Pronatalism on the Rise to Counter Growing Push for Gender Equality

There’s an insidious new tactic emerging for selling right-wing ideology to wider audiences, evident in last month’s Budapest Demographic Summit for “family-friendly thinkers and decision-makers,” the upcoming pro-birth Natal conference in Austin, Texas, and the recent film “Birthgap.”

UN’s High-Level Appointments Should be on Gender Rotation, not Geographical Rotation

The UN’s high-level appointments have mostly been on the basis of “equitable geographical rotation”—with Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean taking turns.

Debt-Pushing as Financial Inclusion

Ajay Banga was anointed World Bank president for promoting financial inclusion. Thanks to its success and interest rate hikes, more poor people are drowning in debt as consumer prices rise.

Record-Breaking Global Migration

On 14 June, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) issued his flagship annual report, Global Trends: Forced Displacement 2022. It states that by the end of 2022, the number of people displaced by war, persecution, violence and human rights abuse had dramatically increased by 19.1 million — the biggest increase on record — reaching a total of 108.4 million.

Peacekeeper Cecilia Erzuah Promotes Gender Equality by Example

Cecilia Erzuah was torn between two opposite career paths at the end of university. The week she was supposed to begin military training, her professor offered her a position as a lecturer.

Wanted: A New Local Oversight Structure to Achieve SDGS, Climate Action & Biodiversity Preservation

The links between Agenda 2030 and SDGs, including climate action and biodiversity preservation are clear and straightforward. Yet, leveraging them, and bringing them to together in a unified framework, remains extremely challenging.

Don’t Count on PPP Solutions

In recent years, public-private partnerships (PPPs) have spread rapidly. While usually profitable for the private partners, PPPs have generally not served the longer-term public interest.

Alarm Bells are Ringing at Halfway Point of the 2030 Agenda

The world is now half way to 2030 but the ambitious goals agreed in 2015 including the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are under threat, action is urgently needed.

Beyond Words: The Urgent Call for the US to Address Global Inequality Through Climate Action

With its global representation, one would expect the UN General Assembly to touch on many diverse issues. And it does. But talks have repeatedly come back to one unifying call: if we want to save ourselves, our planet, and our future, we must act now.

Poverty & Hunger Eradication Targeted to Miss UN’s 2030 Deadline by Wide Margins

When the UN’s 193 member states reviewed the current status of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger by 2030, the verdict was mostly failures—and with little or no successes. The hunger/poverty nexus was best characterized by Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), who warned last week that under current trends, 575 million people will still be living in extreme poverty in 2030—and as many people suffering from hunger by 2030 as in 2015 (600 million people).

UN Meets on Effective Responses to Loss and Damage Ahead of COP28

African countries are increasingly in the eye of deadly climate-induced disasters. Recent devastating extreme events include intense shattering earthquakes in Morocco, followed shortly by catastrophic floods in Libya this September that left 11,300 people dead, according to Libya’s Red Crescent.

Reality is Governments Not Truly Held Accountable to Implement SDGs

What does transformative and sweeping really mean in the overarching efforts to achieve the Agenda 2030? With the conclusion of the second edition of the SDG Summit, it is time for stocktaking on what was agreed at the United Nations HQ in New York this week. At the core of the Summit were not the several Leaders’ Dialogues that, as important as it can be to have heads of state and government reflecting on the Agenda, are just talking shops without any practical implications.

Dangerous Scramble for Renewable Energy Resources

The growing and changing material requirements for new technologies have triggered natural resource scrambles for strategic minerals, generating dangerous rivalries fought out in the global South.

UN Must Live Up to Its Promises of Gender Equality —and Support Women

In 2015, the UN’s 193 member states adopted 17 goals for the health of the world that together comprise the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be reached worldwide by 2030.

UN, Still Living in the 1940s, Urgently in Need of Reforms

Politically, the United Nations has largely been described as a monumental failure ---with little or no progress in resolving some of the world’s past and ongoing military conflicts and civil wars, including Palestine, Western Sahara, Kashmir, and more recently, Ukraine, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan and Myanmar, among others.

We Must Act to Bridge the Gap Between Words and Deeds

In today's increasingly interconnected world, marked by grave economic, environmental, and security crises that transcend global boundaries, it's abundantly clear that our interdependence is an undeniable reality.

Deepening Democracy in an AI-enabled World

In 2002, the Human Development Report (UNDP) focused on ‘Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented World’. It was an important discourse then [and still is] that evoked lot of insightful cross-regional exchanges of ideas. It reiterates that politics matter for human development because people everywhere want to be free to determine their destinies, express their views and participate in the decisions that shape their lives.

Halfway to 2030: Our 5 Asks at the SDG Summit

At the UN SDG Summit in New York, the Forus global civil society network is calling for decisive action on SDG implementation. Clearly, as we hit the midpoint towards the "finish line" of the Agenda 2030, progress is stagnating.

Youth Rally for Peace Through Climate Justice at the UN

“What do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? Now!” youth chanted in an unusually lively conference at the United Nations Headquarters.

The Vast Potential of the Human Spirit

With hope and courage, we must rise to the challenges before us. We must rise to the challenge of a world set afire by climate change, forced displacement, armed conflicts and human rights abuses. We must rise to the challenge of girls being denied their right to an education in Afghanistan. We must rise to the challenge of a global refugee crisis that is disrupting development gains the world over. We must rise to the challenge of brutal and unconscionable wars in places like Sudan and Ukraine that are putting millions of children at risk every day.