent collecting water, a chore that challenges millions of women in rural areas in Africa.

In April this year, ICRISAT helped and installed the Chameleon water-saving tool in Mpofu’s field. The Chameleon Tool  is an  easy-to-use tool that helps farmers apply the right amount of water to their crops. It consists of  three sensors permanently installed at different depths in the soil. A hand-held reader shows blue light for wet soil, green light for moist soil or red light for dry soil.

“Before I used to water my crops almost every two days, but now I water after four days when it is hot and after five days when it’s cloudy, saving a lot of water that way,” said Mpofu.

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has helped  smallholder farmers in Southern Africa manage irrigation water more efficiently using the Chameleon soil moisture sensor.

With the El Niño phenomenon – a natural climate pattern characterised by the unusual warming of surface waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean – now underway, there are growing fears of widespread drought in Southern Africa. The 2026–2027 El Niño is projected to cause water shortages and severely disrupt  agriculture production across Southern Africa.

The CGIAR GENDER Accelerator report notes that the global food crisis — fuel, fertiliser, climate extremes, trade disruptions — has disproportionately impacted women over the past year. At the same time, women are central to building resilient food systems needed to guard against emerging threats.

Els Lecoutere, senior officer at the CGIAR Gender Impact Platform and one of the report’s authors, highlights that the report was motivated by the need to predict and prepare for an uncertain future, as negative impacts of climate change are seen in increasing droughts and water scarcity, which affected women differently.

“We do know that climate change is widening gender gaps, so what should we do now so that we avoid a future that could be more unequal in food systems rather than more unequal if all these crises happen?” Lecoutere said. “We sought to look into the future and learn from what we know now, as we have a lot of evidence of what works to increase gender equality.”

Projections based on the current trends show that by 2050 in a business-as-usual scenario, the Middle East and North Africa region will still have a female unemployment gap and a female earnings gap, and in South Asia the female earnings gap will improve, but a big female earnings gap will remain. While in Sub-Saharan Africa employment will go up in the most optimistic scenario, the female earnings gap remain stagnant.

“Water will be scarcer in some regions, and we already know that the task of collecting water falls on the shoulders of women and girls, and they spend so much time on that task, meaning the education of girls is affected, and women, for instance, cannot open their shops or attend to other activities,” Lecoutere said.

“Given the norm that women and girls are in charge, given the lack of infrastructure, the implications for women and girls are clear: that without a change of customs, the choices and options they have are reduced.”

Closing the Gender Gap

Opportunities to reduce gender inequality include institutional, legal and social reform, inclusive infrastructure, social protection, improved data-gathering and the responsible use of emerging technology, the CGIAR GENDER Accelerator report recommends.

Ismahane Elouafi, Executive Managing Director of CGIAR, notes that we cannot feed our future without including women in our food systems.

“The choices we make over the coming years will determine whether food, land, and water systems become more equitable or more unequal, more resilient or more fragile,” said Elouafi.

The Rome Declaration on Water Scarcity in Agriculture, adopted during the High-level Rome Water Dialogue in Italy in 2024, acknowledged that drought responses are contributing to crop failures in parts of the world and an acute food insecurity crisis in vulnerable countries. The Declaration noted changing rainfall patterns are resulting in increased droughts.

“I am aware that with any drought women are in a difficult situation where they have to collect water over a long distance. I encourage women to invest in boreholes; they are one solution to surviving the drought by bringing water closer to home and relieving them from the task of collecting water from afar,” Mpofu says.

The report also finds that digital technologies hold significant potential to bridge gender inequities across food systems, despite the current digital divide between men and women. It cites research showing that in Kenya, for example, women are up to 25% less likely than men to access digital climate advisory services due to structural gender barriers. The report calls on technology developers to involve women in the development of breakthrough technologies like AI before scaling their use.

“Investing in women, not as labourers, but as leaders, is the path towards unlocking the full potential of our food, land and water systems,” said Nicoline de Haan, Director of the CGIAR GENDER Accelerator.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Trump and Netanyahu went all out for regime change in Tehran. This month, their electorates gave them regime changes, albeit not quite what they wanted. The wars continue, but the politics have changed.

Trump’s military spending
In Trump’s second term, the US president and the outgoing Republican-controlled Congress have shown even less respect for the Constitution.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Trump wanted a $1.5 trillion military budget for fiscal 2027, starting in October, up from $860 billion in Biden’s last budget, an increase of over $600 billion, or nearly 2.0% of GDP!

Financing the massive increase in US military spending would require substantial tax increases. Without them, Trump would have to increase the budget deficit, risking even higher interest rates.

Greater military spending and higher interest rates have diverted economic and human resources from more socially useful purposes. Besides exhausting the economy, it is also economically and socially wasteful.

War raises interest rates
Before Trump and Netanyahu attacked Iran on 28 February, the interest rate on 10-year US Treasury bonds was around 4.0%. It subsequently rose to around 4.7% by late August.

Higher interest rates make borrowing more expensive for individuals and governments. Having to pay more, corporate borrowers will surely pass the costs on.

Higher expected inflation alone cannot explain the higher interest rates. Unexpectedly, after more than six months of war, expectations of future inflation were slightly lower than in February!

Higher interest rates probably reflect broader changes in expectations, as investors now expect much larger US budget deficits than early this year.

The US Federal Reserve now projects that the Fed funds rate, widely seen as reflecting investor attitudes, will be higher in 2027 and 2028 than before the war.

Likewise, long-term interest rates on other countries’ debt have risen, indicating Trump’s war has raised interest rates worldwide.

Raising interest rates ineffective
Raising interest rates does little to address inflation caused by deliberate supply-side disruptions. Trump appointed Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair to bring down interest rates, but the Chairman has not obliged so far.

Inflation has been above the Fed’s 2.0% target for over half a decade. With US unemployment rising in 2024, it lowered interest rates. After Trump’s re-election, inflation rose due to stockpiling in anticipation of his tariffs, and then the tariffs themselves.

Inflation would probably have declined again if not for the second attack on Iran, which pushed oil and other prices up. Relief from inflation now hinges on the very uncertain prospects of ending the war.

As higher inflation has been the pretext for the Fed to raise interest rates, it should lower rates if prices fell. Likewise, when the AI bubble bursts, interest rates would likely decline too.

Macroeconomist Dean Baker suggests that the Fed has kept interest rates up to appear to be doing something. With wage growth barely over 3.0% and falling, income has been shifting from wages to profits.

If wage-profit shares stabilise, even the usual productivity growth rate of 1.5% should keep inflation under 2.0%, as higher productivity more than offsets rising wage costs.

If the productivity boom that AI proponents are promising were to materialise, inflation would be well under target, even with wages rising at current rates. Clearly, wage inflation is not accelerating.

Meanwhile, Trump may raise tariffs again or start another war, raising prices further. But again, raising Fed interest rates cannot help.

Affordability
The popular consensus is that the Iran war was largely responsible for the Republican Party setback in last week’s US mid-term elections.

The war and its consequences are widely seen as primarily responsible for the current US affordability crisis. Trump has raised inflation, not only by waging war, but also by imposing tariffs on most trading partners and sanctions on some.

As higher inflation has been the pretext for the Fed to raise interest rates, it should lower rates if prices fall. And when the AI bubble bursts, interest rates should decline.

Fuel prices jumped by $1.50 per US gallon after the war started and remain over a dollar higher than before. Diesel prices rose by almost $3 per gallon at their peak and remain over $2.50 above their pre-war level.

Food prices are also expected to rise further in the new year due to fertiliser shortages, as much of the world’s supply has come from the Persian Gulf region.

Ironically, Trump’s war has accelerated the green energy transition worldwide, with electric vehicle and solar panel sales soaring, thereby reducing demand for oil and gas in the longer term.

Ending the April 2025 Liberation Day tariffs did not return prices to earlier levels. Similarly, ending the war will only partially reverse the economic disruption and damage caused.

IPS UN Bureau

A group of UN Staffers outside the Secretariat. Credit: United Nations

By Naïma Abdellaoui
GENEVA, Nov 9 2026 (IPS)

Stronger staff representation means a stronger United Nations. This is not simply about protecting jobs or preserving acquired benefits, important as those objectives are. This is about protecting the institutional capacity, integrity and independence of the United Nations itself.

Every abolished post can represent lost expertise, institutional memory and operational capacity. Every deterioration in employment conditions can affect the Organization’s ability to attract and retain professionals of the highest caliber. Every restructuring undertaken without meaningful staff participation risks undermining trust, morale and the quality of mandate delivery.

At a time when financial pressures, political interference and technological transformation are reshaping the international civil service, staff representatives should be contributing to the design of sustainable institutional solutions, not merely managing the consequences of decisions taken elsewhere.

Staff representatives should be capable of challenging flawed policies, identifying alternatives, defending institutional independence and bringing the practical knowledge of the workforce into strategic decisions.

A strong, independent staff representative system is not an obstacle to reform.
It is an essential condition for reform that is legitimate, sustainable and faithful to the UN’s mission.

Returning to the spirit of the Charter

Articles 100 and 101 of the UN Charter establish the foundations of an independent international civil service whose members serve the Organization rather than individual governments and whose employment is guided by the highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity.

Those principles cannot be reduced to administrative slogans. They require institutions that protect professional independence, uphold fairness and enable staff to speak and act collectively in defense of the Organization they serve.

The UN cannot advocate democratic governance, fundamental labor rights and institutional accountability throughout the world while leaving serious shortcomings in its own representative arrangements unaddressed.

Naïma Abdellaoui is Staff Representative UN Office at Geneva (UNOG) and member of the Executive Bureau of UNOG Staff Union.

IPS UN Bureau

Tens of thousands of people take to the streets late into the night to celebrate the student-led opposition coalition's victory in Belgrade, Serbia, on 26 October 2026. Credit: Aleksandar Jovicic/NurPhoto

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Nov 9 2026 (IPS)

On the night of 25 October, tens of thousands filled the streets of Belgrade and other cities, as they’d so often done in protest over the past two years. But this time they came out to celebrate. In that day’s National Assembly election, Student List, a slate of political newcomers, defeated Aleksandar Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), in power since 2012. The student-led movement behind the protests, which rose up against corruption, has given Serbia the opportunity for a democratic reset.

From grief to protest

Serbia became steadily more autocratic under Vučić. Public institutions served ruling-party interests amid a web of corruption, patronage, coercion and impunity. Public media became a ruling party mouthpiece.

Civic freedoms deteriorated dramatically. In 2018, the CIVICUS Monitor rated Serbia’s civic space as narrowed, meaning that fundamental rights were broadly respected. By the end of Vučić’s rule, the rating had collapsed to repressed, meaning that criticising those in power carried severe risks. The state used violence against protests and treated civil society as a security threat, targeting it with spyware and subjecting organisations to raids and police investigations.

The seismic shift began in November 2024 with the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city. Sixteen people died. The government insisted it was a tragic accident, but the station had only recently been renovated and, with construction contracts shrouded in secrecy, many suspected corners had been cut. For protesters, this was a lethal symbol of the costs of corruption, negligence and impunity. No one has been held accountable.

Students held vigils and mass protests on a scale unseen since 2000, when demonstrations ousted Slobodan Milošević, the infamous authoritarian leader and accused war criminal. This time, their most effective tactic was a months-long education strike in which they blockaded and occupied universities.

As the protest movement grew it connected with existing groups, including environmental and legal aid organisations, independent media and, crucially, academics, university administrators and education unions, who took solidarity strike action. This built wider public support, backed by a ‘students in every village’ campaign that saw students meet with rural communities to ask about what mattered most to them.

State attempts to suppress the movement failed, including mass arrests, violence by security forces and gangs of ruling-party supporters and an extensive campaign of disinformation and smears. Vučić vilified protesters as agents of foreign powers bent on subversion and the government fired education sector employees for taking part in strikes.

Change on the cards

Ultimately, the protests forced Vučić’s hand. Constitutionally barred from seeking a third term as president, he announced an early parliamentary election in June and stood down as president in September, making clear his intention to hold onto power as prime minister. He presumably gambled that a skewed playing field, characterised by intimidation and biased coverage, would let him win again and unleash an even fiercer crackdown.

The gamble failed because of the movement’s discipline and the smart choices it made. Throughout, students resisted opposition parties’ attempts to co-opt them, insisting that deeper change was needed to re-establish the rule of law, free public institutions from political capture and tackle corruption. From its early days, the movement practised internal democracy, taking decisions in university plenums, open assemblies where people debated, learned and decided together. When it decided to field a slate of candidates, it used the same method to select them. Students didn’t put themselves forward, choosing instead public figures untainted by association with established politics and likely to command broad support. Those who’ve won seats include academics, actors, former sports stars and medical professionals.

The result surpassed all predictions. According to projections based on the preliminary count, Student List has around 53 per cent of the vote, which would give it a clear majority of 141 of the National Assembly’s 250 seats. The SNS-led bloc trails on around 39 per cent. The margin was such that Vučić had to concede quickly.

Challenges of power

After the euphoria comes the challenge of moving from protest to power. A movement that has refused to have formal leaders must now unite behind a prime minister. Once the National Assembly convenes, Student List will have 90 days to form a government. Its deliberately broad campaign focused on major questions of national renewal but offered little detail. This strategy papered over political differences among representatives who range from nationalist to more liberal, which can be expected to surface if the incoming government succeeds in restoring the space for normal political debate. There’s also the question of how those elected will relate to the student movement.

As in Hungary, where long-term autocratic leader Viktor Orbán finally fell to electoral defeat in April, the new government will face the difficult task of reorienting state institutions that have bent to the former ruling party’s interests. An early sign of change came when the public broadcaster apologised to viewers for its bias towards the SNS, something that also happened in Hungary. The government will need to repay voters’ faith by rooting out corruption, which will mean overhauling institutions including the judiciary and police. All this will unfold alongside a presidential election that’s due by the end of the year.

Challenges lie ahead, but a population that has rediscovered the power of collective action can face them with confidence. Serbia also offers a vital source of international inspiration. Together with Hungary’s example, it shows there’s nothing permanent about autocratic rule. The world’s many Gen Z-led movements that have self-organised to demand a fairer distribution of economic and political power, and civil society more broadly, can take heart. Serbia has shown that organising and protesting works, and change is possible.

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

A dairy farmer holds her Kallari cow in the Solapur district of the western Indian state of Maharashtra. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
PUNE, India & ANTALYA, Türkiye, Nov 9 2026 (IPS)

Dairy farmer Sagar Pawar has to buy water and fodder at inflated rates to feed his brood of two buffaloes, three Guernsey cows and a calf. He lives in the Solapur district, which is already drought-prone, but now has to deal with the impacts of a strong El Niño as well.

Pawar was interviewed in the days leading up to the 31st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP31), which opened today in Antalya, Türkiye.

The opening coincided with the release of the World Meteorological Society’s new report, which confirms that 2026 will be one of four warmest years on record.

“The year 2026 continues the protracted streak of exceptional global temperatures, melting ice and rising sea levels, with a very strong El Niño event set to unleash even more heat and extreme weather well into 2027,” the report confirms, highlighting the knock-on risks to the environment, economy, and everyday life.

“Extreme weather has made headlines throughout 2026. Behind the headlines and the statistics in this report are people who suffered the loss of loved ones, threats to their health and safety, flooded homes, failed harvests, empty shelves, lack of water and choking air,” said Celeste Saulo, WMO Secretary General.

“The past four years have been the warmest in the 177-year observational record, and the heat in the oceans is breaking records for the tenth year in a row. The ongoing El Niño is forecast to be one of the strongest on record, and the heat it releases from the ocean will continue to fuel high temperatures and extreme weather into 2027. Forecasts underpinned by sustained observations are more important than ever to monitor our rapidly changing climate and help navigate the increasing risks to societies and economies.”

UN Secretary-General António Guterres reacted to the report, noting, “We have entered a new age of climate extremes. A supersized El Niño is colliding with a planet already superheated by manmade climate change. Climate records keep falling. The human costs keep rising. And those least responsible are suffering first and worst. Leaders must get serious by cutting emissions faster, accelerating a just transition from fossil fuels and delivering the finance and protection vulnerable countries need.

Those among the most vulnerable live in the Solapur district in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, which has long been semi-arid. Rainfall here averages between 427 and 552 mm during the monsoon months of June to September, with few major rivers for farmers to rely on.

Impact on Most Vulnerable

Farmers here have always cultivated millets, alongside gram, lentils, horticultural crops, and fodder, which require limited amounts of water. Dairy farming and horticulture have not just supplemented rural incomes here but are the mainstay of the (rural) economy.

This rain-shadow district, as well as the Marathwada and Vidarbha regions of the state, is familiar with droughts, especially this year due to a strong El Niño.

However, groundwater depletion has hit 47% more wells than in 2015, which was a drought year. In fact, there are many more talukas facing drought this year, including some in districts like Pune, which are not drought-prone.

Solapur district and its talukas (sub-divisions) remain the worst-hit. The entire Solapur district is parched and thirsty, except for a few villages near the Seena River in and around the pilgrim town/taluka of Pandharpur, with parts like Mohol receiving as little as 193.2 mm. Sangola, renowned for its pomegranate production, is one of the 305 talukas declared drought-stricken by the state government.

As against a normal average rainfall of 468.3 mm during the monsoon months, Sangola received just 229.1 mm, amounting to a 52 per cent deficit this year.

Even millets could not be sown this year because the soil lacked the minimal moisture, as Lalit Babar, founder of the Dr Ambedkar Agricultural Development and Research Institute, a non-governmental organisation focused on agricultural research, explained to me. A few farms that planted pomegranates last year are in a poor state, with stunted plants.

Normally, dairy farmers grow their fodder here. But this year, farms were unable to yield any fodder.

In fact, the entire state is facing a fodder crisis, with some districts left with only 63-65 days of fodder. The government is helping households with drinking water. But no water is being supplied for livestock.

Dairy farmer Sagar Pawar tells me, “The Gram Panchayat (rural self-governing body) gives us one tanker of water, amounting to 2 000 litres, once every four days. It is hardly enough.”

The Pawars have a borewell on their land, which is 400 metres deep. But water runs for just two minutes, the first minute yielding only muddy water. What is pumped out is just sufficient for the household.

Hence, Pawar has to buy water and fodder at inflated rates to feed his brood of two buffaloes, three Guernsey cows and a calf.

“The fodder in the market comes from the neighbouring state and is of very low quality, but beggars cannot be choosers,” he rues.

The Waghmode brothers – Raju and Deepak – own 17 animals, including four buffaloes, seven Guernsey and 3 Killari cows, besides five calves.

Alike other dairy farmers, they are compelled to buy their own fodder and water for their animals.

“We are trying to store fodder and water to safeguard ourselves. But our storage capacity is limited,” Raju Waghmode tells me. Hanumant Kadam is the biggest dairy farmer in Dongarwadi village in Sangola, with 60 milch animals – 54 Guernsey cows, two Killari cows, and four Jaffrabadi buffaloes.

In addition, he also breeds 40 sheep and a goat. His 8-acre farm normally grows fodder for his animals, besides a little millet for family consumption. The drought has hit him hard.

“I can only buy limited amounts of the required fodder and protein feed for my animals; hence, I feed them just enough for survival.”

Kadam needs an average of 5000 litres of water daily for his animals, which, at inflated rates, amounts to a colossal sum. This means feeding a Guernsey cow just 15-20 kg of fodder, as against its normal requirement of 30 kg per day.

The same applies to his Indian killari breed, buffaloes, goats, and sheep. Consequently, milk yield has dropped. His Guernsey cows now yield only 5 litres per day, as against the normal 11 litres per day, while the milk yield from his Killari cows stands at 1 litre, as against 3 litres daily.

A dairy farmer needs fodder, protein feed and water for every animal to profit from his brood. With inflated costs, most farmers cannot afford to keep their livestock. Dairy farmer Battu Waghmode had to sell off his 30 cows and buffaloes at a throwaway price. The Atpadkars’ 3-acre farm cannot yield fodder for their buffaloes, goats and sheep.

“Our borewell can yield water for only an hour daily, which is just enough for our family,” Chandan Atpadkar tells me. Hence, they have decided to sell all their animals for now.

Rural distress can be assessed from the fact that non-banking financial institutions (NBFCs), which are major players in rural India, are curbing all lending as a cautionary move.

Government Relief for Villagers

The state government has announced an examination fee waiver for students in the 305 talukas declared drought-stricken to help the affected people. Financial relief has also been announced for the affected population, with water tankers being arranged for drinking purposes through urban local and rural self-governing bodies.

However, livelihood issues have been generally overlooked, as farmers point out, although the government has announced plans for a fodder bank to provide for future emergencies. The government has sought drought-mitigation proposals from district collectors within a fortnight while seeking immediate information on fodder and water availability at the village level.

There is also a move to grow spineless cactus as a substitute fodder for cattle across the drought-prone Marathwada region. But farmers remain sceptical. “We need immediate relief, right now.”

In Dongarwadi village in Sangola, water can be accessed only by 15 percent of the population, since water tankers cannot reach families who live on their farms, away from the asphalt roads of the main village settlement. Hence, water tankers arranged by the grassroots development organisation, Dr Ambedkar Sheti Vikas va Sanshodhan Sanstha, are the only lifeline for locals.

Role of Climate Finance

The drought in Maharashtra has come at a time when some other natural disasters have also struck South Asia. Massive floods in Northeast India and flash floods in Nepal have devastated wide swathes of land. These natural disasters have once again emphasised the necessity of climate finance for adaptation and mitigation, as well as for building resilience in the Global South, which the forthcoming COP 31 aims to address.

This issue assumes especial importance in view of the forecasts made by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) for the October-December season, given the high global sea surface temperatures. Sea-surface temperatures reflect strengthening El Niño.

Notably, the commitment by developed countries to mobilise US$100 billion annually in climate finance for developing countries, which was reinforced at the 2010 Cancun climate conference and incorporated into the 2015 Paris Agreement, was not achieved by the original 2020 deadline. Despite the establishment of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and a Climate Finance Delivery Plan, the target was only reached in 2022, when developed countries provided and mobilised US$115.9 billion.

However, developing countries maintain that this amount falls far short of their needs. The NEED’S Report, or UNFCCC’s Second Report on the Determination of the Needs of Developing Country Parties, published in 2025, estimates that between US$5 trillion and US$6.9 trillion is required to implement the climate adaptation and mitigation measures identified in developing countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) by 2030. The report notes that this figure does not capture the full extent of their climate finance needs.

As Shravan Shankar, a climate finance expert and CEO of CLIMAKE, explains, the original thinking was that prioritising emissions reduction would help limit the future costs of adapting to climate change.

“Adaptation was acknowledged, but it was still seen as a ‘future’ need,” he says. “The idea was that if we mobilise enough towards mitigation, we will be able to sufficiently reduce emissions, reduce the impact of climate change, and consequently reduce adaptation and resilience needs.”

However, the scale and urgency of the climate challenge have since changed considerably. Countries’ net-zero commitments mean that mitigation must now extend beyond renewable energy and clean mobility to more complex areas such as industrial decarbonisation and agricultural emissions reduction. These sectors are harder to commercialise and cannot necessarily follow the same investment pathways as renewable energy.

More significantly, the consequences of climate change are already being felt, making adaptation and resilience an immediate priority rather than a future consideration.

“Arguably the most significant development is that the effects of climate change are clear and present, and they are devastating,” Shankar says.

This presents a particularly difficult challenge for low-income developing economies, which often lack the financial resources and institutional capacity to protect their populations and economies against increasingly severe climate impacts. Adaptation requires investment in practical measures, from climate-resilient seeds and agricultural inputs to irrigation systems, reliable water access and improved farming practices to prevent food losses.

As Shankar points out, these countries need resources to implement measures that can protect livelihoods and strengthen resilience to drought, water stress and rising temperatures. Yet these investments often struggle to attract private capital because, unlike many renewable energy projects, they do not necessarily generate direct commercial returns.

Echoing Shankar’s views on the global emphasis on mitigation so far, Arun Krishnan, Program Director of Climate Finance at the World Resources Institute (WRI) in India, feels the need to look at adaptation and mitigation separately.

Much of the mitigation, such as utility-scale solar in favourable markets, has become commercially bankable and can attract mainstream finance without concessional support. The financing challenge lies increasingly in adaptation and in areas of mitigation that are not yet commercially viable.

“Developing countries need finance for adaptation and hard-to-finance mitigation at a much greater scale and on far better terms. Adaptation remains one of the most underfunded areas because it generates benefits largely through avoided losses rather than direct revenue,” Krishnan said.

Yet it is often vulnerable communities that experience climate impacts first and most acutely.

Emphasising the need for accessibility to climate finance for those who need it most, he calls for more grants and concessional finance. Calling for blended finance, guarantees and risk-sharing mechanisms to mobilise private capital herein, Krishnan advocates a stronger role for regulators like central banks, as well as development banks and rural and cooperative lenders, to channel finance to farmers and small businesses.

The challenge for the Global South is not merely to bridge the enormous gap between financial commitments and estimated requirements but also to distinguish the incremental costs of climate change from pre-existing developmental deficits and vulnerabilities that amplify disaster impacts, says Dr Nilanjan Ghosh, Vice President, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), and a distinguished ecological economist with expertise in climate finance.

“Adaptation finance must, therefore, be embedded within a broader framework of development resilience, encompassing water governance, ecosystem restoration, climate-resilient infrastructure, institutional preparedness and disaster-risk reduction.”

These discussions are even more urgent, as the WMO State of the Climate Update 2026 shows that the past 12 years have individually been the warmest on record, with the past four years being the top four. The global average surface temperature for January–September 2026 was about 1.47 °C above the pre-industrial average. This figure is likely to rise through the end of the year due to the warming effect of El Niño, which has been intensifying since August and is expected to be the strongest on record by December.

Earth’s energy imbalance is rising, and the earth system is accumulating heat at an accelerating rate. The imbalance reached its highest level since monitoring began, as greenhouse gases trap unprecedented amounts of heat and upset the equilibrium between incoming energy from the sun and outgoing energy. The ocean absorbs 90% of this excess heat, and 2026 is on track to be the tenth successive year of record ocean warmth.

Sea level is the highest on record, and sea-surface temperatures hit monthly records during 2026. The long-term retreat of glaciers continues, with the annual mass loss of ice in 2025 filling five Olympic pools every second of the year. Freshwater storage has been dwindling since 2014.

The report commented on several natural disasters across the world caused by climate extremes including the Indian monsoon rainfall deficit from June to September, which affected about 705 000. The monsoon began with June rainfall around 40% below normal. All-India rainfall was around 12% below normal by 30 September, raising concerns for agriculture and water resources.

Additional reporting: Cecilia Russell
IPS UN Bureau Report

Excerpt:

By Saber Azam
GENEVA, Nov 9 2026 (IPS)

This piece focuses on the responsibilities of other prominent figures, leaders of intergovernmental organizations, senior diplomats, and business tycoons for the world’s current appalling state and the calamities that may await future generations. When democracy fails; when people in authority remain silent and prioritize self-interest; when regional entities become redundant; when appearance becomes more important than substance; when diplomacy is outsmarted by warmongers; when prejudice infects minds; and when business chooses unlawfulness, I continue to assert:

Saber Azam

Other prominent figures—heads of political parties, senior members of legislative and judicial bodies, high-level bureaucrats and military commanders, and even some prominent artists—also bear significant responsibility for upholding their countries’ constitutions and for demanding accountability from their leaders. Many succumb to the influence of questionable lobbies or circles to strengthen their power base, secure re-election, obtain better positions, advance their careers, or defend particular interests.

Unlawful wars and mass killings occur live on camera, and major investigations and judicial processes sometimes appear to align with the political ambitions of those who rule their countries, regardless of the gravity of the crimes committed. Election rigging has become standard practice in many places around the world. White-collar and covert bribery is tolerated as long as it serves those in power or dominant circles. Underhanded tactics used to disqualify lawful competitors have become the bread and butter of many influential figures and even institutions. The rule of law often seems to apply most strictly to those with little or no means. Many high-ranking military officers appear to lack the resolve to resist unconstitutional orders.

Social and economic development, as well as political freedom, remain elusive in many “developing” countries decades after independence. Large segments of the population on earth still live in absolute poverty, while a small number of powerful figures in political, economic, and other key spheres amass vast wealth. As a result, many prominent figures worldwide have failed in their political, legislative, judicial, administrative, defense, or artistic responsibilities.

I Accuse Leaders of the Regional Intergovernmental Organizations

Contrary to the “world-loving” spirit of the United Nations (UN), regional intergovernmental organizations were established to safeguard peace and security and to promote social, political, and economic development within their respective jurisdictions. Yet they have not been immune to individual interests, superpower intervention, or the influence of economically prosperous countries and powerful industries.

To date, few regions appear politically stable. Internal crises, wars between neighbors, and regional conflicts persist across many parts of the world. Some regional entities’ resolutions remain unimplemented, fail to address underlying issues, or are framed unrealistically to “respect” the demands of actors who may not belong to the region but can influence it through military or financial power. Hidden actors exploit racial, ethnic, and religious divisions, undermining cohesion among states and peoples. Despite regional intergovernmental organizations’ obligation to address major peace, security, and development challenges collectively, many have failed to do so.

Few “poor countries” have emerged from the ocean of debt and mounting loan interest. Foreign companies often extract and exploit enormous natural wealth while paying little or nothing to its rightful owners. The regional organizations to which these countries belong either cannot rescue them or choose not to intervene. Violations of human rights and dignity follow a similar pattern. Western nations often apply these principles “à la carte,” while their defense has become rhetoric rather than a genuine concern for regional intergovernmental entities and their leaders, who, too, bear responsibility for the deplorable conditions prevailing in many parts of the world.

I Accuse Senior Diplomats

Diplomacy is defined as “an established method of influencing the decisions and behavior of foreign governments and peoples through dialogue, negotiation, and other measures short of war or violence.” It is also “the process and practice of communication and negotiation between actors in the international system to achieve their goals and resolve their conflicts and disputes.” The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations establishes an international legal framework for diplomatic relations, privileges, and immunities. The definition and practice of diplomacy therefore imply a process characterized by negotiated outcomes and the absence of treachery and violence. This rationale is central to building trust between adversaries and to sustaining long-term peace and security.

However, like politics, multilateral and bilateral diplomacy seems increasingly to be the art of deceiving the interlocutor, whether friend or foe. The spirit of win-win scenarios seems abandoned. Military actions by powerful countries during negotiations undermine diplomatic efforts and erode trust. Likewise, providing diplomatic cover for espionage, even within multilateral institutions, and deploying career diplomats at tactical and operational levels in war zones create further contradictions. Senior diplomats from many “poor countries” aspire to secure prominent positions in international or regional entities that offer significant political and financial advantages. In contrast, most diplomats from wealthy countries rarely oppose their governments’ policies and actions, even when those policies and actions violate international norms.

Serving one’s nation in any capacity is an honor for a civil servant. The question, however, is why senior diplomats do not speak out when their governments’ policies and actions cross every imaginable red line of unlawfulness and abuse the status and principles of their profession. They therefore bear a heavy responsibility when regional or international peace and security are jeopardized.

I Accuse the Business Tycoons

Business is the lawful activity of producing, buying, and selling products or services for profit. Its foundations are legality, trust, quality, and honesty. Yet some prominent tycoons and institutions have transformed business into a platform for particular political interests. Maximizing returns at all costs, crushing competitors through unlawful acts, applying double standards, or deceiving customers also appear in supposedly “non-political” commerce. Powerful individuals have long manipulated markets in free economies, undermining lawful trade and fair risk-taking.

The weapons industry has become increasingly profitable. In addition to official transactions, the sale of light and semi-heavy weapons to non-state actors through dubious traffickers contributes to countless deaths each year and fuels proxy wars in many regions. While some countries maintain an “open-door” policy on private gun ownership, most nations restrict or prohibit their citizens from possessing and using firearms. Illicit trade, however, undermines these policies.

Beyond their devastating political dimensions, the current energy crises that threaten the peace, security, and safety of billions of people in “poor” or “developing” countries appear to benefit parts of the oil and gas industry, including actors engaged in illicit activity.

In many circumstances, bankruptcy has become an effective “legal” means of stripping ordinary people of their savings and wealth. Offshore companies can also harm national economies while benefiting only a few.

The quality of certain products on the market is increasingly questioned because some manufacturers use unsafe chemicals to make them more appealing to consumers. In many nations, particularly those with weak economies, quality control is inadequate, and child labor is practiced openly. Despite numerous international platforms that bring policymakers and financial actors together, too little is being done to curb wrongdoing. This endangers the foundations of market economies and seriously damages the social and economic progress of countless countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Oceanic Islands. Business leaders bear primary responsibility for keeping their fields of activity lawful, clean, and trustworthy.

[To be continued]

Saber Azam is a former UN official. He is the author of Soraya: The Other Princess and Hell’s Mouth: A Journey to the Heart of West African Jungles. His third book, Nowhere to Go, will be published soon.

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

This is the third article in a four-part series. The final article will follow.

Around the venue of COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye. Credit: Kiara Worth/UN Climate Change

By Yamide Dagnet
ANTALYA, Türkiye, Nov 8 2026 (IPS)

As the world heads toward COP31 Türkiye starting this week, I’ve been reflecting on how I think COP31 could prove to be a more revealing “Transition COP”. Let us remember that the Paris Agreement came from a series of “institutional heartbeat” COPs – NOT from annual blockbuster headlines.

Yamide Dagnet, Senior Vice President, International at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Credit: COP30

Every five years, countries face a “moment of truth”, as they are legally required to submit updated, increasingly ambitious national plans and measurable commitments on paper. To inform these submissions and make them more ambitious, countries agreed on some sort of “mid-term stocktaking exercise to audit collective progress” (the so-called Global Stocktake).

This design divides COPs into high-stakes political moments (like the one last year) and rigorous, technical “working” sessions in between, like COP31. This means that mid-cycle COPs are not failures if they lack a historic declaration. Instead, they serve as the vital connective tissue to fuel implementation on the ground.

Yet, I do believe COP31 will be an interesting litmus test for international cooperation in the midst of a rapidly changing geopolitical landscape in front of us, shifting alliances, growing competition over energy, technology, and critical minerals, and an impending transition in global leadership at the UN.

I believe three questions will define its identity and success:

1. Who is shaping the next chapter of climate leadership?
2. Can COP31 strengthen accountability ahead of the next Global Stocktake?
3. Can the transition be both fast and fair? 

The climate landscape is evolving. The question is not just who is at the table but whose priorities ultimately drive outcomes. Countries across the Global South are increasingly shaping the agenda and advancing solutions grounded in development realities.

In the end, COP31’s story will not be written only inside negotiating halls. The conversations, partnerships, and momentum generated outside the formal process may ultimately be just as important as the negotiated outcomes themselves.

What is exciting is that we will not be alone. My Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) team and I look forward to seeing our partners, friends, and many of you on the ground in Antalya!

IPS UN Bureau Report

Every time a woman steps outside, she must be prepared for the possibility that anything could happen. Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
KABUL, Nov 6 2026 (IPS)

In Afghanistan, the Taliban are detaining women, even when they are wearing a hijab. Activists suspect that the issue of attire is merely a pretext used by the Taliban to hunt down critics of the regime.

For women, Kabul is a city of fear. Whether they are heading to the doctor, the shops, or to visit relatives, reaching their destination is never certain.

They fear checkpoints, the Taliban’s “morality police,” and the risk of being detained for wearing the “wrong” clothing or for lacking a male escort.

These arrests are just a pretext. The Taliban are rooting out women who speak out against them. When they arrest women, they search their phones. If they find even the slightest hint of something suspicious, only God knows when that woman will be released

For many women, leaving the house is a difficult decision. They are forced to consider what might happen if they are detained: Will I be able to return home? And if I do, will I still hold the same position within my family or community?

According to Amu TV—an Afghan media outlet based in the United States—the Taliban’s morality police detained at least twenty women and girls in the Taimani neighborhood of Kabul in September.

Some of those detained reported that they were taken into custody despite wearing a hijab in compliance with the rules; they also described how the police tore at their clothing during the altercation. Following an overnight detention, they were released only after their families and local communities paid bail.

Ahmad (name changed) is a street vendor in Taimani. She describes the arrest:

“I really don’t understand what they were after. All the women were wearing hijabs, yet they forcefully grabbed people indiscriminately —including a pregnant woman. Despite pleas, she was forced into a police vehicle.”

“There were many other women present who were dressed exactly the same way as those who were taken, and it was unclear why some were seized while others were left behind. People were too afraid to ask. The Taliban beat the women before taking them away. Who knows what they might do to men?”

Even wearing a hijab may not prevent arrest

Marzia (name changed) was detained on June 9 while on her way to a shop in the Pul-e-Surkh area. She was accused of being out illegally without a hijab.

“When they ordered me to get into their vehicle, I refused. They used derogatory language and threatened to force me inside if I didn’t agree to go voluntarily. Another woman was also forced into the vehicle, and we were taken to a police station.”

“They spoke to us abusively and said terrible things. Then, they told us to summon our male guardians. My father arrived, but no one listened to him. He brought other older men from our neighborhood to the scene. They promised to guarantee that I would not go out again without a hijab,” she recounts.

Marzia’s father had to pay a fine of 15,000 afghanis (approximately 200 euros) because she was not wearing a hijab. Only then was she allowed to return home.

Marzia stated that she was held for about six hours. The Taliban treated her as if she had committed a serious crime. “They treated me really badly. One of them said that it would be right to kill girls like me because we have turned against Islam. When they demanded my phone, I told them it contained personal photos. One of them replied: ‘You appear in public looking like that—why are you worried about the photos?'”

In Marzia’s view, there is nothing wrong with her attire. She was wearing a long, loose-fitting coat, a headscarf covering her hair, and a face mask. This was not enough for the Taliban. They claimed her hijab did not provide sufficient coverage and that she should be wearing a burqa.

Some women’s rights activists interpret the Taliban’s use of arrests not merely as a deterrent for those who defy dress codes, but also as a means to identify women who have criticized them.

Maryam, a female activist from Kabul, says that the Taliban are doing everything in their power to track down women who were activists under the previous government—or who remain so today.

“These arrests are just a pretext. The Taliban are rooting out women who speak out against them. When they arrest women, they search their phones. If they find even the slightest hint of something suspicious, only God knows when that woman will be released.”

Activists also note that fines are being used as a tool to curtail women’s freedom and confine them to their homes. At a time when many families struggle to secure even one nutritious meal a day, a sum of 15,000 afghanis to secure the release of a girl or woman is an enormous amount.

According to activists, the fear of arrest and the threat of financial penalties have led to stricter controls within families. Some families no longer allow women to leave their homes at all, while others inspect the women’s attire before permitting them to go out.

For many women, leaving the house is a difficult decision. Credit: Learning Together.

Women in Kabul live in fear that their attire may not be sufficiently modest by the Taliban’s standards

The Taliban have defended the arrests of women over their clothing. Saifuddin Khyber, a representative for the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, confirmed to Amu TV that women have been detained in Kabul and Herat. He considers the refusal to wear a hijab a serious offense.

According to Khyber, the Taliban view the wearing of a hijab by women as both a religious and a legal obligation. Muslim women are required to cover themselves completely, from their hair down to their toenails.

Article 13 of a Taliban law published in 2024 mandates that women must fully cover their faces and bodies. The same article prohibits the wearing of clothing that is thin, short, or tight-fitting.

Article 24 of the law grants the Taliban’s morality police the authority to punish those who violate the law. Penalties may include formal guidance, stern reprimands, fines, detention for a few days, or other sanctions—all of which can be imposed without a court hearing.

The Taliban are actively seeking out women who speak out against them

In June, women were detained in several provinces, including Balkh, Herat, and Takhar. In October 2026, the UN mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, reported that it had received information regarding the punishment of at least 52 women in Kabul and Herat between July and September.

According to the UN, the arrests were prompted by the wearing of colorful headscarves or makeup, appearing in public with hair uncovered or without a concealing chador, or the absence of a male escort.

The Taliban restrict access to statistical data, making it difficult to obtain precise figures on the number of women who have been detained.

Fear among women in Kabul persists, even as some of those who were detained are released. Every time a woman steps outside, she must be prepared for the possibility that anything could happen.

Excerpt:

Mount Bromo in East Java of Indonesia was erupting at sunrise. Countries sitting in the Right of Fire should enhance regional geohazard coordination for a unified regional strategy. Credit: Pexels/Daneswara Eka

By Daisuke Maruichi, Litea Biukoto, Emilia Gaspoz and Temily Baker
BANGKOK, Thailand, Nov 6 2026 (IPS)

For years, global discussions of disaster risk in the Pacific have been dominated by climate change. Rising seas, intensifying cyclones and coastal erosion have rightly captured international attention. This focus, while warranted, should be complemented by greater recognition of geohazards, which are just as consequential and in many cases, more immediately devastating. Addressing this gap requires a more coordinated approach, supported by sustained investment and stronger partnerships, to foster cooperation and strengthen resilience across the Pacific.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and landslides remain a constant threat across the Pacific. While less frequent than climate-related hazards, their impacts are often sudden, severe and far-reaching. Geophysical hazards account for a significant share of disaster-related deaths and economic losses. ESCAP analysis indicates that approximately 73% of the population and 65% of economic assets in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Pacific are exposed to seismic hazards, which are the second most costly and deadly disaster types in the Asia-Pacific region.

This high level of exposure is fundamentally shaped by geography. The Pacific Islands lie along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a vast zone of tectonic activity encircling the Pacific Ocean, stretching from New Zealand and Indonesia through Japan and the Aleutian Islands to the west coasts of North and South America. The Pacific Ring of Fire accounts for approximately 90% of the world’s earthquakes and about 75% of its active volcanoes. These hazards rarely occur in isolation. An earthquake can trigger a tsunami within minutes; volcanic activity can destabilize slopes and lead to landslides; a single event can cascade across systems and across borders.

Recent disasters highlight both the scale and persistence of this risk across the Pacific. In 2024, an earthquake in Vanuatu left over 80,000 people in need of assistance and damaging critical health, shipping and aviation infrastructure in the capital, Port Vila. The Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai eruption and tsunami in Tonga in 2022 affected around 84% of the country’s population and caused disaster losses of about US$90.4 million, with the most significant impacts concentrated in infrastructure and the agricultural sector. Overall, landslides were a key contributing factor to fatalities and to the severe isolation and disruption of infrastructure in affected communities. Taken together, these cases highlight a critical point: geophysical hazards have the potential to cause catastrophic, destructive and widespread cascading disruption across Asia-Pacific.

The case for regional geohazard coordination

Despite their undeniable impacts, investment in geohazard systems across the Pacific has not kept pace with the scale of the risk. Efforts to strengthen monitoring, observatories and early warning systems have often been delivered through short-term, project-based initiatives rather than sustained institutional support. As a result, many countries continue to operate with limited technical capacity, incomplete monitoring coverage and systems that are not fully integrated. Momentum is now growing toward a more coordinated approach to geohazards.

At the 2023 UNESCO Regional Geohazards Meeting, experts emphasized that earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and landslides are interconnected hazards that require a unified regional strategy. This was followed by an agreement among Pacific Member States in 2025 to establish a regional body dedicated to geohazards, signaling a clear commitment to strengthening coordination and aligning existing mechanisms.

A key opportunity to operationalize this emerging regional vision lies in the complementary roles of the ESCAP Trust Fund for Tsunami, Disaster and Climate Preparedness and the Pacific Community (SPC). The Trust Fund provides a catalytic financing mechanism to support regional cooperation and strengthen disaster preparedness, aligning well with the aspirations of a regional geohazard coordination mechanism. At the same time, SPC, through its role as the convener of Pacific Disaster Risk Management Ministers, provides an important platform for collective action, enabling geohazard-exposed countries to coordinate priorities, share experience and expertise as well as advancing coherent national and regional approaches.

Together, these complementary roles offer a pathway for translating regional momentum into concrete action by mobilizing and pooling resources, strengthening governance structures, coordination arrangements and sustaining regional cooperation that is responsive to the priorities and needs of countries and territories in the Pacific.

The challenge, therefore, is not a lack of knowledge or political commitment, but the need to translate existing momentum into sustained investment and institutional action. A more balanced approach, one that systematically integrates geohazards into regional resilience efforts, is both necessary and achievable. By strengthening geohazard systems, investing in national and regional capabilities and deepening regional cooperation, the Pacific can move towards a more comprehensive model of disaster resilience, protecting communities not only from rising seas, but also from the powerful forces beneath them.

Daisuke Maruichi, Economic Affairs Officer, ICT and Disaster Risk Reduction Division, ESCAP
Litea Biukoto, Deputy Director, Disaster and Water Resilience Programme, GEM Division, Pacific Community (SPC)
Emilia Gaspoz, Consultant, ICT and Disaster Risk Reduction Division, ESCAP
Temily Baker, Programme Management Officer, UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction

IPS UN Bureau

The Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland. Credit: Mathias Reding on Unsplash

By Sigrid Lipott
GENEVA, Nov 6 2026 (IPS)

A right under pressure

No one disputes freedom of association. It is in the Constitutions of almost every country, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 22 of the ICCPR, and in regional Articles in Europe, America, and Africa. What it has never had, at the universal level, is sincere implementation by governments.

Regional organisations and courts have filled that space in limited ways. Courts and human rights commissions have issued decisions that have not always been followed. States are left to interpret these obligations themselves for citizens and non-citizens in their jurisdiction.

Violations of the right to free association have risen 50% in two years, according to CIVICUS Monitor. The rise is not only a matter of scale. Governments are no longer relying mainly on administrative interference or political pressure to constrain civil society. They devise restrictive laws governing who can organise, on what terms, and access to resources. Restricting international funding for civil society, particularly through foreign agents’ laws, is now a global trend and poses unprecedented significant challenges. In 2025, restrictive laws affecting civic freedoms were recorded in at least 66 countries, the ninth most prevalent civic space violation worldwide.

Sigrid Lipott

Rights and recognition for everyone

Article 22 clearly says everyone has the right to come together, but it does not specify who counts. On protest rights, General Comment No. 37 says all citizens and non-citizens hold the right, including migrants , asylum seekers, refugees and stateless people. Article 22 should follow the precedent.

Most of the world’s organising happens in grassroots movements, digital networks, and fluid conflict and humanitarian contexts, not with registered organisations. Restrictions fall hardest on those already excluded from decision-making and resources.

The article defines qualifications on national security, public order, and safeguards and rights of others. Without clarity, they have remained fluid since 1966. The Committee needs to clarify the scope.

States cannot be left to interpret the article. Amid rising authoritarianism and divisive politics impacting civic life and participatory governance, minorities and excluded people need strong freedom of association protection to defend their rights.

Registration is among the worst restrictions because authorities treat it as routine paperwork rather than a decision about whether a group may exist at all. The Committee should state plainly that registration means notifying the authorities, not asking permission, and that any procedure must be simple, quick, and free of official discretion. Organisations should not be required to comply with “national interest ” or meet disproportionate reporting demands. Penalties for administrative slip-ups should fit the offence, and only a court should be able to shut an organisation down, as a last resort.

Funding is critical for survival

Foreign agents’ laws have spread from a handful of states to dozens, with vague definitions of “foreign influence” and “political activity” that let officials choose their targets. These come with heavy reporting duties, frequent audits, and penalties ranging from fines to licence withdrawal and prison.

Other measures achieve the same effect without the label: prior approval for foreign grants, punitive taxes, or rules forcing funds through state-controlled accounts. Where foreign support is the only resource available, organisations will struggle to survive.

Funding is critical to securing freedom. The Committee should recognise the right to seek, receive and use resources from domestic, foreign and international sources, whether or not a group is registered.

Online and across borders

Groups now recruit, debate and organise online, so internet shutdowns and surveillance strike directly at freedom of association. Governments imposed a record 313 shutdowns in 2025, up from 304 the year before, according to Access Now, and people in 100 countries have lived through one since tracking began. Blanket shutdowns are disproportionate, even in conflict zones.

Governments increasingly pursue critics abroad through surveillance, harassment of relatives back home, misuse of Interpol and stripping of nationality, cutting exiles off from organisations at home. This transnational repression is also a restriction on association and should be named.

No justification without limits

In dozens of countries, counter-terrorism laws criminalise people for exercising basic freedoms. A government’s own definition of “security” cannot override its treaty obligations, and none of these grounds justifies criminalising organisations for lawful work. Emergency powers follow the same pattern.

At least 50 states restricted freedom of association during the pandemic, and many of those measures outlasted the crisis, as independent UN human rights experts warned they might. The Committee should set out categories of emergency and the limits each can justify, matching the real scale of the threat.

Enabling environment without

Governments must also create the conditions for civil society to thrive, including laws that meet international standards, access to information, a real say in decisions and lasting access to resources. A good law achieves little if officials publicly smear the groups it protects.

That means protecting people from intimidation, arbitrary arrest, smear campaigns, travel bans and reprisals for cooperating with the UN. Freedom of association cannot be separated from freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. According to the CIVICUS Monitor, just 7% of the world’s population lives in countries where these civic freedoms are broadly respected.

Building on regional courts

The European Court of Human Rights has built a rich body of case law treating freedom of association as essential to a pluralist democracy. In 2020, the EU’s Court of Justice struck down Hungary’s 2017 law on foreign-funded organisations as incompatible with freedom of association. The African and Inter-American human rights commissions have also set progressive standards.

But these rulings apply only within their regions, and even there, groups defending minority rights or exposing sensitive issues still come under attack. A universal standard would give everyone, everywhere, something to invoke.

Sixty years, one opportunity

Article 22 has waited, and the wait has had consequences. Restrictive laws survive because the standard is vague enough to accommodate them: a registration regime is presented as administration, a funding restriction as transparency, a ban as security. At the global level, nothing has tested those claims.

General Comment No. 38 can change that. It can give parliaments, courts and governments the detail they need to draft laws, interpret them and respect the limits of their power, at a moment when restrictions are spreading faster than the standards meant to contain them.

Freedom of association is a right that makes other freedoms enforceable. The Covenants turn sixty this year. At this critical juncture, the Committee must give it the clarity it deserves.

Sigrid Lipott is an international treaties specialist and the UN adviser at CIVICUS. Based in Geneva, Switzerland, she leads CIVICUS’s engagement with UN human rights mechanisms. CIVICUS is a global alliance of more than 17,000 civil society organisations and activists from 175 countries working to strengthen citizen action and defend civic freedoms worldwide.

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

Tharaka seed custodians pray for seeds at Kibuka shrine ahead of 2026 planting season. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
NAIROBI, Nov 6 2026 (IPS)

As the world prepares for the 31^st United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP31) in Antalya, Türkiye, Kenya’s priorities for the negotiations are being shaped by lived experiences of communities who are on the frontline of the climate crisis.

At the recently concluded annual Tharaka Biocultural Festival in Tharaka-Nithi County, farmers gathered to showcase, exchange and celebrate traditional seeds, some which were already on the verge of extinction, and traditional foods that were celebrated by their ancestors over generations.

“This is a semi-arid region, and there were those seeds that our ancestors used to plant, which could easily survive such tough climatic conditions without fail,” said Simon Mitambo, the Chief Executive Officer at the Society for Alternative Learning and Transformation (SALT), the convener of the annual festivals.

“We have been convening these festivals every year for the past 10 years, and as a result we have been able to revive some of the most important seeds, such as the canton melon, which many young people think is a new crop because they had never seen it, yet it was one of the most important fruits in Tharaka, used to prepare Kathongo, the main staple food that fed our forefathers for generations before maize came in to interrupt those diets,” he said.

The community has also been able to revive the communal grazing system to enhance biodiversity recovery, support natural vegetation cover, and aid climate adaptation. They have also managed to recover traditional millet varieties such as Mugeeta (white millet) and pearl millet, multiple indigenous varieties of sorghum, including Mukuumbu, and local, climate-adapted cowpea varieties.

And now, civil society organisations from Kenya, through a workshop that brought Kenyan negotiators along, want such indigenous grassroots adaptation measures to be presented on the climate negotiations table in Antalya.

“Such community-led actions provide a practical pathway to climate adaptation, restoring locally adapted crops that can withstand prevailing environmental conditions and give farming communities renewed hope for reliable harvests,” said Anym Khan, the Acting Chair of the Kenya Climate Change Working Group (KCCWG) during the Pre-COP workshop.

Apart from such lived experiences, the workshop condemned the emerging new narrative observed during the Pre-COP conference in Nadi, Fiji, and the recent IPCC meeting in Addis Ababa, that due to limited resources, the available finance should focus on Least Developed Countries (LDC) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

“This is a dangerous narrative for our country because communities living on border lines share climatic conditions naturally, and using the borderline to determine who receives climate finance and who doesn’t is discriminative,” said Lydia Kimani, the Executive Director, Agribusiness for Africa Markets.

For example, in Busia, which is on the border of Uganda and Kenya, people living in Busia, Uganda, will be favoured because Uganda is categorised as an LDC, while those in Busia, Kenya, will miss out on such funding because Kenya is a Lower Medium Income Country (LMIC). Yet the impacts of climate change within the Busia community are exactly the same in both countries.

“We are calling on our negotiators to be so vigilant to avoid that kind of narrative in the negotiations,” said Kimani. “Let the funding continue targeting developing countries, or if the language has to change, then it should be LDC, SIDS and Africa,” she said.

Another concern is the proposal listed by the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice as agenda item 15, “Promoting sustainable dietary practices, reducing animal-based diets and transitioning to plant-based diets.”

“We will need to argue against that agenda item because Article 2.1b of the Paris Agreement clearly states that adaptation should happen without threatening food security,” said Michael Okumu, one of the country’s lead negotiators.

The article on adaptation and resilience states that “enhancing adaptive capacity, fostering resilience, and promoting low-emission development without threatening food production.”

According to Kimani, livestock in Kenya and the entire continent go beyond animal-based diets. “It is from our livestock that we get organic manure, which has kept our soils healthy and productive for generations,” she said.

In Tharaka, livestock, particularly goats, are considered to be very important domestic animals that support culture in terms of performance of sacred rituals; they are used during bridal ceremonies, they provide milk and meat, they are a source of income, particularly for smallholder farmers, and most importantly, they are resilient to tough climatic conditions.

Pastoral communities in the country, such as the Maasai, Borana, Rendile and Kenyan Somalis, depend on livestock entirely for their livelihoods, making it one of the most important sectors in the country and across Africa.

The team also pointed out that transition to low-emission development must address inequality, protect livelihoods and ensure that affected communities participate meaningfully in decisions.

“Energy transitions and critical-mineral extraction must not transfer environmental and social costs to local communities, while agriculture and food systems must be recognised as integral to a just transition,” observed Jacqueline Kimeu, the Senior Climate and Energy Advisor at Christian Aid.

According to the United Nations University, COP 31 must show whether political commitments can translate into more predictable, accessible and effective financial support, particularly for adaptation and countries facing the greatest climate risks.

IPS UN Bureau Report

By Saber Azam
GENEVA, Nov 5 2026 (IPS)

Following my first article with a similar title, I must note that many actors have contributed, and continue to contribute, to the world’s current appalling state and the calamities that may await future generations. When historical injustices committed by colonial powers and their ramifications are ignored; when the drums of war sound in many corners of the world; when international institutions remain powerless; when vulgarity permeates politics and diplomacy; and when heads of state in rich and “poor” countries, along with the leadership of the United Nations (UN), are unable or unwilling to address issues affecting humanity’s destiny, I also declare:

Saber Azam

At the national level, leaders are elected, selected, or imposed with firm claims that they will lead their nations toward a more secure, peaceful, and prosperous future and serve their people with dedication, honesty, and vision. I do not argue here about their accession to power, but rather about their “obligation” to protect their nations’ interests without prejudice toward any constituent group and in concert with other nations, all naturally pursuing similar objectives. Yet bigotry has become a preferred tool and strategy for many leaders seeking to gain or retain power, even in societies considered “democratic.” Moreover, the wealth of a few too often determines the destiny of the many.

Most leaders of countries commonly referred to as “poor or developing” have failed their people. Mired in incompetence, many neglect their duties, serve other interests, and misuse national treasuries to amass personal wealth and property. At the same time, despite possessing enormous natural resources, their populations still lack access to basic social services, their infrastructure lies in ruins, and their economies remain in disarray, requiring support from foreign countries or financial institutions at high interest rates. In contrast, powerful countries appear entrenched in strategies of lip service. The clearest example is so-called “development aid,” often used as a guise to pressure “the needy to submit to the will of the rich.” Like multilateral development initiatives, bilateral aid has produced limited tangible results despite decades of existence and trillions of US dollars spent.

As a standard operating procedure, some states use proxy groups to sow insecurity and to circumvent international law. In both technologically advanced and less developed countries, politics often seems driven by short-term personal or party interests.

International cooperation has lost much of its meaning and substance, becoming “international competition.” While powerful countries may have the military and economic might to pursue this political philosophy, it harms the welfare of less powerful or technologically disadvantaged nations. Honest and sincere cooperation therefore remains elusive. The mighty seek to impose their vision of the world, bullying the less powerful, who often lack the courage to free themselves from dependency and compromise. Many leaders in both groups of countries therefore bear responsibility for the world’s lack of equitable peace, stability, and progress.

I Accuse the UN Leadership

Article 97 of the UN Charter establishes the Secretariat, comprising the Secretary-General and such staff as the Organization may require. Article 99 provides that the “Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.” Article 100 further states that “in the performance of their duties, the Secretary-General and the staff shall not seek or receive instructions from any government or from any other authority external to the Organization. They shall refrain from any action which might reflect on their position ….” Article 101 emphasizes that “the paramount consideration in the employment [recruitment] of the staff and in the determination of the conditions of service shall be the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity.”

When judging the performance of UN Secretaries-General, their senior management teams, and the heads of UN agencies, few have truly met the required standards. This is also a major reason the Organization has failed to fulfill its duties and obligations. Many factors have contributed to UN leadership’s shortcomings in serving humanity. Political and funding pressure from powerful countries seeking to impose their views and preferred candidates—mostly former politicians, ministers, or other prominent figures—for senior UN positions has been a significant obstacle. Such individuals have often proved more loyal to their countries’ policies or political alliances than to the “world-loving” spirit and the principles of impartiality and fairness outlined in the UN Charter. Furthermore, the desire to secure a second term, remain in senior roles for as long as possible, or work in prestigious headquarters such as New York, Geneva, Paris, or Vienna—where political prominence and financial remuneration are most attractive—has left parts of the Organization’s leadership willing to compromise on key principles. As a result, powerful member states have turned such positions into “bargaining chips.” The willingness of some of the most senior UN leaders to yield to external pressure has seriously damaged the Organization’s efficiency and reputation.

The Secretary-General, senior Secretariat officials, and agency heads are expected to uphold international morality and law. They must unequivocally denounce violations of human rights and lawlessness by any state, organization, business, or individual and take decisive action. Leaders who resist political pressure to fulfill their duties have been pushed out. Inefficiency and a lack of accountability are other trademarks of some senior UN managers. In the worst cases, behind-the-scenes deals appear to be the preferred solution because “scandals tarnish the image of the organization.” The internal justice system frequently appears to protect senior managers while being applied more readily to junior staff.

Almost all development agencies, especially the UN Development Program, have failed to meet expectations despite decades of operation and trillions of US dollars spent. Many agencies have overlapping mandates, prompting competition for relevance and funding and leaving them vulnerable to exploitation. No Secretary-General has dared to suggest shutting down some of these agencies, or at least replacing them with more effective bodies and streamlining their mandates. Likewise, reform efforts have amounted to little more than superficial fixes, allowing senior managers to remain in place and the status quo to persist. Therefore, since its inception more than eighty years ago, UN leadership has also played a significant role in the world’s deplorable situation by remaining silent, yielding to external pressure, and accepting unacceptable compromises on crucial issues of peace, security, human rights, and development.

[To be continued]

Saber Azam is a former United Nations official who served at UNHCR and UN-DPKO. He is the author of Soraya: The Other Princess and Hell’s Mouth: A Journey to the Heart of West African Jungles. His third book, Nowhere to Go, will be published soon.

IPS UN Bureau

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

This is the second article in a four-part series. The remaining two will follow.

I wish to warn distinguished readers that a distorted and unauthorized version of my first article, 'I Accuse', has been posted on the [https://www.thenewyorkernews.com] site.
The original version, published by IPS, is available at [https://www.ipsnews.net/2026/11/i-accuse/].]]>

 
CIVICUS discusses India’s Gen Z-led protest movement and civic space restrictions with Avinash Kumar, National Co-convenor of Wada Na Todo Abhiyan, a network that works on government accountability. Avinash is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Equity Studies.

Avinash Kumar

How did the cockroach movement emerge?

It started with this year’s national medical entrance exam, which was held on 3 May and cancelled on 12 May after a paper leak. The re-exam took place on 21 June, and in the meantime several students died by suicide. This was the latest failure of a highly centralised education system, in which engineering, humanities and medical entrance exams are all run centrally. The government has also pushed curriculum changes to suit its Hindu nationalist agenda.

Students’ anger needed an outlet. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a movement born out of satire, channelled it by demanding Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation. It could do so because the education crisis was only the tip of the iceberg. India is among the youngest countries in the world, with around two-thirds of its people under 35, yet young people face high unemployment and growing reliance on informal work. They make up about 83 per cent of unemployed people, while close to 90 per cent of all workers are in informal jobs. On top of this come a divisive communal agenda and failures on security and women’s safety.

The CJP captured the imagination of largely unorganised young people. Left-wing student organisations gave it organisational muscle, climate activist Sonam Wangchuk lent it wider legitimacy among everyday people and opposition parties led by Rahul Gandhi helped spread it. Pradhan resigned on 25 July. Although other protest movements had challenged the government before, this was the government’s first major retreat, and it resonated widely.

How did protests evolve after the minister’s resignation?

Within months, the protests widened to target the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, a nationwide review of voter lists. Civil society had been raising concerns about it for a while. But when The Indian Express and other media reported leaked disagreements within the Election Commission, the issue spread across the country and across sectors. Roughly 130 million names have been dropped from the rolls, about an eighth of the electorate. The Election Commission says it is only removing dead, duplicate and ineligible voters, but many fear it’s targeting Muslims.

The CJP became one of several organisations calling for a full rollback of the SIR, a review of recent state elections whose results are in doubt and the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Over 300 civil society organisations have joined this campaign. In this phase, opposition parties and left-wing student groups have taken the lead, with figures such as Neha Bora of the All India Students’ Association and Aishe Ghosh of the Students’ Federation of India at the forefront. The CJP still mobilises people on the streets.

This gives the movement a much broader base than earlier ones. Past protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens, led by students and Muslims, as well as the 2020–2021 farmers’ protest movement, were largely seen as serving specific sections of the population. This one began with education and has expanded to the SIR, which people fear is a conspiracy to take away their votes and their basic rights as citizens. Because that threat concerns everyone, the movement cuts across classes, regions and religions.

How has the state responded?

The government has responded with massive force. In Delhi on 10 October, authorities deployed over 30,000 police and paramilitary personnel, detained more than 7,000 people and stopped many others before they could reach Jantar Mantar, the city’s designated protest site near Parliament. They shut metro stations, suspended internet services and used a sports stadium to hold detainees. Two days later, Delhi Police removed Jantar Mantar from the list of approved protest locations.

The government has turned the police into a partisan, brutal force and let pro-government mobs target protesters and independent media. Right-wing mobs have turned up at protests, and members of a group calling itself the Hindu Raksha Dal were arrested for allegedly assaulting students and manhandling women at one of them.

Women and girls have been repeatedly beaten and detained, yet they keep coming back. That resilience owes much to the anger over sexual assaults in Delhi and elsewhere, and women had already been mobilising in towns including Patna, Prayagraj and Varanasi.

How do these reactions fit into a wider pattern of civic space restrictions, and how is civil society responding?

They’re part of a longer trend. Civic space keeps worsening, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third term has aggravated patterns set in the first two. The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), which governs international funding, is choking civil society’s resources. By March 2026, over 21,900 organisations had lost their FCRA licences. A bill to amend the law would go further. If passed, it would allow the state to seize the assets of civil society organisations whose licences have lapsed or been cancelled, and require the central government’s approval before any agency investigates FCRA complaints.

Human rights defenders are jailed for years without trial. Student activists Sharjeel Imam and Umar Khalid have spent over six years in prison. They were arrested in 2020, accused of conspiring to incite riots in Delhi during the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. In January, the Supreme Court denied them bail, ruling that delay is no ground for bail under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, and in July a Delhi court rejected fresh pleas. Sonam Wangchuk was held under the National Security Act, 1980, for around six months before the central government revoked the order.

Protests are crushed across the country, in mining areas and on the streets of Delhi and Mumbai. In July, police detained over 150 people who protested against the Ken–Betwa river-linking project in central India, including their leader, Amit Bhatnagar. Authorities routinely ban gatherings under section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, India’s criminal procedure code, and internet shutdowns and surveillance add to the pressure. A compromised judiciary and a largely pliant media make all this possible.

Human rights organisations have adapted to these restrictions in different ways. Some have taken to the streets alongside student groups and political organisations. Others have turned to building international support, mobilising global opinion and working with diaspora groups. They also support communities fighting on specific issues in different parts of India, challenge government decisions in the courts and build wider alliances.

How can civil society in other countries, international bodies and states support Indian protesters and civil society?

Governments, institutions and civil society abroad must name and shame the regime in all international forums and challenge its attempts to paint a glorious picture of itself. They should use the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council and its Universal Periodic Review process, treaty-body reviews and the UN Special Procedures, whose experts have formally raised the demolition of Muslim homes with the Indian government. They should also draw on reports from Amnesty International, CIVICUS and Human Rights Watch, and press freedom rankings such as those of Reporters Without Borders.

In November, the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions will review the accreditation of India’s National Human Rights Commission. This is another opportunity, and it should be backed by international political pressure through bilateral dialogues and parliamentary resolutions.

Funders and partners should protect human rights defenders through legal support, trial observation and visible solidarity with those in jail. Beyond that, human rights groups and social movements need to reconfigure their alliances with progressive student groups, and the international community can help create spaces for these conversations. Relying on diaspora groups is not enough.

What has the movement achieved so far, and what are your hopes?

Despite its aggressive stance, the government is already on the back foot, even if it government won’t admit it, and has announced measures to reinstate people removed from the voter rolls. But the revelations keep coming, people remain on the streets, and the movement refuses to die down.

People now openly distrust how elections are run, and many will not accept more elections under this government. But the Indian state is mighty and may try to wait until people’s energy runs out. The home minister boasts that his party will rule for another 30 or 50 years, but it is now clear that ideological hegemony alone won’t achieve that. Whatever happens next, the government’s legitimacy is now in doubt.

My hope rests on the student movement. It builds on the legacy of earlier movements and those still under way across India, and it’s part of a global wave of student protests. If it holds, as it seems to be doing, it could follow the path of neighbouring countries. The challenge is to rebuild a truly democratic state and the institutions that have been compromised and decimated. We must also restore a democratic culture and the values of the Indian Constitution, which are those of a secular, diverse and federal country.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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SEE ALSO
Gen Z protests: new resistance rises CIVICUS | State of Civil Society Report 2026
India’s young people find their voice CIVICUS Lens 07.Aug.2026
India: ‘The Cockroach Janta Party brings together everyone who has been neglected for years’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Harshit Singh 03.Aug.2026

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

By James Alix Michel
VICTORIA, Seychelles, Nov 4 2026 (IPS)

I have stood on the corniche of Abu Dhabi at many moments over more than thirty years. Each time, I reflect on the distance this city has travelled: from a shoreline shaped by modest commercial buildings and dwellings to a capital whose architecture, institutions and ambitions look far beyond the horizon. Glass towers catch the Gulf light. The dome of the Louvre Abu Dhabi scatters sunlight across the water. Yet the transformation that interests me most is not the skyline itself. It is the thinking behind it.

What does it take to build a city of the future? Wealth, certainly. Technology, increasingly. But neither is sufficient without a vision of the society that city should serve. As a frequent visitor, a resident and a longstanding friend of the United Arab Emirates, I have watched that vision take shape. What I see is not a finished model, but a remarkable, evolving example of a country turning resources into possibilities.

That vision did not begin with glass and steel. Some leaders build institutions. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan built a nation, and gave it a soul. With wisdom, patience and an open heart, he brought the emirates together in 1971 and planted the seeds of unity, tolerance and generosity that still shape the UAE today. He believed in his people, cared for the land and the sea, and reached out to the world with kindness. The newly declared Zayed the Founder Day, to be observed each year on 7 January, is a beautiful way to honour a man whose vision lives on in every corner of this country. May Allah bless his soul.

No honest account of the UAE’s rise can overlook hydrocarbons. Oil provided the means for an extraordinary transformation. But natural wealth does not automatically produce lasting prosperity. Resources alone cannot build the institutions, skills and economic diversity needed to sustain development. What distinguishes the UAE, in my view, is its determination to treat oil revenue not simply as income to be spent, but as capital with which to prepare for a different future.

Trade, tourism, finance, manufacturing and technology have broadened its economy. Investment in education, healthcare and research reflects an understanding that the most enduring national resource is human capability. For small island states such as Seychelles, the lesson resonates. Our circumstances differ greatly, but the question is familiar: how do we use today’s opportunities to strengthen tomorrow’s resilience? The answer cannot be to wait until vulnerability becomes crisis.

One of the most revealing aspects of Abu Dhabi’s transformation is its investment in culture. The Louvre Abu Dhabi and the wider Saadiyat Cultural District express an ambition extending beyond tourism. They place art, history and encounters between civilisations within the country’s vision of development. The preservation of Qasr Al Hosn and other heritage sites provides an important counterpoint. A city moving rapidly towards the future must also maintain a conversation with its past. Modernity is too often measured in height, speed and scale. Museums, libraries and places of learning offer something less easily measured: space for reflection, creativity and understanding.

The same principle applies to education and healthcare. Institutions such as NYU Abu Dhabi, Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi and Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi illustrate the effort to make knowledge and specialised care part of the country’s foundations. Here, the city of the future acquires its deeper meaning: not only in what it displays, but in what it enables people to become.

Artificial intelligence has become central to the UAE’s ambitions. Its digital investments and the establishment of the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence signal a determination to help shape technological change. The value of that ambition lies in its human purpose: improving services, healthcare and education, and helping communities manage resources more intelligently. That responsiveness is also felt in ordinary moments.

I have often been struck by Abu Dhabi’s maintained public spaces, walkways and the sense of ease I experience walking its streets. The UAE ranks among the world’s safest places by residents’ perceptions of nighttime safety. Gallup’s 2025 Global Safety Report found that 90 percent of people surveyed in the country felt safe walking alone at night. For me, this is more than a statistic. That quiet freedom from fear is a precious part of daily well-being.

So, too, is the greening of a desert city. Trees, gardens and flowering verges soften the urban landscape. Abu Dhabi’s continuing tree-planting programmes, including native ghaf trees, seek to expand shade and improve the environment along walking and cycling routes. These are not merely decorative touches. They express care for how people experience the places they inhabit. As an islander and an advocate for ocean conservation, I am particularly interested in how urban ambition connects with environmental responsibility.

The UAE’s investment in solar power and other low-carbon energy sources, together with its net-zero commitment, reflects an effort to prepare for a changing energy future. Its continuing dependence on hydrocarbons also makes clear the complexity of that transition. The journey requires sustained implementation: cleaner energy, responsible water use, reduced emissions and habitat protection. The UAE’s mangrove restoration and marine conservation efforts are especially meaningful to me. Mangroves protect coastlines, shelter marine life and store carbon. Coral reefs sustain biodiversity and coastal livelihoods, even as warming seas place them under pressure. For Seychelles and other island nations, these are not abstract concerns. They are questions of security, identity and survival. A city’s relationship with the natural world does not end at its waterfront.

Another defining feature of the UAE is the diversity of those who live and work there. People from across the world contribute to its economy and daily life. Such diversity calls for more than mutual respect. It calls for belonging—and the assurance that every person’s safety matters, whatever their nationality. During the regional conflict, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan gave powerful expression to that responsibility, placing the protection of citizens, residents and visitors at the top of the UAE’s priorities. “In the UAE,” he said, “everyone is Emirati through their love for this land and their contributions to it.” I find those words deeply meaningful. They speak of belonging not simply as something felt, but as a responsibility embraced by leadership. The Abrahamic Family House, bringing a mosque, a church and a synagogue together within one complex, offers another expression of coexistence. That spirit must also be lived beyond symbolic spaces. Workers’ dignity, fair treatment and opportunities across different backgrounds remain essential measures of progress. Recognising achievements need not mean overlooking the work that remains.

My perspective is also deeply personal. Over decades, I have witnessed the friendship between the UAE and Seychelles develop into practical cooperation. During my years in public office, I saw that partnership support water and electricity infrastructure, renewable energy, healthcare, housing and education. For a small island country, such cooperation is felt in families’ lives: access to treatment, reliable water, a home, or better opportunities for children. I remember with gratitude the late Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. I also deeply value my longstanding friendship with President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, whose visionary leadership and commitment to his country’s development I have had the privilege of observing at close quarters. That friendship informs my account. It reinforces my belief that national achievement acquires greater meaning when it helps others strengthen their resilience.

The UAE’s experience cannot simply be replicated. Its resources, scale and circumstances are distinctive. The lesson here is not to imitate its skyline, but to draw inspiration from its willingness to imagine beyond present constraints—and to translate that imagination into action. Perhaps that is the deepest meaning of the UAE’s great leap. What I see taking shape is more than a skyline: it is a vision of prosperity that brings knowledge, culture, human well-being and care for the natural world into the same frame. Still evolving, still confronting the challenges that accompany rapid change, the UAE offers a beautiful example of what becomes possible when imagination is matched by the resolve to act.

Along Abu Dhabi’s corniche, the towers catch the light, but it is the horizon that holds my gaze. As someone who has returned to these shores over many years, and whose friendship with this country has deepened along the way, I find both beauty and inspiration in its unfolding story. I leave each walk with a feeling that reaches far beyond this waterfront: that the future need not simply be something we await. It can be something we have the courage to imagine—and the determination to build.

James Alix Michel is Former President of the Republic of Seychelles.

IPS UN Bureau

Ship transits through the Strait of Hormuz have dropped by over 90 per cent since the crisis escalated in late February 2026. Credit: Unsplash/Angus Gray

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 4 2026 (IPS)

On November 2, the United States launched a series of limited, defensive strikes on Iranian targets on Qeshm Island and strategic areas along the Strait of Hormuz. Fired in response to earlier strikes from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on U.S. aircraft and drones over the Strait, U.S. President Trump noted that the operation does not signal a broader escalation of hostilities and that a diplomatic solution could still be reached.

“I’m not looking to, you know, kill lots of people, but if we have to, we’ll have to. But I’m not looking to do that. And we’re very strong right now,” Trump told Fox News on November 3. “Every ship is at the bottom of the sea. They had 288 airplanes. Every airplane is laying on small little pieces, tiny little pieces all over the runways of Iran. They have no airplanes.”

“They have no anti-aircraft. We took some out last night. It’s just a minor attack. It wasn’t war. They built an anti-aircraft facility. It took them about two months. We watched it get built; as soon as it was completed, we hit it last night very nicely,” he continued.

Occurring on the eve of the U.S. midterm elections, the strikes contradict Trump’s previous statement that the U.S. would not strike Iran ahead of the vote. The U.S.’s role in the Iran War has proven to be increasingly unpopular domestically, largely due to rising fuel prices and economic shocks resulting from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. This has created significant headwinds for the Republican Party as it aims to consolidate control over Congress.

The strikes, launched with no warning, came as Iran announced a two-day plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and resume nuclear talks with Washington. Iranian officials previously stated that the plan could be enacted within one week if the U.S. met seven of its core conditions. This includes lifting the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports and coastal areas, establishing a shipping route for the reopened Strait agreed upon by Iran and Oman, removing U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil, and agreeing to a ceasefire that extends to Lebanon.

On November 3, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Speaker of Iran’s Parliament and chief negotiator, declared that Iran had “delivered a firm and rational response” to Washington, adding that “the ball is now in America’s court” to accept its conditions and prevent further escalation. He warned that Iran’s military is readily prepared to retaliate against future attacks from the U.S.

“If Washington makes another strategic miscalculation, it should know that this time, it will face a new battlefield and will find itself even more desperate than it is today,” he cautioned.

Regional officials in the Middle East reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Trump to intensify military strikes, citing concerns over Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and the need to establish absolute deterrence before Iran can rebuild its capabilities. Danny Danon, Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, rejected these claims, stating that the U.S. is making its own foreign policy decisions without Israeli influence.

Before the strikes, U.S. Vice President JD Vance told reporters on November 2 that both he and the president felt “pretty good” about the prospects of reaching a negotiated settlement with Tehran.

“The Iranians are always a little unpredictable, and as the president always says, he retains kinetic options. He retains non-kinetic options, but we’ve certainly made some progress. We’ll see if we can make some more,” said Vance. “Having destroyed their nuclear program, we want to make sure they don’t rebuild it or try to rebuild it. That’s what matters most to the United States. We do think that there is a pathway there, but it really does require a firm commitment and a verifiable commitment that they don’t rebuild that nuclear program,” he added.

Hours earlier, Trump told reporters at the reopening of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington that Iran reportedly “want(s) to make a deal, and that could happen.” He added that Tehran previously requested Washington stop targeting its leaders, with Trump affirming that the U.S. would comply.

On November 3, Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, stated that Washington’s response to Iran’s demands was unsatisfactory, casting doubts that mediation efforts from Pakistan and Qatar have been effective.

“America’s response to Iran’s rights and demands was not convincing,” Rezaei wrote in a statement shared to X (formerly known as Twitter). “They must fully and explicitly address Iran’s seven conditions and act upon them; only in this case will the Strait of Hormuz be reopened.”

On November 2, Iranian authorities announced plans to train a paramilitary force of over 1 million volunteers amid fears of renewed hostilities. Ali Kowsari, deputy head of training for the Basij—a paramilitary force affiliated with the IRGC—announced that starting this week, 1,5000 training bases across the country will aim to train 1 million “sacrificial volunteers.” This follows the previous openings of similar facilities in Tehran in August and September.

IPS UN Bureau Report