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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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

Dr Lindon Havimana from Solomon Islands National University (SINU) and Dr Christopher Cornwall from Victoria University of Wellington collect intertidal samples from the rocky shore for incubation experiments during PIOAC training in Wellington.

By Sera Sefeti
SUVA, Fiji, Nov 4 2026 (IPS)

The Pacific Ocean connects thousands of islands, and understanding how ocean acidification is unfolding across the region requires more than individual research projects or monitoring stations.

Scientists need observations from different island environments, collected over time, to understand how seawater chemistry is changing and what those changes could mean for marine ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.

The work is being strengthened through regional collaboration, with Pacific scientists sharing data, technical knowledge and research experience to build a more complete picture of a changing ocean.

Dr Katy Soapi, director of the Pacific Islands Ocean Acidification Centre (PIOAC) and a Pacific scientist, says the broader scientific community is aware that ocean chemistry is changing. The priority is now building local evidence to understand how those changes may affect different island environments.

“What Pacific scientists are now doing is building the local evidence needed to understand how those changes may impact our different island environments,” Soapi said.

“At many of our monitoring sites, we are seeing considerable natural variability in pH over days, months and seasons, which is normal,” she said. “It is important to capture this data over time because coastal waters are influenced by temperature, rainfall, freshwater inputs, biological activity, land-based pollution and local oceanographic conditions.”

PIOAC members with Salesa Nihmei from SPREP and a representative from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) at the 6th International Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO₂ World, Tākina Wellington. Credit: SPC

Monitoring programmes are at different stages across the region. Fiji has an established programme, with monitoring in the Suva area since 2023 and data that contribute to Sustainable Development Goal 14.3.1 reporting.

Samoa has received support through access to monitoring equipment, training and technical advice, while the Solomon Islands programme is newer, with scientists from Solomon Islands National University receiving regional and in-country training as they establish the technical capacity for long-term monitoring. Kiribati and Papua New Guinea also have their own monitoring histories and research priorities.

These differences matter when comparing observations across the Pacific.

“This variation is important; a harbour in Fiji, a lagoon in Kiribati, coastal waters in Samoa or reef environments in Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea can experience very different combinations of temperature, rainfall, freshwater input, current, biological activity and human pressure,” Soapi said.

“The Pacific is connected, but it is not environmentally uniform.

“This is why local monitoring is important and why we cannot rely solely on regional or global averages.”

Manibua Rota from the Ministry of Fisheries and Ocean Resources (MFOR), Kiribati, presents on ocean acidification monitoring in Kiribati at the 6th International Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO₂ World, Tākina, Wellington. Credit: SPC

Connecting the Science Across the Pacific

The Pacific Islands Ocean Acidification Centre (PIOAC), established in 2021, supports efforts to connect national monitoring programmes and strengthen scientific capacity across the region.

The Centre brings together the SPC, the University of the South Pacific, the University of Otago and Earth Sciences New Zealand, formerly NIWA.

PIOAC’s work spans the Pacific, through joint work and ongoing discussions with nine Pacific Island countries and territories: Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Samoa, Tokelau and New Caledonia.

Its work includes providing monitoring equipment, technical advice, training, sensor troubleshooting, data management and quality assurance. It also connects Pacific researchers with international monitoring networks and supports countries in contributing data to regional and global reporting processes.

For scientists working in small teams across geographically dispersed islands, this support helps build the technical capacity needed to maintain monitoring programmes and generate reliable data over time.

Azaria Pickering, an ocean monitoring and technical officer at SPC in Fiji, says regional cooperation has changed how scientists approach monitoring.

“We’ve moved from monitoring our waters as individual countries to building a collective understanding of what’s happening across our Pacific Ocean,” she said.

“Through the Pacific Islands Ocean Acidification Centre and regional partnerships, we’ve created a community where knowledge is shared and challenges are solved together.”

She said the use of common equipment, methods and training was helping countries strengthen their monitoring programmes at home.

“We’re beginning to close critical data gaps across the region and use that evidence to engage our governments, shape national priorities and bring the Pacific’s experience of ocean acidification into global conversations, including at COP.”

For Dr Aleluia Taise of the National University of Samoa, the research is closely connected to the future of Pacific communities.

“As Pacific Islander marine scientists, we believe it is our responsibility as citizens and custodians of the Pacific Ocean to address priority issues affecting our livelihoods and wellbeing,” she said.

Taise says there remains a critical lack of scientific evidence needed to understand the effects of ocean acidification on coral reefs and coastal ecosystems.

“Research must be supported by stronger institutional backing, policy alignment and collaboration with regional and international partners to ensure it can continue.”

Azaria Pickering from SPC selects macroalgae from the holding tank for the biological incubation tests during PIOAC training at the Victoria University of Wellington Coastal Ecology Lab (VUCEL). Credit: SPC

From Measuring Seawater to Understanding Marine Life

While monitoring seawater chemistry provides information about changing ocean conditions, scientists also need to understand how these changes affect marine organisms.

This is the next area of research being developed by Pacific scientists.

In Wellington, scientists from Fiji, Samoa, the Solomon Islands and Kiribati took part in biological experiments training from 5 to 9 October, gaining practical experience in studying how marine organisms respond to ocean acidification and higher temperatures.

The training is intended to strengthen research connecting changes in seawater chemistry with their potential effects on corals, shellfish and other marine organisms.

Soapi said biological research would help scientists develop studies around locally important species and better understand the implications for reefs, fisheries and livelihoods.

“Monitoring seawater chemistry tells us how conditions are changing, while biological research helps us understand what those changes could mean for the organisms that support our reefs, fisheries and livelihoods,” she said.

For Dr Lindon Havimana of Solomon Islands National University, the research is also about ensuring scientific knowledge reaches communities before the impacts become more pronounced.

His interest in ocean acidification research stems from a responsibility to understand, anticipate and communicate changes taking place in the ocean and to consider how communities can prepare for a threat whose impacts may not yet be fully visible.

“I believe that the greatest value of science lies not only in understanding environmental change but also in ensuring that knowledge reaches people early enough to make a difference,” Havimana said.

“As scientists, we have a responsibility to bridge the gap between scientific discovery and community preparedness, transforming evidence into awareness, awareness into action, and action into resilience.”

He said the implications extended beyond ocean chemistry to the health of marine ecosystems, coastal fisheries, food security and the continuation of traditional practices.

Participants from Samoa, Kiribati and Solomon Islands remove their monitored species after a 30-minute incubation at different pH and temperature conditions on Day 1 of the experiment during PIOAC training. Credit: SPC

Taking Pacific Research to the International Stage

These regional efforts were represented at the sixth International Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO₂ World, held in Wellington, New Zealand, from 13 to 16 October.

The symposium brought together the international scientific community under the theme Moving from Understanding to Action using Multiple Knowledge Systems.

Discussions examined ocean acidification alongside ocean warming, deoxygenation and other pressures affecting marine ecosystems, with a focus on strengthening scientific understanding and connecting research with action.

For Pacific scientists, participation provided an opportunity to present regional research, exchange knowledge and strengthen relationships with the international scientific community.

It also highlighted the challenges facing island countries, including limited monitoring coverage, equipment maintenance, technical expertise and sustained funding.

Dr Kim Currie, an ocean acidification consultant working with SPC, said access to scientific resources differed across Pacific countries.

“Some countries like Fiji, Samoa and the Solomon Islands have the resources to do the careful measurements that are needed, but other countries do not yet have the scientist and equipment necessary to do this work,” she said.

“Working with regional and overseas partners to share knowledge and skills is one important step towards understanding how the Pacific Ocean will cope in the future.”

For Soapi, the importance of that support is also shaped by her own experience as a researcher.

Reflecting on her early work in ocean acidification, she recalled the challenges of deploying monitoring equipment and working in a field where regional scientific support was limited.

“I had received training, but I was nervous about deploying equipment – this was all part and partial of being isolated and being new in a field,” she said.

That experience has stayed with her and influenced her commitment to supporting other Pacific scientists, particularly those working in small teams across large distances.

“For me, coming together means building a Pacific community of scientists who can support each other, share knowledge and collectively understand the changes taking place across our ocean.”

The work underway across the region is still developing. More monitoring, biological research, technical training and sustained support are needed to strengthen the evidence available to Pacific countries.

But by connecting national research programmes and bringing scientists together, the region is building a stronger foundation for understanding ocean acidification.

The aim is not to produce one picture of the entire Pacific but to bring together the different observations and experiences that explain how a changing ocean is affecting individual islands, ecosystems and communities.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Excerpt:

As in previous elections, the latest Israeli national election offered people no real choice. They had to choose between bad Zionists and good Zionists. Thus, unsurprisingly, there is no clear winner – both major blocs are neck and neck as usual. The only difference this time is the Arab voting power. By uniting and turning out in record numbers, the Arab coalition secured 19 seats (nearly double the 10 it won in 2022), against the Netanyahu-led bloc’s 53 and the Gadi Eisenkot-led bloc’s 48. Neither bloc has a governable majority, so many are looking to the Arab bloc as a kingmaker, either joining formally or supporting one of the blocs on the no-confidence and supply bills. But they are on the horns of a dilemma, caught between a rock and a hard place.

Anis Chowdhury

The Gaza genocide and state-sponsored unprecedented settler violence have made Benjamin Netanyahu and his extreme rightist coalition partners bad Zionists. They have become indefensible to the so-called liberal Zionist friends of apartheid Israel. So, they have pinned their hope on a good Zionist retired General Gadi Eisenkot. To them, General Gadi Eisenkot is a good Zionist, not because he will stop Gaza genocide or ethnic cleansing of the occupied West Bank, but because he will apparently manage it better or make Zionism’s ugly face less visible to the world. So, in the lead-up to Israel’s 27 October election, the liberal Zionists declared this would be “the most consequential” in Israel’s history.

However, there is no good Zionist for the Palestinians or Arabs. The so-called good Zionist Eisenkot served in Netanyahu’s government for eight months during the Gaza genocide. He resigned not because he opposed the Gaza genocide; he differed with Netanyahu only on strategies. So, he is responsible for a long list of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Eisenkot was the Israeli military’s chief of staff when Israeli soldiers massacred nearly 200 unarmed Palestinians in Gaza in 2018. He is credited with being the mastermind of the Israeli’s army’s “Dahiya Doctrine”, which calls for disproportionate force against civilians. Eisenkot opposes Palestinian statehood, wants to perpetuate Israel’s apartheid system, and supports Israel’s illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank.

Eisenkot’s coalition partner, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, entered politics as Netanyahu’s chief of staff. He served in the Sayeret Matkal and Maglan special forces units of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and was accused of involvement in the massacre of more than one hundred Lebanese civilians in Qana in 1996. Bennett has openly called for the extrajudicial killing of Palestinians, while he reportedly told a national security advisor, “If you catch terrorists (i.e., a Palestinian), you simply have to kill them”.

Eisenkot’s other coalition partner, Avigdor Liberman, a former Netanyahu minister, has advocated that Israel’s citizens should sign a loyalty oath or lose their right to vote.

Lieberman justified the killing of at least 189 unarmed Palestinian protesters during the great March of Return in April 2018 by declaring that there are “no innocents in Gaza”.

Another Eisenkot coalition partner, General Yair Golan, considered the most “left-wing”, was previously the army’s deputy chief of staff. He has been one of the most strident advocates of genocidal crimes against Palestinians in Gaza. On 13 October 2023, Golan said in an interview with Ynet: “First of all, close all the electricity switches to Gaza. I think that in this battle, it is forbidden to allow a humanitarian effort. We need to say to them: listen, until the [captives] are released, from our side, you can die from starvation. It’s totally legitimate”. Thus, Golan echoed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s infamous statement that Gaza would receive “no power, no food, no gas” because Israel is “fighting human animals, and will act accordingly.”

Therefore, the Eisenkot-led coalition cannot offer any hope to the Palestinians. If bad Zionist Netanyahu is a rock, Eisenkot-led anti-Netanyahu is a hard place for them.

No good Zionist

There is simply no good Zionist. As the UK Green Party’s recently adopted motion says, Zionism is a form of racism. Pulitzer Prize winner Benjamin Moser, a Jewish child of Holocaust survivors, exposed the ugly truth about Zionism in his rigorously researched book, Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History.

Another child of Holocaust survivors, political scientist Norman Finkelstein has been more critical of the Zionist project, as contained in his several books, the most recent being Gaza’s Gravediggers: An Inquiry Into Corruption in High Places. His research has exposed the darkest side of the Zionist project, the apartheid state of Israel.

The Devil you know and the Devil you don’t know

The newly found Arab power will be most effective by accelerating the downfall of the apartheid state. This can only happen if the known Devil Netanyahu remains in power and the delusion of good Zionism is buried. Netanyahu is not the problem as the so-called liberal Zionists are trying to present; the problem is the Zionist project itself.

The New York Times insists “Israel has always been two things: a Jewish state and a liberal democracy”. One should not be misled by such nice slogans. An apartheid state cannot be a liberal democracy. It is an oxymoron.

Anis Chowdhury, Emeritus Professor, Western Sydney University (Australia). He held senior UN positions in Bangkok and New York and served as Special Assistant to the Chief Advisor for Finance (with the status and rank of State Minister) in the Professor Yunus-led Interim Government. E-mail: anis.z.chowdhury@gmail.com; a.chowdhury@westernsydney.edu.au

IPS UN Bureau

Credit: metamorworks / Shutterstock

By Jordan Ryan
Nov 3 2026 (IPS)

 
Article 109 of the UN Charter provides a mechanism for reviewing the Charter itself. It allows a General Conference of all UN members to be convened by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly and a vote of any nine members of the Security Council. As the Article provides, “Each Member of the United Nations shall have one vote in the conference.”

Even if the prospect of amending the Charter is bleak, a review conference could matter. It would give the wider membership a formal forum to set out the changes it seeks and put the five permanent members of the Security Council under public pressure to respond. That political value is reason enough for member states to begin the diplomatic groundwork, despite the formidable obstacles.

Paragraph 3 of Article 109 set a separate, lower threshold for consideration at the General Assembly’s tenth session. If no conference had been held before then, the proposal to call one was to be placed on the Assembly’s agenda, and the conference was to be held if a majority of Assembly members and any seven Security Council members so decided. Acting under that provision in November 1955, the Assembly decided that a review conference “shall be held at an appropriate time,” and the Security Council concurred the following month despite a Soviet vote against. Seventy-one years later, no conference has been held.

The idea has now returned to the diplomatic mainstream. In November 2024 the leaders of Brazil, India and South Africa called for “a wide-ranging reform of the UN Charter, including the convening of a review conference” under Article 109. At the General Assembly this September, Japan’s Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, told the hall that the Charter, “which is now 81 years old, should also be reviewed.” Advocates grouped in the Article 109 Coalition now present a review conference as the most promising route to structural change.

Recent work published by the Toda Peace Institute and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation on reinventing the United Nations has reached a similar diagnosis. Several of the changes the organisation needs would require Charter amendment: a more representative Security Council, limits on the veto, and a Human Rights Council with the standing of a principal organ. That makes the case for Article 109 worth testing against the strongest objection to it.

That objection sits in the second paragraph of Article 109. Any change the conference recommends takes effect only when two-thirds of members ratify it, “including all the permanent members of the Security Council.” With 193 members, that means 129 ratifications, and every one of the five must be among them. The privilege that reform seeks to constrain thus returns at the moment of decision. Any permanent member could take part in years of negotiation and then decline to ratify the result. Sceptics conclude that a conference would raise expectations it cannot meet and leave multilateralism weaker than before.

That is an exacting rule, and some advocates of review pass over it too quickly. No procedural device removes it. Yet Article 108, which governs ordinary amendments, also requires ratification by two-thirds of members, including all five permanent members. The incremental path sceptics prefer offers no escape from the veto; it meets it one proposal at a time.

History suggests that permanent members can change position. In December 1963 the General Assembly adopted amendments that enlarged the Security Council from eleven to fifteen members and the Economic and Social Council from eighteen to twenty-seven. France and the Soviet Union voted against, while the United Kingdom and the United States abstained. All five nevertheless ratified, and the amendments entered into force on 31 August 1965. The weight of a membership transformed by decolonisation appears to have altered their calculation. The lesson has limits. Enlarging the Council left the veto untouched, and asking powerful states to surrender privilege is harder than asking them to share a table.

A realistic case for Article 109 therefore has to rest on what a conference can achieve whatever the permanent members decide at the end of the process.

The convening decision itself does not require all five permanent members to assent. Under Article 109(1), a two-thirds majority in the Assembly and votes from any nine Council members can call a conference. The 1955 vote, taken under paragraph 3’s lower thresholds, showed that Soviet opposition did not prevent the Council from concurring. More than 140 of today’s 193 members were not among the 51 states that founded the organisation. A conference would give them a formal voice in reviewing its founding text.

A conference could also generate political commitments that need no Charter ratification. Governments might adopt declarations or agree on interpretations of existing provisions. They could reaffirm Article 27(3), which requires a party to a dispute to abstain from voting on decisions under Chapter VI or paragraph 3 of Article 52, a provision rarely applied in practice. They could build on the General Assembly’s 2022 decision requiring a debate within ten working days after a veto. Such steps would not amend the Charter, but could raise the political cost of obstruction.

The risks run in both directions. Some governments fear that a conference could reopen existing commitments on human rights and gender equality, giving others an opportunity to dilute them. A Charter alteration would require a two-thirds vote in the conference and ratification by two-thirds of UN members, including all five permanent members. Those thresholds would make a regressive amendment difficult to secure, though they would not by themselves prevent non-binding declarations. A careful modalities resolution could define the proposed scope and open the conference by reaffirming the purposes and principles in Articles 1 and 2. Such preparation would take years, which argues for beginning the diplomatic groundwork now.

The strongest argument for Article 109 lies in the alternatives. Security Council reform negotiations have continued since 2009 without agreement on a reform package. Voluntary restraint has not prevented vetoes in the gravest crises. A conference cannot guarantee a revised Charter, but it would give the great majority of states a lawful forum to set out their terms and put each permanent member under pressure to explain its position publicly. The Charter provides this mechanism for review. Member states should decide whether to use it.

Related articles:

Reinventing the United Nations policy brief series
At Hammarskjöld’s Grave, Sixty-Five Years After Ndola
Governing the Ungovernable

Jordan Ryan is a Senior Consultant to the Folke Bernadotte Academy and Senior Counsel (Social Impact) for Hamilton Advisors. He is also a former Vice President for Peace Programs at The Carter Center, where he led strategic planning and implementation of peacebuilding initiatives worldwide from 2015-2018.

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished from the original with their permission.

IPS UN Bureau

A view of the roof of the data centre operated by the Mexican company KIO Networks, in the state of Querétaro, in central Mexico, showing the facility’s ventilation system, which is necessary to keep the interior temperature low due to the enormous amount of heat generated by the servers operating inside. Credit: KIO

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Nov 3 2026 (IPS)

At first glance, a data centre in Mexico draws little attention, as it is usually housed in an industrial park, out of public view. But, in addition to emitting greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen oxides, its cooling and fire suppression systems contain substances with strong environmental and health impacts: the so-called “forever chemicals”.

IPS found that at least five data centres operating in Mexico use hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a group of synthetic gases with a global warming potential up to 7,000 times higher than that of CO2, the human-induced gas responsible for global warming. These gases also have an atmospheric lifetime of 15 years, according to data from ATMOsphere, an independent global accelerator for the air conditioning market.

Mexico hosts at least 144 data centres run by 44 providers in 69 cities, but most of the companies do not disclose whether their cooling and fire suppression systems use forever chemicals

Research published by U.S. government institutions has concluded that these gases accumulate in air, water and soil, and can be absorbed by animals and plants through ingestion or contact. They are also highly mobile, to the point of being present in the Arctic and the Himalayas, according to a 2023 study.

Forever chemicals, also known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are a large family of over 15,000 synthetic chemicals. They are needed to cool the hundreds of servers housed in data centres, which is key to prevent overheating and interruptions to their operations. However, the extent of their use in Mexico is unknown.

Mexico hosts at least 144 data centres run by 44 providers in 69 cities, but most of the companies do not disclose whether their cooling and fire suppression systems use forever chemicals.

Although Mexico is a party to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, an international agreement that entered into force in 2004 and aims to eliminate and restrict the production and use of dangerous chemicals, these substances are not regulated under national law, there is no inventory of contaminated sites and there is no systematic monitoring.

Teresa Roldán, member of the environmental advocacy group Vocer@s de la Madre Tierra in Querétaro, Mexico’s data centre hub in central Mexico, denounces the lack of oversight by the authorities and of transparency by the companies.

“Since they (the data centres) arrived, there has been no clear information, and as a result (the government) has let them operate without any supervision. We know nothing about the chemical substances. (…) They leave us in uncertainty about the substances and the discharges of liquid waste. There is no way they are not contaminating”, she said to IPS.

Roldán and her group have showered state and federal authorities with requests for information on issues such as water use, greenhouse gas emissions and waste management, but the authorities say they do not have the information or refuse to provide it.

Air conditioning system at the data centre of the U.S.-based company HostDime in the western city of Guadalajara. Credit: HostDime

Widespread use

Most of the data centres operating in the country do not have Environmental Impact Assessments describing the type of cooling and fire suppression systems they use. Only a few companies have made the information available on their websites.

For example, the MEX3 data centre of the Mexican corporation KIO Networks, located in Mexico City, explains the operation of a very early smoke detection apparatus (VESDA) that automatically detects smoke even before it is visible and proceeds to extinguish it. It works with the gaseous hydrofluorocarbon FM-200, also known as HFC-227ea or heptafluoropropane.

The KIO MEX5 data centre, in the municipality of Tultitlán, in the state of Mexico, which borders Mexico City, also says it uses a clean agent suppression system. Most clean agents are hydrofluorocarbons, although the company does not specify which one it uses. The same is true of the KIO MTY1 centre, located in the municipality of San Pedro Garza García, next to Monterrey in the state of Nuevo León, northern Mexico.

Clean agent fire suppression systems are normally used instead of water-based systems because of their non-conductive, residue-free properties, while the latter can damage servers.

Novec, an evaporative fluid, has become the popular choice for high-capacity data centres. The substance boils on contact with electronic components and thus absorbs a large amount of latent heat of vaporisation.

The Mx1 Querétaro facility, owned by U.S.-based Equinix Inc., uses Novec 1230 gas in its fire suppression system, which contains PFAS. The U.S.-based 3M, its manufacturer, has announced the discontinuation of Novec to comply with international regulations to eliminate the use of forever chemicals.

The data centre of the binational NGX Networks in Nogales, in the northern state of Sonora, also uses a refrigerant gas containing forever chemicals.

Various scientific studies have found PFAS at the poles and in the oceans. Multiple studies in the United States and Europe link them to cancers of the kidney, pancreas, testicles, uterus and endometrium, as well as to multiple myeloma. They are also considered endocrine disruptors. Their useful life exceeds 20 years. In the PFAS life cycle, the usage stage is the critical one because of its high emissions to the environment.

Hydrofluorocarbons emerged under the Montreal Protocol, which came into force in 1989, to replace gases containing chlorine and bromine that deplete the ozone layer and to meet growing demand for industrial, commercial and residential refrigeration. But these gases are very powerful climate pollutants, which is why they are the target of global reduction, as happened with the halogens covered by the Montreal Protocol.

The risk of chemical contamination clashes with the Mexican government’s promotion of data centres as part of its drive for industrialisation under the National Strategy for Industrialisation and Shared Prosperity, known as Plan México, a mix of energy, technology, pharmaceutical and even food projects.

It also adds to the centres’ high energy and water consumption in places already suffering water stress, such as Mexico City and Querétaro.

The data centre operated by the Mexican company KIO Networks in the central state of Querétaro is located in a populated area, near homes and schools, where air, soil and water pollution can spread. Credit: KIO

Forever chemicals in cooling systems

Recent research by Leonard Siegel, the California-based non-governmental organisation Center for Public Environmental Oversight executive director, shows that the data centre industry uses PFAS as an alternative to reduce the use of water, the liquid most commonly used in cooling systems.

Like Roldán in Querétaro, Siegel questions the lack of information on the forever chemicals consumed in data centres in the United States.

“The companies are not sharing the information. And we are now more concerned about the planned ones than the ones under construction”, he said to IPS, citing their size, the scale of their operations and, consequently, the type and quantity of equipment required.

In both Mexico and the United States, data centre companies do not disclose the volume of refrigerant they replace each year, the chemical releases during the normal operation of the centres, or the losses during the installation and maintenance of equipment.

Nor is it clear whether forever chemicals contaminate the wastewater discharged by data centres.

PFAS are used in data centres mainly as refrigerant gases and in immersion cooling fluids. The most common cooling method consists of using PFAS gases in a compressor system, like a refrigerator, to cool air or water for the computers.

The problem grows when the degradation of PFAS leads to the formation of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), which has appeared in rain, beer, tea and fruit crops, according to a 2024 study by five experts from scientific institutions in Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. TFA alters levels of thyroxine, a thyroid gland hormone that is vital for regulating human metabolism, according to a 2025 study by 11 specialists from Austria.

Racks of servers in the data centre of U.S.-based company Equinix in the state of Querétaro, in central Mexico. Credit: Equinix

Traditional data centres use heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems that include a condenser, whose main function is to convert vapour into liquid or release heat to the external environment. Most air conditioners contain forever chemicals. In the HVAC case, these liquids can be recycled or become part of the liquid waste the facility discharges.

A more advanced setup is the computer room air conditioner (CRAC), which regulates temperature, humidity and airflow using a compressor, an evaporator and a condenser, and is designed for small and medium-sized data centres.

Larger facilities operate computer room air handlers (CRAH), using chilled water from a central chiller plant. These require greater investment in infrastructure but are more efficient, which results in long-term savings, as explained by Exposiciones Industriales de México, organiser of the largest air conditioning trade fair in the country.

Historically, data centre chillers and CRAC and CRAH systems have used the refrigerant gas R-134a, which contains PFAS.

Data centres of companies such as Equinix, KIO and Scala use CRAC or CRAH systems, according to their public reports. The facility of the U.S.-based HostDime, planned to operate in Guadalajara, will have an HVAC system.

The density of a data centre relates to the amount of computing capacity installed in a given area. Data centres currently being built to support the development and operation of artificial intelligence systems can concentrate tens of kilowatts in a single structure.

This gives an idea of the volume of heat to be generated and of the forever chemicals or water needed to cool the servers.

For example, Ascenty-01, Microsoft’s data centre, plans a first phase of four data rooms, out of a total of 10, with a total of 2,992 electronic equipment racks, according to the environmental impact assessment obtained by the Latin American Observatory of Data Centers. Each data room, with a capacity of 2 MW, will have 13 CRAH units, 11 in operation and two on standby.

KIO and Ascenty did not respond to the reporter’s request for comment. The Mexican Association of Data Centres initially replied to the reporter but declined to answer the query on the subject. Nor the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources answered the question about the lack of PFAS regulation in the country.

According to Noemí Quiroz, senior consultant for non-governmental organisation Centro de Estudios e Investigación en Asuntos Públicos (CEIAP), installing data centres without a regulatory framework to identify their positive and negative consequences has been a bad idea.

“There is no regulatory framework for environmental issues or for placement, and there is no standardisation of procedures. The states do not have regulation either. International evidence was not considered. The situation now calls for regulation”, she told IPS.

In an upcoming study, CEIAP assessed all the country’s towns to identify the most suitable ones for building data centres, based on the availability of resources such as water, land, labour and security.

It also analysed the digital policy of the country’s 32 states against 79 standards, seven of them on data centres.

Racks of servers operated by the Mexican company KIO Networks in the central state of Querétaro, which require intensive cooling systems to dissipate the heat generated by the computer equipment. Credit: KIO

Suspensions in the face of risk

In a document submitted to federal authorities, activist Roldán requested a suspension of the operations of all data centres in Querétaro, as well as a moratorium on the approval of new projects, until water, environmental and risk information on substances such as forever chemicals is made public. “What problem are they going to leave us with? We must prevent them before they keep granting more land concessions and electricity”, she warned.

For Siegel, the prospect of facilities with greater computing capacity opens a window to curb further chemical pollution, as he believes that “we are in a situation where we have an opportunity to stop the use of PFAS in cooling before its use begins, but powerful companies are waiting for authorisation for their commercialisation” in the United States.

Specialist Quiroz suggests a national policy that identifies and fills existing regulatory gaps and addresses territorial and energy planning, as well as encouraging the disclosure of information.

“A regulation determined by size (of the facility), with specific criteria and municipal and federal jurisdictions, that establishes comparable indicators for energy, water and resource-use efficiency, through which regulators can learn the characteristics of data centres” she proposed.

While data centres process poisons, answers must emerge from the depths of their powerful systems, as Roldán and Siegel demand: which substances, and in what quantities, they use to cool their computing systems; how much they release into the environment; what they do to prevent these releases; what they do to replace hazardous substances and polluting gases; and whether they will be liable for the environmental damage.

*This investigation was supported by the grant ‘Un Polo a Tierra’ escuela de periodismo para la industrialización verde en México’, sponsored by Periodistas por el Planeta.

People protest against proposed federal voter ID and proof-of-citizenship mandates outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on 18 March 2026. Credit: Bryan Dozier/NurPhoto via AFP

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Nov 3 2026 (IPS)

In the run-up to the US midterms, armed federal agents have been knocking on the doors of voters suspected of being non-citizens. Republican-led states have redrawn electoral districts in their party’s favour, removing power from Black voters. Federal agencies have invaded people’s privacy, combing voter rolls for non-citizens while finding hardly any.

The USA increasingly resembles a competitive authoritarian regime, where elections take place and the opposition can win, but the incumbent abuses state power to stack the odds against rivals. The CIVICUS Monitor, which tracks civic freedoms worldwide, downgraded the USA’s civic space to obstructed last December, after placing it on its Watchlist of countries experiencing rapid decline.

For the first time since 2002, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) will not observe a US federal election. On 23 September, the body announced it had not received an invitation, putting the USA on a par with Belarus and Russia, which failed to allow OSCE observers for their latest national elections. Meanwhile, the Carter Center, which has observed over 100 elections worldwide, mostly in fragile and fledgling democracies, is training and deploying volunteer observers in the USA, having first observed a US election in 2020, when it monitored the presidential recount in the US state of Georgia in the face of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat.

Manufactured majorities

Gerrymandering has a long history in US politics, but 2025 brought the first coordinated national gerrymandering campaign. Trump pressured Republican-led states to redraw their maps mid-decade, and several complied. Democrats hit back where they could, and now nine states are voting under new maps that could hand Republicans up to 15 extra seats compared with six for Democrats. This means Republicans could lose a significant share of the vote without it costing them a corresponding number of seats.

In practice, partisan and racial gerrymandering are hard to separate. In the South, where Black voters overwhelmingly back Democrats, maps drawn to eliminate Democratic seats often do so by breaking up districts with substantial numbers of Black voters. It is illegal to dilute minority votes, but the Supreme Court has made it easier to get away with it. On 29 April, it struck down a Louisiana map drawn to comply with the Voting Rights Act, ruling that voters must now prove lawmakers intended to discriminate. Louisiana promptly eliminated a majority-Black district. The Justice Department has pledged to review similar districts nationwide.

Voters under suspicion

The administration has built its election agenda on the false claim that large numbers of non-citizens vote. The Justice Department demanded complete voter registration lists from 49 states and the District of Columbia and sued the 31 jurisdictions that refused. All 26 judges who had ruled by mid-October threw out the lawsuits. On 9 October, in a case brought by Common Cause, a federal judge struck down the department’s voter roll collection programme.

The hunt has turned up almost nothing. Trump claimed in July that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had found nearly 16,000 non-citizens registered in Nevada. DHS later confirmed only 185, and Nevada officials found they were all citizens. A database DHS overhauled so states could run bulk checks on voter rolls has made numerous mistakes, leaving some Texan citizens unable to vote in the March primary. Across seven states with 35 million voters, it flagged roughly 4,200 people, around 0.01 per cent of the electorate. A federal judge ruled the overhaul unlawful, but the Supreme Court paused the ruling, and over half the states kept using the database.

The administration has also tried to restrict postal voting, ordering the Postal Service to deliver ballots only to voters on lists compiled by DHS, and has sued to stop California counting over 20,000 postal ballots. Courts have blocked both for this election.

Intimidation has extended to voters’ homes. Armed DHS agents have gone door to door to question people suspected of voting while ineligible, including naturalised citizens. The DHS stepped up the operation as early voting began, but on 21 October a federal judge ruled that it likely amounted to voter intimidation and barred agents from questioning people until the polls close, a ban an appeals court has kept in force. However, fear has had an impact. In Minnesota, an organisation serving African immigrant communities reported a single new registration this year, compared with hundreds ahead of previous elections.

The decentralised system that withstood Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 defeat is under strain. Earlier this year, Trump urged Republicans to ‘nationalize’ voting, arguing that states run elections as agents of the federal government. But the US Constitution says otherwise. The administration has cut close to 1,000 staff from the federal agency that helps election officials fend off cyberattacks, despite warnings of potential foreign interference. Meanwhile, threats and harassment have helped push turnover among local election officials to its highest level in at least 25 years.

Civil society on guard

Civil society is resisting and has won most of its court battles, including those that halted the voter data programme, kept postal voting restrictions on hold and stopped door-to-door visits. The Vote Safe initiative is placing trusted community figures at polling places in four states to reassure voters, and Common Cause has trained over 400 volunteer observers in Texas alone.

This work is, however, under attack. Federal agents have raided a voter registration group’s office without explanation, and the Justice Department has indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center. Funders and financial institutions have distanced themselves from targeted groups, in some cases cutting off donations or banking services. Major law firms have largely stepped back from challenging the administration, leaving most litigation to civil society and small firms.

Civil society is keeping up its work despite the pressure, and that work won’t stop when the polls close. Whether Trump will accept results he doesn’t like is an open question. If results are challenged, the records kept by thousands of volunteer observers may prove vital to ensuring voters’ choices are respected.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director of and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org.

This autumn I have found myself watching the evening news from Europe with a growing sense of recognition. Not of the tear gas or the burning barricades, which I deplore, but of the faces. Teenagers holding hand-painted signs. University students sleeping in tents in city squares. Young people who look, more than anything, tired of waiting.

James Alix Michel

And it has not stayed in France. Italian students have occupied schools and marched under the banner “Let’s reclaim our future.” In Spain and Portugal, young people have pitched tents to protest rents they cannot pay. Belgian students are resisting education cuts and higher tuition fees, and Greek students have chanted for free public education “from Greece to France.” In Serbia, nearly two years of student-led protest has helped bring a change of leadership at the ballot box.

This weekend the wave reached Germany, where a movement calling itself “Gen Z regelt” – roughly, “Gen Z’s got this” – called rallies in more than thirty cities for better schools, affordable lives, climate protection and against a return of compulsory military service.

I can see it spreading. And I think we should all pay attention.

It would be easy to dismiss this as youthful anger, or to reduce it to the images of looting that have accompanied some marches. That would be a mistake. Listen to what the young people are actually saying. A 21-year-old in Rome speaks of single rooms in student housing costing 1,200 euros a month. In Lisbon, students are marching against plans to unfreeze tuition fees that have been capped since 2020. Across the continent, the demands overlap: crumbling schools, unaffordable housing, insecure jobs, the rising cost of fuel and food, a climate crisis they did not cause, and a deep feeling that nobody in power is listening.

Add to this a new anxiety that my generation never faced: artificial intelligence quietly eating away at the entry-level jobs that once gave young graduates their first step on the ladder. It is no wonder that many feel the future has been mortgaged before they have had a chance to live it.

This is a generation that was told to study hard, and it did. It was told education was the path to security. Now it finds the classrooms falling apart, the degrees expensive, the rents impossible, and the promised security nowhere in sight.

What strikes me most is that Europe is not alone. Over the past two years we have seen young people rise in Kenya, in Nepal, in Madagascar – our close neighbour in the Indian Ocean – and elsewhere. The tools are the same – TikTok, encrypted chats, leaderless networks that mobilise in hours – and so is the question: what kind of future are we being offered, and who decided it on our behalf?

In public life I learned that protest is rarely the first choice. It is usually the last, after letters go unanswered and promises are forgotten. When young people take to the streets in such numbers, the ordinary channels of listening have broken down.

In France, President Macron has announced education reforms – a first step, though the young will judge it by results. But reacting to each wave with concessions is not enough. Three things seem to me essential.

First, invest in education as infrastructure, not as an expense to be trimmed in hard times. Cutting school and university budgets simply transfers the debt to the next generation in another form.

Second, treat housing and the cost of living as questions of fairness between generations. When young adults cannot afford a home or a family, a society is eroding its own foundations.

Third, bring young people into the room as genuine partners, not as a photo opportunity. Serious consultation would do more to prevent the next wave of unrest than any number of riot police.

And to the young protesters themselves, I would say this, with respect and admiration: your cause is strongest when it is peaceful. The broken shop windows give your opponents the excuse they need to ignore you. The quiet determination of a tent camp, or a school occupation, or a peaceful march of thousands, is far harder to dismiss.

Watching from the Indian Ocean, I am grateful that Seychelles has so far been spared such unrest. That is no accident. Since the late 1970s we have steadily implemented progressive programmes of social justice: free health care for all, free education up to university (in 2009 I had the privilege of establishing the University of Seychelles), affordable housing, social security and pensions, sustained by progressive economic reforms. We feel the world’s shocks too, from fuel prices to the cost of living. But these choices have given our young people a real stake in their country, and so far no reason to take to the streets. That is not a cause for complacency, but for vigilance.

Every generation inherits a world shaped by the one before. What is different now is the speed at which this generation can organise, and the clarity with which it can see that the deal it has been offered is not a fair one.

Europe’s Gen Z is not asking for the impossible. It is asking for decent schools, affordable homes, a liveable planet and a voice. These are not radical demands. They are the basic promises any society makes to its children.

The question is whether those in power will treat this autumn as a security problem to be managed, or as a message to be answered. I hope, for Europe’s sake and for ours, they choose the second.

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

IPS UN Bureau

Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 3 2026 (IPS)

In a bygone era, gender parity was never heard of at the United Nations—UN female staffers were mostly hired as secretaries and stenographers in a male-dominated Secretariat.

Perhaps it was best illustrated in a wildly-circulated story, doing the rounds in the 1970s and 80s, about a female applicant, with strong academic credentials from a prestigious Ivy League university, being interviewed for a job in the UN Secretariat,

The high-ranking male staffer who was interviewing the candidate looked at her credentials and asked her: “But can you type?”

Perhaps one of the longstanding complaints has been the widespread gender bias and gender disparity, particularly in appointments of female staffers to some of the high-ranking jobs in the UN hierarchy– including Directors (D1-D-2), Assistant Secretaries General (ASGs) and Under-Secretaries General (USGs), ranked as the third high-level job, just behind the Secretary-General and the Deputy Secretary General (DSG).

But according to a recent UN Gender Parity Dashboard (below) there is now gender parity, with over 45 t0 56 percent of the jobs held by women, including P1-P5s, Director 1-2s, ASGs and USGs, UN system-wide and in UN entities

Link to the Internal dashboard

https://www.un.org/gender/en/content/un-secretariat-gender-parity-dashboard

In 2025, the proportion of women in the Professional and higher ranks reached 50.4 per cent— described as “an historic milestone”.

The representation of women in the Professional and higher categories in the United Nations system increased from 47 per cent to 48.8 per cent from 2021-2023.

Regarding gender, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asserted last week that the United Nations “has achieved parity across all senior leadership, and all headquarters and professional staff. We did this not by lowering standards, but increasing opportunities”, he said.

Going forward, the Secretary-General said that gender gains and expertise must be protected, and anti-racism must remain a priority and decisions on recruitment, promotion, assignments and retention, those decisions must be transparent, consistent and bias-free

As part of the commitment to transparency and accountability, the interactive Gender Parity Dashboard shows the latest gender balance data for Phase I of the Strategy. The dashboard focuses on the target population of international staff in the UN Secretariat (only), as defined in the Strategy.

Dr. Purnima Mane, a former Deputy Executive Director (Programme) and UN Assistant-Secretary-General (ASG) at the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), told Inter Press Service (IPS), recognizing that gender bias, disparity and discrimination are a reality in most countries– despite years of advocacy and programs– it is not surprising that the UN and its specialized agencies have initiated several key agreements and commitments to work towards gender equality and fight against gender bias and discrimination.

“Data from the UN Gender Parity Dashboard for UN International staff show an interesting picture. The numbers suggest that overall, women represent almost 46% of the staff and are well represented at the senior levels”.

“The data at the field level however, show that more needs to be done towards parity at least in numbers and ranks and it is perhaps here that the UN needs to focus for improvement.”

Numbers of course only tell part of the story, she said. “Working conditions, work opportunities and work-related benefits for women need to be assessed to dig deeper into gender parity at the next level of analysis.”

“Yes, there is evidence to show that there are many competent women who are assigned to take on leadership roles at all levels of the UN; and yet, a woman has never been elected to the role of SG by the members of the UN and frankly not even considered seriously till recently.”

The dashboard might serve as a tool to help Member states acknowledge that the UN practises what it preaches and serve as a reminder of the reality of women’s competency especially when there is soon going to be a vote at the UN for the leadership of the UN, said Dr Mane, who has held senior positions in the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and the Population Council, and most recently, President and CEO of Pathfinder International.

Shihana Mohamed, President of Asia Global Forum (www.AsiaGlobalForum.org) and a US Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project and Equality Now, told IPS the Secretary-General has done an exemplary job in achieving gender parity in senior-level positions.

This is particularly evident in the appointment of Under-Secretaries-General (USGs) and Assistant Secretaries-General (ASGs), which falls under his sole authority. He also plays a significant role in selecting Resident Coordinators.

“However, I remain skeptical about how gender parity was achieved at the professional levels in 2026”.

Compared with the UN’s official 2025 statistics on the Composition of the Secretariat, the reported achievement reflects an annual increase of 2% or more in women’s representation at the P-5 and D-1 levels, she pointed out.

“Honestly, after more than 20 years of working on gender analysis in the UN Secretariat and ICSC, I know as a fact that such a significant increase is almost impossible to achieve organically within one year”.

“The increased representation of professional women in the UN Secretariat is mainly attributable to recent budget cuts. Massive layoffs disproportionately affected men, artificially increasing women’s share of the workforce. Recruitment, meanwhile, remained minimal. Staff reductions were even more severe in peace operations, where men have been significantly overrepresented”, she argued.

“Historically, women have been more represented at the P-2 and P-3 levels but tend to remain at these levels for longer, particularly, if they come from the Global South. The same pattern affects most men from the Global South. Thus, recent achievements in gender parity at the P-4 and P-5 levels have not necessarily benefited women in the UN who remain concentrated at the lower professional levels, said Mohamed.

Furthermore, approximately 20 countries are unrepresented and 30 are underrepresented, including countries in the Asia-Pacific region in the UN. This raises the question: Which regions do these women represent?

“One important point is that many of these hiring managers are themselves from the Global South. Yet some appear willing to do whatever it takes to please the Global North and its influential networks. Their aim seems to be to survive and advance within the UN”.

Genuine efforts to achieve gender parity must begin from the stage of recruitment and selection, she noted.

“This is where hiring managers exercise their delegated authority impartially and uphold the values and provisions of the UN Charter to recruit, select and promote women, including women from the Global South. This is the step where anti-racism efforts must also begin. However, that’s not the case within the UN.”

“The Secretary-General alone cannot achieve gender parity or address racism and racial discrimination within the UN. Real action requires a collective effort. All managers with delegated authority in human resources management must set the same tone as the Secretary-General. This is the only way to build a truly inclusive and fair UN.”

Unfortunately, that is not the reality within the UN. I hope the Secretary-General recognizes this truth as he prepares to conclude his term, said Mohamed who is also a founding member and Coordinator of the United Nations Asia Network for Diversity and Inclusion (www.UN-ANDI.org), and is a dedicated human rights activist, and a strong advocate for gender equality and the advancement of women.

Meanwhile, in an address to the UN Staff, Narda Cupidore, President of the UN Staff Union (UNSU), said addressing historically complex and deeply rooted inequality, particularly where ethnic group and gender intersects requires both institutional courage and sustained commitment.

“As we reflect on the trajectory of the Secretariat, it is important to recognize the foundations that have been established.”

In recent years, the Organization has elevated attention to systemic racial inequities, expanded spaces for workplace dialogue, made concerted efforts to advance women’s representation in senior leadership, and introduced new accountability frameworks through the Strategic Action Plan on Addressing Racism and the System-Wide Strategy on Gender Parity.

“Speaking on behalf of staff, we welcome these foundational steps”, she said.

Staff across every duty station want institutional leadership to succeed, because management’s success in eradicating discrimination strengthens the integrity and effectiveness of the entire United Nations.

At the same time, we must be candid about the road ahead: much work remains to be done. Discrimination based on color of one’s skin and gender inequality are not isolated incidents, they are systemic challenges embedded in our organizational structure that cannot be fully addressed through short-term measures, awareness campaigns, or standalone events.

Establishing policy frameworks, hosting listening sessions, and mandating e-learning modules create necessary awareness, but awareness is only the starting line. Across the Secretariat, a noticeable gap persists between administrative assessments of progress and the day-to-day lived reality of personnel on the ground.

When elected staff representatives and grassroots justice networks are engaged primarily at the conclusion of policy discussions rather than included as co-architects from the outset, our institutional response remains incomplete.

Building on the foundations already established requires moving from short-term initiatives to durable policy reforms across four operational areas.

First, efforts to advance women’s leadership and representation must extend across the entire grade pyramid. While achieving gender parity at the senior-most levels is a vital milestone, true intersectional equity requires looking beneath the executive ranks. Across the Secretariat, General Service staff and National Officers, who are predominantly women and colleagues from the Global South, perform indispensable operational and substantive work yet remain constrained by the restrictive G-to-P examination barrier.

Lasting institutional change means dismantling artificial career ceilings, introducing anonymized competency assessments, and establishing merit-based pathways into the Professional category.

Second, strengthening accountability measures must translate into verifiable outcomes.

Embedding workplace dignity clauses into Senior Manager Compacts is an important foundation, but compacts are only as strong as their enforcement. Sustainable reform requires integrating mandatory, anonymous 360-degree upward feedback into leadership evaluations and attaching clear administrative consequences when managers foster or tolerate discriminatory environments.

Third, expanded opportunities for dialogue must be backed by safe, accessible justice mechanisms. Colleagues on fixed-term and temporary appointments still hesitate to report subtle racial or gender bias due to high evidentiary thresholds in formal oversight investigations and the fear of quiet contract non-renewal.

Establishing specialized intake capacity for systemic discrimination, rebalancing the burden of proof in retaliation reviews, and guaranteeing interim contractual stability during active grievances will give personnel the security required to speak up.

Fourth, effective policy reform requires precise, transparent data. Relying on broad regional and nationality groupings as proxies for race obscures where women of color and marginalized staff encounter career bottlenecks. Introducing voluntary, disaggregated demographic tracking across grades and contract modalities will allow the Organization to measure real impact rather than procedural inputs.

The foundations have been laid, and the language of equity and inclusion is now firmly part of our institutional discourse. The test of our courage and commitment is whether we now translate those foundations into permanent, enforceable guarantees.

Lasting institutional change cannot be achieved through top-down programming alone; it is forged through effective engagement and collective partnership at the Staff-Management Committee, where human resources policies, administrative issuances, and conditions of service are negotiated together.

A legacy cannot be measured by short-term programmes or the eloquence of our commitments, but by whether every staff member, across every grade, contract type, race, and gender, experiences equitable opportunity, protection, and dignity at work.

Today, I can confidently confirm that the Staff representatives, Unions and Staff Federations stand ready to work together with leadership as equal partners to turn the vision of discrimination free United Nations into reality.

IPS UN Bureau Report

By Saber Azam
GENEVA, Nov 2 2026 (IPS)

Émile Zola, the well-known French journalist, novelist, playwright, and key figure in theatrical naturalism, who played a significant role in France’s “political liberalization,” inspired me to speak out.

Saber Azam

I do not claim the knowledge, charisma, distinction, or public recognition of the renowned writer. Yet I use my pen and raise my voice to express my indignation at injustice and prejudice against humanity and to decry those who have turned the world into an explosive time bomb. The world’s tragic state must sicken all who care about humankind’s destiny. International law and order are frequently violated, and bloody, unlawful wars are waged. When countless innocent children, women, and men are regularly slaughtered; when space is at risk of militarization; when treachery becomes the “art of the deal” in every field; when rights, virtue, and decency are systematically violated; when bigotry is practiced everywhere; when conflicts become a source of enormous wealth for a few; when notorious criminals are protected; and when family and other human bonds are destroyed, every active conscience must awaken and act to stop the madness. Our world faces not only threats of insecurity, social and financial collapse, religious confrontation and wars, and climate disasters, but also serious moral decay and ruin. These crises worsen daily.

I do not intend to write literary pieces or politically acceptable articles, but rather to make my points known in plain language despite the risks. Therefore, I raise my voice and declare:

I Accuse the World Leaders

After World War II, the United Nations (UN) was established to “maintain international peace and security … take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace … develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples … achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian nature, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.” Thus, this body was created with a “world-loving” spirit.

To this end, the Security Council, a powerful 15-member body, was established to act on behalf of all countries to “[maintain] international peace and security.” Its resolutions are binding. Five “superpowers”—the United States, the Soviet Union/Russian Federation, China, the United Kingdom, and France—were granted not only permanent membership in this esteemed body but also the right to veto proposals before the Council. The rest of the world had to settle for the remaining ten seats, allocated for two-year terms according to an uneven geographic distribution. This arrangement glaringly disregards the historical injustices committed against hundreds of millions of indigenous populations across the Americas, Asia, Africa, the Oceanic Islands, and Australia, as well as the principle of majority rule.

At the same time, “with a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations,” the 54-member Economic and Social Council was established under Article 60 of the UN Charter to strengthen cooperation among nations in social and economic development and in universal respect for human rights and dignity. Each member state serves on this body for three years.

On the legal front, the 15-member International Court of Justice was also established to peacefully resolve disputes among states. Each judge serves a nine-year term. Article 65 of the UN Charter provides that this institution will intervene “at the request of whatever body [Member States] may be authorized by or in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations” to file a legal complaint against another state.

With the above internationally recognized political, social, economic, and judicial structures in place to maintain and strengthen peaceful cooperation, there was hope that they would be used earnestly for their intended purposes; that wars and destruction would end; that future generations would live in peace; that social and economic progress would be equitable; and that all challenges would be resolved in accordance with the UN Charter.

By 17 September 2026, the five permanent members of the Security Council, primarily the former Soviet Union/Russian Federation and the United States, had vetoed at least 248 resolutions to protect their interests and those of their closest allies, ignoring the “world-loving” spirit of cooperation they had previously embraced.

Article 4 of the Charter ties UN membership directly to a state’s “peace-loving” nature and its willingness to accept the obligations set out in the Charter. Articles 5 and 6 authorize the Security Council to recommend preventive or enforcement measures to the General Assembly, including suspending or expelling a member state that consistently violates the Charter’s principles. However, since its establishment in 1945, no rogue member state has been expelled from the UN.

Article 52 of the Charter states that nothing precludes the establishment of regional peace and security entities, provided their aims and activities are consistent with the UN’s. The article therefore implicitly recommends that, on matters of peace and security, disputes between or among states, and social, political, and economic development, all countries use the diverse “world-loving” UN structures. However, repeated Soviet vetoes in the Security Council may have prompted the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in April 1949 and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) in February 1955. The Soviet Union requested NATO membership in 1954 but was denied. These regional military alliances certainly “pushed” the communist giant to establish the rival Warsaw Pact in May 1955, contributing to the Cold War and significantly diminishing the UN’s role in world peace and security.

Meanwhile, the Organization of American States was created in April 1948. The European Coal and Steel Community was established in April 1951, leading to the European Economic Community under the Rome Treaty in March 1957 and the European Union under the Maastricht Treaty in February 1992. These developments prompted other regions to establish their own structures to protect their interests. The Organization of African Unity was created in May 1963 and became the African Union in July 2002 under the Sirte Declaration. Other regional entities included the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (August 1967) and the Organization of Islamic Conference (1972), which became the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (June 2011). Additional military, political, and economic organizations of varying importance were created in other regions, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (April 1996), the Union of South American States (May 2008), and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (December 2011).

The International Court of Justice has been largely ineffective. Superpowers pressure it to support their “preferred belligerent” in interstate conflicts. The International Criminal Court, established in 2002 despite a long history of calls for its creation to punish genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, has been systematically hampered by powerful and wealthy countries from fulfilling its duties properly and consistently.

As a result, UN structures have failed to achieve peace, justice, prosperity, and progress for all, and most other entities have also fallen short of these objectives. The self-centered approach of influential countries, particularly the five permanent members of the Security Council, drives this flagrant disregard for the much-needed “world-loving” spirit of cooperation.

[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 first article in a four-part series. The remaining three will follow.

Satik Badeyan, president of the Center for the Territorial Development and Research NGO, which has been chosen as a partner in the restoration efforts on Lake Sevan, stands in front of a glamping site. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
YEREVAN & GEGHARKUNIK PROVINCE, Armenia, Nov 2 2026 (IPS)

The midday sun shines brightly over Lake Sevan. In the still waters, a flock of cormorants drifts silently, their black feathers glistening in the autumn light.

Above them, another flock of black-and-white birds wheels effortlessly through the crisp late-October air. These are Armenian gulls; a species closely associated with the lake.

“For us, these cormorants and Armenian gulls are a matter of national pride,” says Luba Balyan, an ornithologist from the Scientific Center of Zoology and Hydro Ecology, Armenia, who is stationed at Norashen Reserve, a Ramsar-designated wetland on the lake’s shores.

According to Balyan, the gulls used the lake as an important breeding ground but abandoned their nesting sites for nearly 50 years because of hunting and pollution.

“The temperature has changed, and illegal hunting increased. But we worked very hard to restore the habitat and bring the birds back. They first returned around 2010-2011, and now their population has increased,” she tells a visiting group that includes officials from Armenia’s Ministry of Environment, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which has just approved funding for a major restoration project in Lake Sevan.

The funding – USD 1.4 million – was approved by the GEF at the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP17) in Yerevan under the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF). This initiative is one of three projects approved recently for restoring and protecting biodiversity in Armenia under various funds.

The Lake Sevan project offers a glimpse of how biodiversity finance announced at international negotiations can reach local communities. The funding will be channelled through the Asian Development Bank, Armenian government agencies, UNDP and local NGOs to support activities ranging from habitat restoration and anti-poaching patrols to ecotourism, sustainable agriculture and alternative livelihood programmes designed to reduce pressure on the lake’s biodiversity.

New Boost for an Ongoing Restoration Effort

Spanning over 450 square miles, Lake Sevan stands at an altitude of 1,900 metres above sea level, making it one of Eurasia’s largest freshwater high-altitude lakes and the largest lake in Armenia and the Caucasus region. The lake is broadly divided into two categories: small Sevan and big Sevan.

The new funding announcement comes as Armenia steps up its efforts to restore the Lake Sevan Basin through a series of conservation programmes backed by international donors and development agencies. The lake ecosystem has been under stress from overfishing, illegal fishing, contamination from dumping of garbage and uncontrolled tourism. The project aims to protect wildlife, improve the management of land and water resources, and support the communities whose lives and incomes depend on the basin.

The project covers the regions of Gegharkunik and Vayots Dzor and six communities around the lake: Martuni, Vardenis, Chambarak, Yeghegis, Vayk and Jermuk. By 2028, it is expected to directly benefit nearly 66,000 people and improve the management of grasslands, farmland and forests across the basin. It also seeks to better connect protected areas with surrounding landscapes, helping wildlife and ecosystems adapt to growing environmental pressures.

The Armenian government has already launched a range of conservation measures, including monitoring illegal fishing and hunting through a special environmental enforcement unit known as Eco Patrol. The local staff has been trained and equipped to identify and protect priority areas that are habitats for endemic species such as Sevan trout and Armenian gull.

Many of these activities are already underway through earlier conservation investments in the basin. Officials say the new GBFF funding will help expand them and bring them to additional communities.

“Lake Sevan is special to us. It’s a crown jewel for Armenia, the biggest freshwater reservoir in the region. So, when we had an opportunity, we decided to ask for funds for restoring Lake Sevan. I am very glad that it was approved for the amount,” said Armenian Environment Minister and COP17 President Hambardzum Matevosyan.

At Norashen Reserve, authorities are developing ecotourism programmes and biodiversity-friendly livelihood opportunities for local communities, according to Deputy Environment Minister Aram Meymaryan. He said these efforts, together with stronger patrolling and monitoring, are intended to generate economic benefits for local people while reducing pressure on fragile ecosystems.

Communities Become Partners in Restoration

Satik Badeyan is the president of the Center for the Territorial Development and Research NGO, which has been chosen as a partner in the restoration efforts on Lake Sevan. Under Badeyan’s leadership, the communities here have been carrying out multiple activities to control tourist flow by redirecting tourists to new attractions.

One example is a cluster of glamping tents in Tsovagyugh – a community on the northern edge of the lake. These glamping sites offer visitors a bouquet of experiences – designed by the community members themselves – including cycling and eating food cooked by locals, learning about the lake and its cultural and historical importance to local communities.

“Here, visitors can see us as a community and the value of the lake beyond its beauty or photogenic appeal; they can build a cultural bond with the community by attending different events inside the youth centre that we have built here, enjoying food cooked by local women in a sustainable way, riding a bike and buying handmade souvenirs, all of which benefit the community. These activities reduce the burden of uncontrolled tourism and lead to further restoration of the lake ecosystem.

Creating Alternatives to Illegal Fishing

According to her, a fresh lease of funding would further help the community develop and promote a culture of ecologically responsible living and environmentally sustainable economic activity, especially among their youth. It can also help address illegal fishing in Lake Sevan, which is driven by tourism demand and economic pressure on local communities.

“The illegal fishing here mostly occurs during the breeding season when fishing is banned. But if you tell someone, ‘Don’t catch fish,’ it doesn’t work because fishing has been their main occupation and only source of income for centuries, what are they supposed to do? In other words, you need to offer an alternative if you want to protect nature,” she said. “This is why we are building these glamping sites, creating alternative income opportunities for community members and slowly moving to a more sustainable lifestyle,” she says.

Karina Bruchyan of Chambarak said her family traditionally depended on fishing. Today, she earns income from beekeeping after receiving training and support through the Lake Sevan restoration programme. She now sells honey in local markets and at the eco-tourism centre in Tsovagyugh. For conservationists, such alternative livelihoods are key to reducing pressure on the lake’s fish stocks while creating new economic opportunities for local residents.

The restoration project will also support irrigation infrastructure, livestock watering points and forest nurseries to reduce land degradation and encourage more sustainable farming practices in lakeside communities.

As Armenian gulls circle once again over Lake Sevan and communities diversify their livelihoods beyond fishing, conservationists hope the latest investment will help secure the future of both the lake and the people who depend on it.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Excerpt:

Shirley Botchwey

By Shirley Botchwey
LONDON, Nov 2 2026 (IPS)

Ours is not a new realisation. The Commonwealth is responding to what world leaders have acknowledged for many years: ‘business as usual’ cannot reverse the unsustainable course the world finds itself, from economic to climate crises and the growing lack of trust in governance institutions, both national and multilateral.

Economic uncertainty, job insecurity and rising prices are leaving a generation of young people across the world unable to plan with confidence for their futures, while social protection systems are weakening under the burden of slow growth. AI is outpacing our ability to fully grasp its impacts or regulate it, creating as many threats as opportunities. For many, the promise of new technology brings a more immediate concern: whether they will have the skills, opportunities and security they need to build a decent future.

At the same time, increasingly severe weather is disrupting lives, livelihoods and food security, intensifying competition over scarce resources, fuelling conflict and contributing to growing patterns of migration. These pressures are interconnected. A climate shock can undermine a family’s livelihood; a lack of economic opportunity can drive migration; and weak infrastructure can make communities more vulnerable to both.

While many multilateral institutions are perceived to be paralysed in the face of the growing global fracture, the Commonwealth, because of its history of reaching consensus on the most intractable issues and its common values, has recognised this as its moment of opportunity. Its leaders have signalled support for changing track: asking the difficult questions and rallying around solutions that are bold, innovative and ambitious enough to respond to the expectations of the 2.7 billion people of the Commonwealth.

The Commonwealth is well-positioned for breakthrough. Our 56 countries span every region of the world and include some of its largest economies and populations and some of its smallest and most vulnerable states. We bring together different histories, experiences and perspectives, but also a shared commitment to cooperation. That diversity can be a strength: it allows us to connect countries and partners that might not otherwise sit around the same table.

That is why, at our leaders’ meeting this week on the Caribbean island of Antigua and Barbuda, Commonwealth countries, with their diverse histories, economies, and perspectives, will reinforce our new approach, our new direction.

Together, with Commonwealth businesses, development banks, international financial, trade and climate institutions, private investors and civil society as well as youth and women’s groups, we will create new partnerships and unlock investment. We want to turn the priorities identified by our countries into practical projects and action, focusing on climate, infrastructure, trade and the digital economy. The ambition is not simply to mobilise more money, but to make sure that finance reaches the projects and communities where it can have the greatest impact.

For the first time at a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), investors and development partners will be included in our substantive deliberations. No country can act alone in the face of today’s global challenges. Neither should any sector act alone. We need governments, development institutions and the private sector working together if we are to mobilise the scale of finance, expertise and innovation required.

Our new investment platform, launched last week ahead of CHOGM, is an important first step. It brings together 69 projects worth $34 billion across 20 countries and 10 sectors, with a particular focus on clean energy, transportation and logistics. It marks the start of a dedicated effort to connect Commonwealth countries with the investment and expertise they need to turn ambition into action.

But investment is only one part of the picture. Countries also need the right conditions to grow: access to markets, affordable finance, reliable infrastructure, digital connectivity and a workforce equipped with the skills needed for the jobs of tomorrow. That is why the wider agenda at CHOGM matters too.

CHOGM 2026 will see commitments from leading investors to support Commonwealth countries in areas including youth skills and entrepreneurship, science and innovation, and the transition to net zero.

This year’s meeting will also focus on making it easier for Commonwealth countries to trade with one another, developing a shared approach to sustainable debt and affordable finance for countries most vulnerable to economic and climate shocks, and setting out how we will build on this investment agenda in 2027.

Taken together, these efforts are about putting people at the centre of multilateral cooperation and shaping responses to the realities they face, rather than what the development cooperation agenda offers. It is about moving beyond declarations and towards partnerships that can deliver and ensuring that cooperation between countries results in opportunities for people and businesses.

The task now is to turn these commitments into something people can see and feel: a job created, a business grown, a community made more resilient, a young person given the skills and opportunity to build a future, a future driven by strong demand from a consumer market of 2.7 billion people.

That is what meaningful multilateralism should deliver. And with 2.7 billion people counting on us, there is no shortage of reasons to make it work.

Shirley Botchwey is Secretary-General of the Commonwealth.

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

WFP warehouse workers unloading supplies in Haiti. Credit: WFP

By WFP
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Nov 2 2026 (IPS)

Warnings by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) that Haiti’s fragile food security gains could quickly unravel are becoming a reality. New analysis indicates acute hunger in the country is continuing its upward trajectory and is set to reach record levels. Violence, economic instability, poor agricultural performance and displacement, along with the growing impact of El Niño, are driving this bleak outlook.

According to the latest analysis from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), 6.35 million people are likely to be acutely food insecure from March through June 2027. This is an increase of more than half a million people compared to the same period in 2026. Almost two million people within this group will likely face Emergency (IPC 4) levels of hunger – this means they are likely to experience severe food shortages and may resort to extreme measures to meet basic food needs.

The dire estimate follows WFP’s warning earlier this year that modest improvements, compared to earlier projections, remained fragile and that sustained support was essential to protect any progress against entrenched food insecurity. WFP is urging the international community to step up and help Haiti.

With more than 1.5 million Haitians forced to flee their homes, people living in areas controlled by armed groups as well as those taking shelter in displacement sites are particularly vulnerable. Displaced families are unable to work or grow their own food. Most live in unhygienic and overcrowded conditions. Even with humanitarian food assistance providing some level of safety net, families are struggling to secure a meal every day.

“Our teams are witnessing increasing levels of desperation as violence continues to displace families,” said Lauren Landis, WFP Country Director in Haiti. “Many have been displaced multiple times and are arriving with nothing but the clothes on their backs. This, combined with the conditions they’re forced to live in, creates conditions ripe for hunger and malnutrition to take hold.”

Hunger outside urban centers is also projected to deepen. Food insecurity across several rural areas expected to deteriorate from Crisis (IPC 3) to Emergency (IPC 4) levels from March-June 2027 when compared to the same period in 2026. El Niño is causing concurrent droughts and floods that are already reducing harvests and compromising farmers’ capacities to prepare for the next planting season. At the same time, agricultural and market supply chains are constrained by the presence of armed groups, making it challenging for farmers to deliver their products to local markets.

“This multifaceted crisis reminds us how important it is to not just provide life-saving emergency food assistance, but also to scale up longer-term investments that help communities withstand shocks and protect their livelihoods from events like El Niño,” said Landis.

So far this year, WFP has worked together with the Government to support 2.6 million Haitians with assistance including emergency food and cash transfers, school meals (74 per cent of which are made with food grown by local farmers), social protection programmes, and malnutrition prevention for babies and young children.

WFP also supports vulnerable communities through anticipatory cash transfers, the rehabilitation of water management infrastructure and rural roads, and micro-insurance that protects farmers against crop losses caused by drought or excessive rainfall.

WFP urgently requires USD 78 million to sustain these operations through March.

IPS UN Bureau

A delegate casts his ballot at the Human Rights Council elections held during the 20th plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

By Inés M. Pousadela and Victoria Ubierna
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay / BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Nov 2 2026 (IPS)

On 13 October, Burundi won a second consecutive term on the UN Human Rights Council, the UN’s main human rights body. The CIVICUS Monitor rates civic space in Burundi as closed, the worst category. Its government has spent years silencing civil society, critics and opposition parties, including through extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances and torture.

The Council was created 20 years ago to replace the Commission on Human Rights, which had lost credibility because states with poor rights records used their seats to shield themselves from scrutiny. Clearly, problems persist.

An election without choice

Burundi secured its seat because the vote was an election in name only. Each year, the UN General Assembly elects roughly a third of the Council’s 47 members, with seats allocated among five regional groups. The resolution that created the Council asks states to consider each candidate’s contribution to human rights and expects members to uphold the highest standards. But for the second year running, every regional group put forward exactly as many candidates as seats. All 15 candidates were elected, six for a second term. Burundi received 160 votes, the fewest of any candidate, a sign that some states withheld their support. With no other candidate standing, it made no difference.

This is a longstanding problem. The Council’s first election, in 2006, was the only one in which every regional group offered a choice. Of the 20 held since since, five, including the last two, featured uncompetitive slates in every group, and in most of the rest only one or two groups held a competitive vote. When there are no alternatives, even states with the worst records are guaranteed a seat.

Alongside Burundi, nine of this year’s 15 elected states have civic space rated as obstructed or repressed. In Jordan, Kuwait and Nigeria, people face serious risks when they speak out, organise or protest. Only six of the chosen states met most of the 17 criteria set out in the International Service for Human Rights’ scorecards, which include cooperating with UN experts and paying UN dues on time.

Selective scrutiny

The Council’s 63rd session, which ended on 7 October, showed what it can still do. Despite severe budget cuts, it renewed the mandates of the Special Rapporteurs on Afghanistan, Burundi and Russia, as well as the fact-finding missions on Sudan and Venezuela.

Many states, however, chose not to take sides, putting geopolitical calculations ahead of human rights principles. Three of the four country resolutions put to a vote saw high numbers of abstentions. On Sudan, the resolution stopped short of naming the foreign governments, notably the United Arab Emirates, that the UN’s fact-finding mission has identified as fuelling the war.

Other crises barely registered. In Bahrain, close to 300 people have been arrested for protests or social media posts since the start of the US–Israeli war on Iran, but the country received only a passing mention. Ecuador and India, which jail activists and attack journalists, received no attention, perhaps because both sit on the Council after being elected unopposed in 2025. Once again, the Council took no action on China, one of its members, four years after a UN report found that abuses against Uyghur people in Xinjiang may amount to crimes against humanity. Such silences reflect political choices by the Council’s members, many of which have little interest in strengthening scrutiny that could one day turn on them.

Reform deferred

The Council’s 20th anniversary offered a chance to fix some of these flaws, but states let it pass. In July, a long-awaited review kept the Council as a subsidiary body of the General Assembly, rather than one with the same standing as the Security Council, and the next review is not due before 2035. Meanwhile, Israel, Nicaragua and the USA have said they will not cooperate with the Council, part of the wider crisis of multilateralism documented in CIVICUS’s 2026 State of Civil Society Report.

States’ failure to pay their dues has also pushed the UN into a liquidity crisis, and its response, the UN80 efficiency drive, has brought deep cuts, disproportionately affecting human rights functions. The UN Human Rights Office’s regular budget is 10 per cent smaller than last year’s, and it has shed over 110 posts. Support has been cut for around a quarter of thematic Special Procedures.

Civil society is paying the price too. Restrictions introduced as temporary, including a cut in the number of written statements accredited organisations can submit, remain in place. Meanwhile, people who share information with the UN or speak at the Council risk detention, smear campaigns, surveillance and travel bans, yet only 10 states raised concerns about reprisals. If engaging with the UN becomes too dangerous, the Council will lose the first-hand evidence it needs to respond to abuses.

A world where 73 per cent of people live in countries with repressed or closed civic space needs a Human Rights Council able to respond to grave violations and protect those who speak out. Competitive elections, adequate funding and stronger civil society participation are required to make the Council the body it needs to be.

Victoria Ubierna is Research Programme Officer at CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation. Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

Land may be assessed primarily for its potential commercial or residential value, overlooking the food, livelihoods and environmental services it already provides. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Zhimin Wu
ROME, Oct 30 2026 (IPS)

A field at the edge of a growing city may be worth far more than its market price suggests. It may produce vegetables sold in nearby markets, support local livelihoods and provide green space in an increasingly built-up environment. It can also help cities manage water, adapt to climate shocks and strengthen local food supplies. As municipal authorities decide where new homes and infrastructure should go, understanding what their land already contributes can help them plan for housing and food together.

This question lies at the heart of World Cities Day, which the United Nations will mark on 31 October under the theme “Regenerating the City: Adequate Housing for All.”

This does not mean protecting every agricultural plot from development. Cities urgently need more homes, and housing must remain a priority. The task is to make better-informed decisions about where development should proceed and where maintaining productive agricultural land can offer lasting benefits

According to the United Nations, cities are now home to 45 percent of the world’s population and are projected to account for two-thirds of global population growth between now and 2050.

Accommodating this expansion will require enormous investment in housing, infrastructure and public services. It also presents an opportunity to reconsider how food production and urban development can support one another.

Agriculture is already an integral part of the life and economy of many cities around the world. Within urban areas and along their expanding boundaries, farmers cultivate vegetables, fruits and other crops that supply local markets, generate employment and income, particularly for small-scale producers, and improve access to fresh and nutritious food.

Beyond food production, urban and peri-urban agriculture can also strengthen climate resilience, contribute to the restoration of urban ecosystems and support the development of greener, healthier and more sustainable cities.

The proximity of farms to consumers can be especially valuable for perishable produce. Proximity to markets can reduce transport distances and, when supported by adequate handling and storage, help limit losses of perishable produce. Urban and peri-urban agriculture can also diversify food supply chains, giving cities additional sources of food when longer distribution networks face disruptions.³

Yet the contribution of these farms is not always adequately recognized in urban development decisions. Land may be assessed primarily for its potential commercial or residential value, overlooking the food, livelihoods and environmental services it already provides.

As cities expand, these wider benefits deserve greater consideration. Agricultural land can help absorb rainfall, support biodiversity and contribute to urban green infrastructure. With appropriate safeguards, farming can also make use of suitably treated wastewater and safely processed organic resources. Once agricultural land is converted to other uses, such benefits can be difficult to recover.

This does not mean protecting every agricultural plot from development. Cities urgently need more homes, and housing must remain a priority. The task is to make better-informed decisions about where development should proceed and where maintaining productive agricultural land can offer lasting benefits.

Rosario, Argentina, illustrates how municipal policy can bring these objectives together. Following the country’s economic crisis in 2001, the city developed an urban agriculture programme that transformed vacant and underused land into productive spaces. It created opportunities for low-income households, supported fresh-food production and brought agriculture into municipal development planning.

Municipal authorities established arrangements to connect producers with available land, including public and private plots. Rosario subsequently incorporated agriculture into municipal planning and, in 2016, introduced a Green Belt Project to support agroecological production around the city.

Its experience demonstrates how local governments can integrate food production into wider efforts to improve urban livelihoods and the environment.

The lesson extends beyond Rosario. Urban agriculture cannot replace rural farming, which remains indispensable for feeding cities. Its particular contribution lies in complementing rural production, especially through fresh produce, diversified supply chains and stronger connections between urban markets and surrounding agricultural areas.

Realizing these benefits requires sound management. Producers need access to suitable land and safe water, alongside effective food-safety safeguards. Water-efficient irrigation, protected cultivation, improved logistics and the recovery of nutrients from organic waste can help cities use scarce resources more effectively. The most useful innovations are those that local farmers can afford, operate and sustain.

This broader approach is reflected in the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ Green Cities Initiative, launched in 2020 with the ambition of improving health and well-being in 1,000 cities by 2030.

The Initiative connects urban and peri-urban agriculture with forestry, green infrastructure and sustainable natural-resource management. Through the Green Cities Network, municipalities can exchange experience, build partnerships and identify practical solutions suited to their circumstances.

World Cities Day offers an occasion for municipal authorities to act. Two measures would make a practical difference.

First, cities can integrate food and agriculture into urban and territorial planning. Mapping agricultural land, identifying its producers and understanding its connections to markets and surrounding rural areas can help governments make more informed decisions about housing, infrastructure and land use.

Second, municipalities can create conditions that encourage sustainable agricultural investment through appropriate zoning, secure access to land, improved market infrastructure and technical support. Rosario demonstrates how municipal policies can help make agriculture a lasting part of urban development.

The cities of tomorrow will need more homes, better infrastructure and thriving economies. They also stand to gain from the agriculture that sustains their populations. Recognizing its full value can help cities make better decisions about what to build, what to preserve and how to grow.

Zhimin Wu is Assistant Director-General and Director of the Forestry Division at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

The legendary lesbian South African runner Caster Semenya successfully contested regulations aimed at policing women’s bodies by World Athletics, ultimately winning her case at the European Court of Human Rights in 2025. Credit: Shutterstock

By External Source
DAKAR, Oct 30 2026 (IPS)

Senegal is welcoming athletes and visitors from across the globe as part of the 4th Summer Youth Olympic Games, the first-ever Olympics in Africa. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) African athletes, including from Senegal, have repeatedly participated in and won competitions–while advocating their rights to compete and speaking out against discrimination.

In 2024, Cindy Ngamba, an openly lesbian boxer born in Cameroon, made history at the Paris 2024 Olympics by winning the first medal for the Refugee Olympic Team.

The legendary lesbian South African runner Caster Semenya successfully contested regulations aimed at policing women’s bodies by World Athletics, ultimately winning her case at the European Court of Human Rights in 2025. Along the way, she won a total of six medals across the Olympics and World Athletics Championships and debunked arbitrary definitions of femininity and racial stereotypes faced by African athletes.

In 2020, Phuti Lekoloane founded the African Pride Games, creating a safe platform for competition regardless of one’s identity and demonstrating that sport “can drive equality, inclusion, and unity.” After coming out publicly in July 2015, he was one of Africa’s first openly gay male footballers.

The climate of hatred and persecution created by the new law puts LGBT people, including athletes, staff, and fans at the Dakar Youth Olympics, at risk of human rights abuses

Senegal’s hosting of the Youth Olympics, however, shows the need to keep fighting for the rights of LGBT people in Africa.

In March 2026, Senegal’s parliament amended its penal code, doubling to 10 years the maximum prison term for consensual same-sex conduct and criminalizing “promotion” of, or support to, LGBT people and organizations. Between February and July, hundreds of people were arrested in connection with the amendment of the penal code, according to the African Forum for the Defense of Human Rights (Rencontre Africaine pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme, or RADDHO. Senegalese government officials have frequently used incendiary rhetoric against LGBT people.

The climate of hatred and persecution created by the new law puts LGBT people, including athletes, staff, and fans at the Dakar Youth Olympics, at risk of human rights abuses.

Senegal’s then Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko said in April 2026 that, “any athlete coming solely to practice their sport is welcome and can freely pursue their activity. However, if someone comes for reasons other than sport, the [anti-LGBT] law of the country will apply to them, as it applies to everyone.”

The Senegalese government’s hostility to LGBT rights runs contrary to the Olympic Charter, which prohibits discrimination of any kind, including based on sexual orientation. Olympic hosts are required by their contract with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to prevent, investigate, and remedy human rights abuses related to the Games, including by engaging with affected groups.

Senegalese authorities, through the Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee, have rolled out measures to promote human rights protections, which they described as a key indicator for the success of the competition. But these protections have so far excluded the rights of LGBT people.

Several athletes have already pushed back against Senegal’s draconian law. Jérémy Clamy-Edroux, an openly gay, former professional rugby player, and Brahim Naït-Balk, an openly gay football coach, were among 29 African leaders who signed a May 2026 letter calling for the Senegalese government to open renewed dialogue on the law.

In their letter, they raised concerns about abuses faced by LGBT people and asserted that Pan-Africanism, previously embraced by Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye himself, should advance liberation for all Africans, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The Dakar Youth Olympics ends November 13. Before then, Senegal’s government should repeal its anti-LGBT laws and free anyone still detained under the prior amendments. Senegal should use the Youth Olympics to protect LGBT people and fully embrace Olympic values.

Vincent Sima Olé is a senior program and sport and human rights coordinator and Larissa Kojoué is an LGBT rights researcher, both at Human Rights Watch.

Diego Mesa, GEF CEO and chairperson, addresses media on the status of finance mobilisation at COP17. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
YEREVAN, Armenia, Oct 30 2026 (IPS)

The second week of COP17 was dominated by discussions on biodiversity finance, with new pledges announced and donor outreach intensifying. Yet as the summit approached its close, the financing gap for implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) remains largely unchanged.

Prior to COP17, the first global review of progress toward the KMGBF, often called the global biodiversity review, painted an alarming picture: the commitment to mobilise USD 200 billion annually for biodiversity was still far from being achieved. The conference therefore opened amid growing pressure on governments over missed targets, corporate responsibility and Indigenous rights.

Against that backdrop, finance has become one of the most closely watched issues in the negotiations.

“We started the replenishment cycle number 9, for 2026 to 2030, and the initial contributions were announced in June in the General Assembly of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) in Uzbekistan’s Samarkand. And those initial contributions came at USD 3.9 billion for the next four years,” said Diego Mesa, the recently appointed CEO and Chairperson of the Global Environment Facility, at a press conference.

New and Emerging Donors, Including Cities

Since the adoption of the KMGBF, a notable financing trend has emerged: cities and provinces have begun contributing directly to biodiversity finance mechanisms.

The trend started two years ago when Quebec, the Canadian province that hosted COP15 in 2022, independently donated USD 1.4 million to the GBFF.

At COP17, the trend continued. On Oct 26 – observed as Finance Day, the City of Berlin pledged EUR 50,000 (USD 56,000) to the GBFF, while Quebec announced a second contribution of CAD 1.5 million.

Collectively, national and sub-national governments pledged more than USD 60 million to the GBFF. According to GEF sources, this included contributions from Germany (EUR 50 million), Iceland (ISK 160 million) and Monaco (EUR 1.5 million).

While the expanding donor base is an encouraging sign, the world still needs an estimated USD 200 billion annually by 2030 to halt and reverse biodiversity loss under Target 19. The current pace of finance mobilisation, therefore, remains far slower than what is required.

Mesa acknowledged these concerns about the biodiversity finance gap but argued that GEF funding has a catalytic effect, attracting additional public and private investment. He noted that each dollar committed through the facility typically mobilises several more dollars from other sources, and many donor countries also provide biodiversity finance through bilateral programs outside the GEF system.

“We obviously, you know, are concerned. We’ve read the (global) review report. But what we also need to highlight is that, in addition to the funds that come through the GEF, we have to take into account what I mentioned about being able to mobilise additional funds, whether it’s, you know, a multiplier of 8 or 8.2, on average, if we take GEF 8 as a baseline or blended finance, which is about 18.5,” he said.

Astrid Schomaker, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, stressed that progress remains insufficient despite some gains.

“We all know that a lot of commitments were made four years ago in Montreal (including) mobilising at least USD 200 billion a year for biodiversity from 2030, from all sources. Reduce harmful incentives by at least USD 500 billion a year and align public and private financial flows with a framework. We have seen biodiversity finance increase quite substantially, but also from very, very low levels. Some figures suggest that we would have achieved USD 19 billion in 2024. That would be close to the 2025 milestone of 20 billion. But we also know that aid budgets are a lot under pressure, so that progress is not yet secure, to say the least,” Schomaker said in an address to the delegates on the Finance Day.

“From the side of the Secretariat, we would point to three questions or priorities that we hope you can discuss at this COP and move forward on. First, bring national biodiversity strategies and action plans into national budgets. Second, reform harmful incentives. And third, make public and development finance go further,” Schomaker said.

New Coalition Targets Harmful Subsidies

While much of the discussion centred on mobilising new biodiversity finance, negotiators also stressed the need to curb environmentally harmful spending. In that context, momentum grew around efforts to reform harmful subsidies with the launch of a new coalition of countries committed to Target 18.

Known as the “Friends of Target 18”, the coalition focuses on the KMGBF target to reduce harmful incentives by at least USD 500 billion per year while scaling up positive incentives for biodiversity.

Led by Colombia and Finland, and supported by the CBD, the coalition also has backing from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Development Programme’s Biodiversity Finance Initiative (UNDP BIOFIN).

“Our work here in Yerevan can influence how natural resources are used, how goods are produced and consumed, and where public and private financial resources are directed,” said Hambardzum Matevosyan, Minister of Environment of the Republic of Armenia and COP17 President.

So far, only five countries have joined the initiative. However, Marina Von Weissenberg, Senior Ministerial Adviser of Finland and co-chair of the Friends of Target 18, expressed confidence that more countries would follow.

“We don’t need to spend more to close the biodiversity funding gap, we need to spend better. Governments have a real opportunity here to reshape public spending with future generations in mind, but they can’t do it alone. International coordination is key to giving governments the confidence to lead change,” she said.

Meanwhile, GEF continues to focus not only on raising new money but also on broadening the donor base.

“This is exactly what we were doing with this pledging session, with the USD 5 million going to the GEF Trust Fund, and with the 60 million going into the GBFF. But also expanding the donor base. And that’s why we were very pleased to announce that we have a total of nine new contributors to the GEF family of funds,” Mesa said to IPS.

GEF Keeps Pledging Window Open

In an effort to attract additional support, GEF has made a significant change to its replenishment process.

Traditionally, pledging windows close when a replenishment cycle ends. Under that system, pledges for the ninth replenishment cycle would have closed earlier in June, when GEF held its Assembly in Samarkand.

This year, however, the window remains open, allowing countries to make contributions throughout the year.

“This is the first time that we kept the window open for pledging. And this is to respond to requests to be more flexible from the donor side. So, we will have, hopefully, one additional pledging session in the UNFCCC COP (COP31) next month,” Mesa told IPS.

“But we also expect additional contributions to take place in the next calendar year. So, the window will remain open,” he added.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Excerpt:

Lana Nusseibeh from United Arab Emirates, candidate for the position of the next Secretary-General, briefs reporters after the informal dialogue held with the candidates for the position of the next Secretary-General. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 30 2026 (IPS)

As the race for the next UN Secretary-General moves forward, the campaign of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Assistant Minister for Political Affairs, Lana Nusseibeh, has faced significant pushback over the country’s involvement in the ongoing Sudanese Civil War.

Over the past three years, the conflict in Sudan has deteriorated into one of the world’s most dire humanitarian crises, marked by mass civilian displacement and casualties, rampant human rights abuses, and widespread hunger.

This month marks one year since the sharp escalation in hostilities in El Fasher following the siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), during which civilians were subjected to severe human rights violations and persistent obstructions to humanitarian aid, and entire communities were displaced.

Extensive data from the UN, human rights organizations, and U.S. intelligence show that the UAE has been a major supplier of weapons, vehicles, and logistical support to the RSF. In July, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN MENA) urged the UN General Assembly and member states to impose an immediate arms embargo on the UAE, citing grave acts of genocide targeting non-Arab communities in Darfur.

On October 21, the UAE announced that Nusseibeh would enter the race to become the next UN Secretary-General, seeking to succeed incumbent Secretary-General António Guterres following the completion of his second term on December 31. Nusseibeh has previously dismissed claims of Emirati involvement in RSF activities as “baseless,” describing them as disinformation to “deflect responsibility and undermine international efforts to address the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.”

On October 27, a press briefing brought together international policy experts, human rights advocates, and Sudanese survivors to discuss Nusseibeh’s campaign and its potential implications for the UN’s credibility and ability to protect civilians.

Speaking at the event, Ibrahim Alduma, a native of El Fasher and Chief Programs Officer at Sudan Action Hub, shared a personal account of the civilian toll the country experienced following last year’s escalation. Alduma recounted how his family was trapped in El Fasher when hostiltiies erupted, faced with persistent telecommunications disruptions, to the point where he didn’t know if they were still alive. He also shared that his childhood friend was killed during the escalation, only to find out two days after the fact.

Alduma highlighted the U.S. government’s determination in February 2025 that the RSF had committed genocide and the following sanctions that were imposed on seven comapnies affiliated with the RSF, all of which were either based in or directly linked to the UAE.

“(Nusseibeh) is the one who was lobbying to remove UAE from the resolution of the European Parliament, and now she is running for United Nations Secretary General. So, mainly when we talk about policy, I know that the world has known everything about what happened in El Fasher, but the question is not if they’re informed or not,” Alduma said.

Kenneth Roth, former Executive Director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) and a speaker at the briefing, noted that while member states face growing pressure to elect a female Secretary-General, Nusseibeh’s late entry reflects a broader difficulty within the UN to reach a consensus. Roth described Nusseibeh’s candidacy as both “inappropriate” and “unsuitable.”

“At this stage, I think it’s really beyond dispute that the UAE was sending arms and mercenaries to the RSF. I think it’s fair to say the RSF would not have been able to be nearly as successful militarily as it was and has been without that support from the UAE,” said Roth. “After having basically put El Fasher under siege for some 500 days a year ago, it (the RSF) went in and just started slaughtering people. Another genocide, and the reason I think Lana Nusseibeh is an utterly inappropriate candidate for UN Secretary-General is that she denies this reality.”

Roth further noted that Nusseibeh’s repeated denial of the UAE’s involvement in RSF military activity is not based on factual findings, declaring that she will “destroy her credibility.” He compared her to former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, conversely describing Annan’s approach as firmly rooted in human rights and advocacy.

“We cannot afford to have the UN led by somebody who is a genocide denier, and indeed somebody who heads a government that has been aiding and abetting genocide, that is basically criminally complicit in that genocide, and she’s a lead person in covering that up,” said Roth.

Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, emphasized the role of Western intelligence in tracking the crisis. He highlighted that U.S. and British intelligence actively tracked and were aware of substantial levels of Emirati involvement, concluding that the UAE provided the RSF with the support needed to execute its human rights violations.

“For those of us who worked in El Fasher, we first warned El Fasher to the U.N. Security Council in a private briefing in July 2023 to see diplomats asking how we make sure this doesn’t happen again. It’s a slap in the face for the dead and for the survivors. Let’s be clear. It’s a second dehumanization of these people because it’s acting like somehow this is a murder mystery. That this is Colombo. This is murder,” said Raymond.

“The intelligence worked. The early warning worked. These people died for one reason, because their lives matter less than the diplomatic, economic, and security relationships between the U.S., the U.K., and the U.A.E. That’s it. If you think there’s somehow a bigger thing here, there isn’t. That’s why they died, because they were just less important.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Credit: UN Women/Samar Abu Elouf

By UN Women
NEW YORK, Oct 30 2026 (IPS)

More than 37,000 civilians were killed in conflict last year. Women and girls accounted for one in four of these deaths – double their proportion in 2021 – according to the 2026 UN Secretary-General’s report on Women, Peace, and Security, released today.

Approximately 750 million women and girls now live within 50 kilometers of an active conflict, 40 million more than in 2024, and more than at any time since 1990.

“More women and girls are trapped in wars than at any point in decades. Yet military spending keeps rising and development assistance keeps falling, even as investing in women’s leadership, conflict prevention, and peacebuilding has never been more urgent”, said UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous.

For women and girls caught in war, the threat goes beyond bombs. Cases of conflict-related sexual violence verified by the United Nations nearly quadrupled between 2022 and 2025. War also drives women deeper into poverty and increases their unpaid care work. Around 170 million women and girls live in both conflict zones and extreme poverty, surviving on less than USD 3 a day. They account for almost 40 per cent of all women and girls living in extreme poverty globally. In conflict-affected countries, women and girls spend five times as many hours on unpaid domestic and care work as men and boys, double the global average.

These impacts are compounded by changing warfare and declining respect for international law. The increasing use of drones and long-range weapons in populated areas, including deliberate attacks on schools, markets, and hospitals – central to women’s daily lives – raises further safety concerns. Emerging AI-enabled military technologies add to these risks, particularly for women and girls already facing violence, displacement, and insecurity.

Even amid these challenges, women are working to protect communities and build peace.

“Every day, women around the world are working to end wars and build peace – protecting survivors, keeping communities together, and stopping violence before it starts. Their work is one of the best investments the world can make in peace”, continued the UN Women Executive Director.

Despite these contributions, the report shows that in 2025, women made up only five per cent of negotiators across 57 peace processes worldwide, down from seven per cent the year before.

Women’s exclusion from peace negotiations is compounded by a lack of investment in their work. Global military expenditure hit a record USD 2.9 trillion in 2025. Meanwhile, 40 per cent of women’s organizations in crisis-affected settings expect to shut down temporarily or permanently within the next year because of severe funding shortfalls. Women’s organizations are the backbone of lasting peace. They mediate local tensions, shelter the displaced, support survivors, and hold communities together. Their survival is essential to sustaining that peace.

UN Women calls for the protection of all women and girls and their rights, their meaningful participation in peace and security, and sustained investment in women-led conflict prevention and peacebuilding. We call for international law to be upheld and for an end to impunity.

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

Dowry is still persisting in society in one form or another. This deeply entrenched social practice continues deepen household poverty and cause violence against women. The question is no longer whether Bangladesh has a law against dowry. It does. The more uncomfortable question is why the law has failed to make dowry socially unacceptable and practically difficult to demand. The Dowry Prohibition Act 2018 makes the demand for dowry a criminal offence. Direct or indirect demands can result in one to five years’ imprisonment, a fine of up to Tk 50,000, or both. Giving, taking or assisting in the giving or taking of dowry is also punishable. The law even makes dowry-related agreements void. Yet, the existence of legislation has not eliminated the practice. Instead, dowry has increasingly adapted itself to modern economic and social realities.

Shahiduzzaman

Research published in Development and Change in 2024 provides a disturbing illustration. In a study of 206 cases involving troubled marriages, 52 per cent involved complaints of continuing dowry demands. In 81 per cent of those cases, the demand was accompanied by violence against wives. The cases crossed economic classes, showing that dowry is not simply a problem of poor families.

The human rights consequences are profound. Dowry transforms marriage from a relationship between two individuals into an economic transaction in which a woman can be treated as a source of wealth. When the expected payment is not made, or when the husband or his family believes it is insufficient, the woman may face humiliation, threats, physical assault, psychological abuse, economic deprivation, abandonment or expulsion from the marital home.

The latest national evidence on violence against women makes the wider context impossible to ignore. The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and UNFPA’s 2024 Violence Against Women Survey found that 76 per cent of ever-married women had experienced at least one form of intimate partner violence in their lifetime under the broader Bangladesh-specific definition. Nearly half, 49 per cent, experienced such violence during the previous 12 months. The survey specifically identifies dowry practices among the factors associated with increased risk of intimate partner violence.

This is not merely a women’s issue. It is a human rights issue involving the rights to life, dignity, equality, security and freedom from violence. The most frightening consequence is death. According to figures cited by the European Union Agency for Asylum from Ain o Salish Kendra monitoring, Bangladesh recorded 77 reported incidents of dowry-related violence against women in 2024. Of these, 36 women died as a result of the violence, and another seven reportedly died by suicide. During January-June 2025, 45 incidents were recorded, with 23 women reportedly dying from the violence.

These figures should not be interpreted as the total number of dowry-related deaths in Bangladesh. They represent documented cases recorded by a human rights monitoring organisation, and many incidents may never reach police, courts or the media. Indeed, the national violence survey found that 62 per cent of survivors never disclosed the violence they experienced.

The causes of dowry-related deaths are also revealing. They can include severe beatings, burns, strangulation, poisoning, forced or coerced suicide, and other forms of physical violence. In some cases, what is presented as suicide may follow prolonged harassment, threats and economic coercion. This is why every suspicious death of a married woman following allegations of dowry demand deserves an impartial investigation rather than being dismissed as a “family matter”.

Dowry also makes poor families poorer. For a low-income household, arranging a daughter’s marriage can mean selling land, livestock or productive assets, taking loans, borrowing from relatives or using savings accumulated over years. The World Bank has documented the strong relationship between poverty and dowry in Bangladesh.

This creates a vicious cycle. Poverty encourages families to see marriage as a financial necessity; dowry drains household resources; debt weakens the family’s economic security; and economic dependence can make women less able to leave abusive marriages. Dowry can also contribute to child marriage. UNICEF research notes that despite the 2018 law, families continue to face social pressure surrounding dowry. Because dowry can increase as girls grow older, some families marry daughters earlier to reduce the expected financial burden.

Bangladesh is not facing this problem alone. India offers an important comparison. Indian law not only prohibits dowry but also has a specific legal category for “dowry death”. Under Section 304B, now carried forward as Section 80 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, a woman’s unnatural death within seven years of marriage can be treated as dowry death when there is evidence of cruelty or harassment linked to dowry demands. The punishment is a minimum of seven years’ imprisonment and can extend to life imprisonment. But India’s experience also demonstrates that stronger legislation alone is not enough. Official Indian data recorded 6,156 dowry-death cases in 2023.

The lesson for Bangladesh is clear: criminalisation must be accompanied by effective enforcement, investigation, prosecution, survivor protection and social transformation. Bangladesh therefore needs to move beyond symbolic prohibition. First, police must treat dowry complaints as serious criminal allegations rather than private family disputes. Second, investigations into suspicious deaths of married women must examine previous dowry demands, financial transactions, messages, threats, medical records and testimony from neighbours and relatives. Third, victims need accessible legal aid, emergency shelter and economic support. A woman who has no income, no safe place to live and responsibility for children may remain with an abusive husband simply because leaving appears economically impossible.

The deeper problem is not the absence of law. It is the gap between law and social reality. A society cannot claim meaningful progress on women’s rights while a woman can be beaten because her family cannot provide money, forced to leave her marital home because a demand remains unpaid, or lose her life because marriage has been turned into a financial transaction.

The writer is the Editor and CEO of News Network

This story was originally published by The Daily Sun

IPS UN Bureau

Indigenous leaders from Brazil, DRC, Indonesia, Gambia, Peru and Thailand are named the Indigenous People’s Ambassadors for Primary Forests at COP17. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
YEREVAN, Armenia, Oct 29 2026 (IPS)

At the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP17, the presence of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) is impossible to miss. Indigenous representatives speak at side events, participate in contact groups, advise negotiators and engage across multiple forums shaping the future of global biodiversity policy.

Yet amid this growing visibility, one message resonates throughout the conference halls: implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) will fall short unless Indigenous peoples are meaningfully involved at every stage, from decision-making and policy design to implementation and monitoring. 

Many Indigenous leaders attending COP17 say that reality remains far from that goal. While governments increasingly acknowledge the role of IPLCs in protecting nature, participation is often limited to consultation rather than genuine partnership, they argue. This is particularly concerning because many biodiversity policies directly affect Indigenous territories, traditional knowledge systems, food sovereignty and cultural practices.

For communities that have stewarded ecosystems for generations, the challenge is no longer visibility. It is influence.

Against this backdrop, COP17 offered a rare moment of celebration. Six Indigenous leaders from Brazil, Peru, Indonesia, Thailand, The Gambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were named Indigenous Peoples Ambassadors for Primary Forests in recognition of their efforts to protect some of the world’s most ecologically important forests.

Leading the Good Fight for Nature

The awardees, Maimuna Jawara, Pirawan Wongnithisathaporn, Puyr dos Santos Tembé, Joseph Itongwa Miukumo, Julio Cusurichi Palacios and Herkulanus Sutomo Manna, share a common mission: protecting, restoring and stewarding forest ecosystems that sustain biodiversity, store vast amounts of carbon and support traditional ways of life.

The recognition came through the inaugural Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Award, a joint initiative of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF). The six winners were selected through an open nomination process that attracted 73 nominations from 27 countries.

Organisers said the award seeks to spotlight individuals whose leadership has helped safeguard primary forests while strengthening the rights and resilience of the communities that depend on them.

“Today we recognise six of these leaders, several of whom the GEF has had the privilege of working alongside in their territories. Their leadership offers important lessons, and we look forward to continuing to learn from it across all our work,” said Diego Mesa, Chief Executive Officer of the Global Environment Facility, during the award ceremony.

The recognition also reflects growing scientific evidence linking Indigenous stewardship with successful conservation outcomes.

“Evidence has shown that securing Indigenous Peoples’ land rights and recognising and respecting traditional knowledge are among the most effective ways to protect forests and biodiversity. Yet Indigenous-led conservation is about more than environmental results; it is about recognising rights, upholding dignity and delivering justice,” said Grethel Aguilar, Director General of IUCN.

Farming, Forests and Cultural Knowledge

For Maimuna Jawara of The Gambia, environmental stewardship begins with everyday life.

Jawara, one of the award recipients from Banjul, is the founder of 1802lab, a research and design laboratory exploring the connections between cultural identity, ecological knowledge and sustainable futures for African fashion. Yet the role she identifies with most deeply is that of a farmer and community agroecology educator.

Growing up in a farming family, Jawara learned to read the seasons, save seeds and care for the soil from an early age. Living close to nature, she came to see environmental stewardship not as a profession but as a way of life.

“As I got older, I realised that agroecology is just remembering how to live in harmony with nature,” Jawara said.

Earlier this year, she was named a Transformative Partnership Platform (TPP) Agroecology Ambassador.

Jawara’s recognition comes at a difficult moment for her country. The Gambia no longer has any primary forests. Studies have attributed their disappearance to fuelwood collection, land clearing for livestock, hunting and advancing desertification.

While the government has enacted laws promoting sustainable natural resource management, implementation remains challenging because of limited financial and human resources. Conservation regulations are also often poorly understood by rural communities.

Yet there are signs of hope. According to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) figures, forest cover in The Gambia has increased in recent years through plantations and community-led restoration efforts.

For Jawara, the award is both an honour and a responsibility.

“I hope to amplify voices from the ground and contribute to a transition that is not only ecological but also socially just, inclusive, and rooted in dignity,” she said.

Protecting Ancestral Forests

Another recipient, Herkulanus Sutomo Manna of West Kalimantan, Indonesia, represents the Dayak Iban Menua Sungai Utik Indigenous community, which has gained international recognition for protecting its ancestral forests.

For Herkulanus, protecting forests is inseparable from protecting Indigenous identity, culture and livelihoods.

The community’s struggle dates back to 1998, when it initiated participatory mapping efforts in response to increasing threats from illegal logging. Those efforts helped document customary lands and strengthened the community’s ability to defend its territory from encroachment.

Over time, the initiative became an important example of how Indigenous communities can use traditional knowledge, customary governance and local leadership to conserve forests while maintaining cultural continuity.

Receiving the award at COP17, Herkulanus emphasised that the recognition belonged not only to him but to the broader Indigenous movement. He urged Indigenous communities around the world to continue protecting and managing their ancestral territories, stressing that safeguarding forests today is essential for the survival and well-being of future generations.

Indigenous Voices Across Continents

Among the award recipients was Puyr dos Santos Tembé of Brazil, a leader from the Tembé People and the Alto Rio Guamá Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon.

Tembé’s work supports ecosystem restoration through native species, community seed collection, agroforestry initiatives and sustainable livelihoods connected to standing forests.

Unlike many Indigenous leaders, she has also developed a strong social media presence and uses digital communication platforms to raise awareness about Indigenous peoples, their cultures and their rights among broader audiences.

Pirawan Wongnithisathaporn is a Karen Indigenous leader who works through the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP), a regional network representing Indigenous communities, including those displaced from their ancestral lands and living in exile.

She serves as a bridge between these communities and regional and global biodiversity and climate negotiations, advocating for Indigenous rights, community forestry, environmental governance and more.

Other recipients included Joseph Itongwa Miukumo of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a leading advocate for Indigenous and community-conserved territories, and Peru’s Julio Cusurichi Palacios, whose work has advanced forest protection and Indigenous participation in national decision-making.

Recognition Amid Continuing Frustrations

While the awards were welcomed as an important recognition of Indigenous leadership, they also highlighted a wider debate unfolding at COP17 over the place of Indigenous peoples within biodiversity governance.

Many Indigenous representatives attending the conference point out that, despite repeated commitments from governments and international institutions, Indigenous communities remain excluded from many key decisions affecting their territories and livelihoods.

That frustration has surfaced repeatedly during discussions around implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

At COP16 in Colombia, parties agreed to establish a permanent body for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities to help ensure their effective inclusion across all aspects of the framework’s implementation. The decision was widely hailed as a breakthrough for Indigenous participation.

Two years later, however, many delegates argue that progress has been slow.

IPLC representatives say they continue to face exclusion from decision-making processes at local, sub-national and national levels. Concerns have also intensified around the implementation of the framework’s flagship 30×30 target, which seeks to conserve 30 percent of the world’s lands and waters by 2030.

Many Indigenous organisations argue that their rights over traditional territories are still not being adequately respected as governments pursue conservation commitments.

The debate raises a broader question: can recognition of individual Indigenous leaders help shift political realities on the ground?

For some participants, initiatives such as the Indigenous Peoples Ambassadors for Primary Forests programme could help bring greater visibility to Indigenous leadership and strengthen advocacy for rights-based conservation. Others caution that recognition alone will not address the structural barriers that continue to limit Indigenous participation in decision-making.

“Announcing the new cohort of Indigenous Peoples Ambassadors for Primary Forests is only the beginning. We will continue to partner with and elevate the ambassadors and their communities,” said Paula Prist, Senior Programme Coordinator at IUCN.

IPS UN Bureau Report